This week on Harmony of Thunder In the Divine Liturgy, when the priest summons the people to Holy Communion, he sings, “With fear of God, and faith, and love, draw ye near.” Does it seem odd to you that the first thing mentioned is fear?  In his sermon “On the Fear of God,” St. Dorotheos of Gaza explores the need of all Christians to fear God. This great desert saint wanted to impart to the monks under his care the supreme importance of understanding what it meant to fear God as a part of the spiritual life.  This week's Harmony of Thunder listens in as he preaches his "On the Fear of God" sermon.  Don't miss it!"

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Harmony of Thunder, Program 24 : St. Dorotheos of Gaza “On the Fear of God”

In the Divine Liturgy, when the priest summons the people to holy communion, he sings, “With fear of God, and faith, and love draw ye near.”  Does it seem odd to you that the first thing mentioned is fear?  I have had people ask me about this a number of times, because it seems that the scriptures call us to overcome fear – we’ll speak about this in a moment – and because it just doesn’t seem right to fear God, who loves us and wants what’s best for us.

In his sermon “On the Fear of God,” St. Dorotheos of Gaza agrees with the words of the liturgy, he explores the need of all Christians to fear God.  This great desert saint wanted to impart to the monks under his care the supreme importance of understanding what it meant to fear God as a part of the spiritual life.  Today we’re going to take a look at what he had to say.

Hi, welcome to Harmony of Thunder, where we explore and enjoy the rich tradition of Orthodox preaching.  I’m your host, Fr. David Smith. Each week, Harmony of Thunder chooses a sermon from scripture or from the works of a saint and we spend our time together looking at the style, the illustrations, and the spiritual message of the preacher.

Lord Jesus Christ, through the prayers of Your Most Pure Mother and of all the saints, bless your Holy Orthodox Church with great preachers and people who want to hear them.  Amen.

If you heard my earlier programs on this preacher, St. Dorotheos of Gaza, you know that I’m really impressed by the way he used scripture.  When he addressed a topic, he often spent some time looking at passages of scripture that seemed to actually contradict the point he was trying to make.  In that way, his listeners then (and now) knew that he was not trying to pull the wool over our eyes, he was not spouting monastic niceties without having struggled with them and made them his own.  Did I just say “monastic niceties?”  Perhaps “monastic platitudes” would be better. Anyway, St. Dorotheos began his sermon with one such passage: “Saint John in one of his epistles says, ‘Perfect love drives out fear’.  What does the holy man signify to us by this?  What sort of love and what sort of fear is he talking about?  The palmist says, ‘Fear the Lord all you who love him’, and we find thousands of similar sayings in Holy Scripture.  If therefore, the saints who so loved him feared him, how can he say, ‘Love casteth out fear’?  St. John wishes to show us that there are two kinds of fear: one preliminary, the other perfect…”

Here’s the answer – there are two kinds of fear.  But the two kinds of fear cannot be called “good” fear and “bad” fear.  Rather, they are like the same attitude exercised in a continuum, one fear coming after the other. Listen to the preacher: “One forms a desire of God through fear of condemnation; this is, as we have said, the starting point.  His starting point is not ‘what is good’ but the fear of torments.  Another forms a desire for God because he loves God himself, loves him and knows what is acceptable to God.  Such a man is goodness itself, knowing what it is to be with God.”

That’s a great quote of the day: “Such a man is goodness itself, knowing what it is to be with God.”

When my children were little, I sometimes said things to them that made them fearful.  I did this because fear is a great motivator, and there are times when you want a child to learn a lesson by listening to you, the parent, and not by experiencing the pain of making a bad mistake.  A little fear is a very good thing.  Then, later on, when they were older, I was able to say things to my children that motivated them not through fear, but through love.  When they were young, I might say, “If you don’t get up right now and get ready for school, you’ll have to sit for two hours in my study when you get home this afternoon.”  That was a great motivator, because they all thought my study was the most un-fun place in the world.  If the child said, ‘Dad I’m bored’, I’d say, ‘then here’s a book to read’ and give him something in ancient Hebrew.  But as the children got older, I could say, “get up and get ready for school because I want you to do well in school and make me proud,” the child would respond to that, and rise up not in fear, but in love.  But could I have simply started with the “make me proud” maneuver when they were little children?  No, not at all.  Fear is the more childish motivator, and love the more mature.

