And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also (Mt. 5:40). This is the spirit of Christ, the victorious spirit, the ruling spirit that David asks for in Psalm 50! Not the spirit of wounded pride, unsparing of its own peace and money so long as it can display its imagined righteousness. The spirit of worldliness is the spirit of arrogance, clothed in laws as in a garment, as David wrote about those who drag the innocent before a judge: Because he … persecuted a man that was poor and a beggar, and one broken in heart… And he put on cursing like a garment (Ps. 108:15, 17).
This oath (curse) was imposed back in the days of the Ten Commandments, when we were instructed not to bear false witness. Yet today the whole world amounts to false witness, and everyone rushes to testify about things they’ve never seen and know nothing about.
While God speaks to us about grace and forgiveness, people speak about laws and punishments. Strength forgives, but weakness punishes.
What is clothing, which can be taken away from us in court? It’s an external, material wealth that can be taken away by force. An undershirt is the soul, because it clings to the body—it’s the unseen, hidden, and intimate side of us. As Christ says, let us give this up to those who try to take our outer clothing from us, that is, let us give them our good disposition and will pray for them. And let us be utterly shaken by this word from our All-Merciful Lord, remembering that He gave up His own garment to those who were killing Him, fulfilling the prophecy spoken by David: They have parted My garments amongst themselves, and for My vesture have they cast lots (Ps. 21:18).
The most savage devil, the initiator of the war in Heaven, the first to be cursed and cast down from Heaven, took for himself a new name: Self-Esteem. Everything is turned upside down in the teaching of this great devil: If Christ teaches us to be meek and humble, then he tells us to be conceited and impudent; Christ tells us to love our neighbor, but he tells us to love ourselves and only ourselves, seeing others as obstacles on the way to whatever our goal is. He doesn’t listen to advice, doesn’t consider the needs of others, boasts even when he loses—in a word, he’s the opposite of the love described by the Apostle Paul: Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Love never faileth (1 Cor. 13:4–8).
Everything you hear from those who teach “self-esteem” is directed against love. We know that love isn’t a fixation on your own person, but just the opposite—it pours outwards, like a spring that multiplies its waters the more it’s dug out and constantly used, whereas a well that goes unused has its springs clogged and dries up. This is why people preoccupied with boosting their own “self-esteem” become unbearable, lose old friends, and are forever caught in a whirlwind of new people whom they need to flatter their ego. “Depression and separation”—that is their name.
We’ve been praying the prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian for many centuries: “O Lord and Master of my life, take from me the spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power, and idle talk. But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to Thy servant. Yea O Lord and King, grant me to see mine own transgressions and not to judge my brother, for blessed art Thou unto the ages of ages. Amen.”
Thus, every time we feel that our self-esteem is starting to grow, let us humble ourselves by recalling our main sins, and every time we think someone else is to blame for our failures, let us recall that we’re in no way better than him and have done worse than him.
***
The world is gripped by a spirit that inspires collective alienation. This whole mass of people we call “civilized” becomes more alienated day by day. At work, they suspect and accuse each other; at church, they put on a show so as not to spoil the good impression they’ve made; at home, they dream of vacations and money they don’t have—and there’s always someone or someplace missing that keeps them from being happy.
Nothing makes a man unhappy like having more needs, and nothing makes him happy like being released from cares. Many who realized this fled into the desert in order to find a true state of freedom, ignoring worldly cares. The devil has organized our modern world against this urge for liberation—multiplying needs, and continuing to multiply them, to the point of absurdity, literally driving people mad.
These absurd needs have driven people to the point where they see each other only insofar as they can serve some selfish purpose—satisfy one of their needs. That’s why inner alienation grows in step with the rise of reckless needs, just as a decrease in selfish needs leads us to seeing others through the eyes of a simple love that draws us closer to them and delights us with their mere presence.
Contentment is a state of freedom and self-giving; and discontent, born from the increase of foolish and unnatural needs is slavery and fatal alienation.
A thing can’t be whole if something’s missing from it, just as a person can’t be happy while gripped by unattainable desires. That’s the philosophical foundation of asceticism—simple enough for the mind to grasp, but hard for the heart to carry out.
***
There’s a fundamental difference between the need to convince someone and the need to convey the truth. Truth, being the fullness of knowledge and unchangeable in its integrity, doesn’t need to convince. Therefore, when Christ was asked by Pilate: What is truth?, He didn’t respond (Jn. 18:38).
That’s not how it goes for people gripped by the need to convince others they’re right—convictions that can be nothing more than simple ideas, not stemming from any personal experience of their own, but just imposing some passing ideology.
Aggression coupled with punishment, which in the case of ideologies imposed by the state, taking the form of fines and deprivations, is a clear sign that what we’re dealing with isn’t truth, but falsehood.
Truth is meek; it doesn’t get indignant or proud, doesn’t punish or rush to reveal itself, since its nature remains unchanged forever whether people accept it or not. Falsehood, on the other hand, is arrogant and menacing, rushes to impose itself, thirsts for power, and is always in motion, sweeping into its whirlwind everyone who has no taste for the good sense of truth—all because it knows its own transience and insignificance before the face of Truth.
Let us pray that the passing of time will carry us further from the days of falsehood, drawing us closer to Truth—that Truth Who is silent when approached with arrogance, but reveals Himself to be humble—whose name is Jesus Christ!
***
People have a habit of talking a lot while saying nothing. This has been the case ever since everything most precious to us became meaningless to others. Every time we open our hearts to show the pearls kept there, those swine that Christ spoke of show up and trample them underfoot (cf. Matt. 7:6), spattering us with their filth and leaving us to suffer long with a torn-open chest, swept through by the icy, piercing wind of grief.
Isn’t such a chest exactly where God wished to sup, sending His Son to knock at the door of our heart? (cf. Rev. 3:20).
What’s the difference between human law and God’s law? The difference is that human law is “subject to improvement”—meaning it can be changed—while God’s law stays the same, because it’s perfect.
With people, law establishes or abolishes truth; with God, His eternal truth establishes the law. Human laws change and pass away, but “the word of God is truth, and His righteousness endures forever” (cf. Ps. 118:60).
That’s why no one who has broken away from the Church can carry out righteousness—no human moral law has the power to hold him in righteousness, since it’s so easily changed at the whim of the spirit of the age.
This is what explains the paradox of someone who opposes killing but allows for abortion, or people who fought for free speech yesterday but defend censorship today.
The popular label “godless” or “heathen,” which once marked out a worthless person, today seems to have become the very criterion by which the rulers of a world that calls itself “civilized” are chosen.
To be continued…