So with the fear of God.  As St. Dorotheos says: “…perfect fear cannot come about if a man has not the preliminary fear.  For Scripture says, ‘The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord’, and again, ‘The beginning and the end is the fear of God’ (incidentally, I had a tough time finding any passage of the Bible that says this, but I’ll go on).  He calls the beginning that preliminary fear” which is followed by the final perfect fear, that of the saints.

But how do we get started?  What way do we begin to embrace the fear of God?  St. Dorotheos urges us to use other tried and true monastic techniques: “The Fathers tell us that a man gains possession of the fear of God by keeping the thought of death before his mind and remembering eternal punishment, by examining himself each evening about how he has passed the day and each morning about how he has passed the night; by never giving rein to his tongue and by keeping in close and continual touch with a man possessed of the fear of God, as his spiritual director.”

The opposite of this, he says, is self-indulgence: “Self indulgence takes many forms.  A man may be self-indulgent in speech, in touch, in sight.  From self-indulgence a man comes to idle speech and worldly talk, to buffoonery and cracking indecent jokes.  There is self-indulgence in touching without necessity, making mocking signs with the hands, pushing for a place, snatching up something for oneself, approaching someone else shamelessly.  All these things come from not having the fear of God in the soul and from these a man comes little by little to perfect contempt.”  By perfect contempt, he refers to a man’s contempt for God.

So there it is, put rather simply.  If you want to cultivate the fear of God, which is the beginning of wisdom, think about your own death.  If you want to destroy the fear of God in you, embrace self-indulgence.

Before we leave this sermon, I want us to look at a very unique and powerful passage in it.  St. Dorotheos does not often use himself as an example of what to do, he often seems too humble for that.  But in this sermon, he speaks about a time in his life when his Abbot told him to care for Abba John, the “John” of Sts. Barsanuphius and John, the authors of the great spiritual book Guidance Toward Spiritual Life.  The other monks were jealous of Dorotheos, and they, well, let’s hear his version: “Believe me, I know one brother walked behind me from the infirmary to the church, abusing me all the way.  But I went on ahead without uttering a single word.  When the abbot learned about it – I don’t know who told him - he wanted to rebuke him.  I fell at his feet saying, ‘Do not do so, for the Lord’s sake.  It was I who failed.  He has done nothing wrong.’  And another brother, whether to provoke me or out of simplicity, the Lord knows which, during the night silence, made water all over by head and soaked my bed.  Similarly some of the other brethren began, during the day, to shake their rush-mats in front of my cell, and I saw such a horde of flies and stinging insects coming into my cell that I could not kill them all.  They were in such great numbers because of the heat.  When I came back to lie down they all settled on me. Sleep came upon me, I was so tired from my labor, but when I woke up I found my body bitten all over.  But I never said anything to any of them, not ‘You are not to do this,’ or ‘Why do you do this?’  I am not conscious, as I said, of having said a bitter or complaining word.  Learn then to bear one another’s burdens, learn to reverence one another.”

Wow, is it possible to have two quotes of the day?  Sure it is, it’s my podcast and I can have two quotes of the day if I want to, avoiding, that is, I hope, self-indulgence.  Let’s hear those words again: “Learn then to bear one another’s burdens, learn to reverence one another.”  These are all the more powerful when we remember that they come from a monk whose fellow monk peed all over his head and his bed.  “Learn then to bear one another’s burdens, learn to reverence one another.”

Lord Jesus Christ, Savior of the world, fill us all with your Holy Spirit that we may obey you motivated only fear and faith and love, we pray, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God, Amen.

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