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Did you enjoy this week's epsisode of Come Receive the Light? Find out more about our featured guest, Fr. Joseph Huneycutt, and read three short selections from his newest book, Defeating Sin.
Opposite Day in Paradise and Beyond
There’s a game that children sometimes play where the rules are reversed; it’s called Opposite Day. That is, participants turn everything around and do the opposite of what is requested or expected. When it comes to the story of our Fall and Redemption, there’s more to Opposite Day than first meets the eye. For, as St Paul writes: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate” (Romans 7:15).[1]
The purpose of this book is to educate and encourage Christians in the machinations of spiritual warfare according to the teachings of the Church Fathers and contemporary theologians within a creative format. A great line from one of my favorite movies, Amadeus, is: “Too many notes!” Though the same might be said of the work at hand -- there are a lot of notes and quotes from Saints, respected theologians, and contemporary teachers -- the book is written for the common reader desiring a better understanding of repentance. As a teaching tool for public use, or for personal preparation alone, the quotes serve to show that this struggle against Passion toward Virtue is as old as the Church (at least!). In such a battle, we should not rely on our own reasoning but on those God-pleasing examples, the Saints and Fathers, who have gone before.
The book is not intended to be an exhaustive treatise on the subject of the Garden of Eden, the Two Trees, or the Fall of Man. Rather, readers will learn about the Passions and the corresponding Virtues using a visual metaphor of the Two Trees – the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the Tree of Life – found in the Book of Genesis.[2] Ultimately, this should help towards understanding repentance and in making a good confession. Fundamentally, a good confession is one in which the penitent has acquired insight into his or her shortcomings and not only confesses with contrite heart, but earnestly desires divine intervention, vowing to reverse his or her course of behavior. This is, obviously, in stark contrast to the perfunctory confession which may or may not lead to a change in one’s life in Christ.
Many people do not know how to make a good confession. Also, over the past couple of decades, the Eastern Orthodox Church has received many new converts from various Christian backgrounds who have never experienced Confession (at least as we know it in the Church). While those who have been reared in the Faith may be more comfortable with the idea of confessing sins in the presence of a priest, all penitents struggle in their preparation for sacramental confession and are often unaware of the nature of their sins. There are even people, pious in every other way, who have never gone to Confession. It is my hope that this book will aid all in this struggle we call Spiritual Warfare and the reconciling sacrament of Confession.
[1] Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from The New Oxford Annotated Bible, Revised Standard Version (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977).
[2] There is nothing evil about the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God is not the author of evil, and pronounces His creation: “Good.” Yet since the transgression of our first parents involved this tree, for sake of example the image of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil will be used, metaphorically, as an image of that transgression.
On the Struggle (Between Two Trees)
This struggle of spiritual warfare involves the slaying of the Passions – which keep us attached to this world – and the acquisition of the Virtues. As Adam was created potentially perfect, we are only perfected by grace through the Second Adam, the God-Man, Christ. And, as should be abundantly clear, the greatest struggle is that of obedience. For without obedience we are fallen. Yet, through our obedience to Christ and His Church, we may be saved.
And Mary said, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word." And the angel departed from her. (Luke 1:38).
This salvific remedy is the opposite of the disobedient transgression in the Garden of Eden. Both Eve and Mary were greeted with the words of an Archangel. The former fell through uniting her will with that of a deceptive creature; the latter is praised by all generations due to her uniting her will with that of the Creator.
Therefore, within the tradition of the Church regarding the Second Adam and the Second Eve can be found the same understanding with regard to the Two Trees. We must, by our will – in cooperation with God’s will and grace -- be led from disobedience to obedience; from the Passions to the Virtues; and, through the Sacrament of Repentance, from the Tree of Death to the Tree of Life.
Planting, Nurturing, and Reaping
Do not be deceived ... whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption; but he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life (Galatians 6:7-8).
The story is told of the novice who approached his spiritual father stating that he wished to learn obedience. The elder handed him a dry stick and told him to take it to the top of a hill, push it into the ground, and water each and every day for a year. At the end of the 365 days, the young novice was instructed to return to the elder and relate his progress.
The novice did as he was told and dutifully watered the stick every day for a year. After the year was completed, he again visited the spiritual elder. The elder asked him what happened. The novice said, “Nothing! Absolutely nothing happened! I did as you said, every day – for the entire year – I watered that old stick and nothing happened!” To which the elder replied: “Sure it did! Something happened! You learned obedience!”
Obedience, like all virtue, is its own reward. The saying bears repeating: Obedience is its own reward. Yet there is no reward, only sorrow is reaped, when we allow transgressions – Passions – to be sown in our souls. We foster this unwanted growth, the Passions, when we allow sin to become habit. We must, instead, foster Virtue by practicing good habits and, cooperating with God’s grace, overcoming the bad. The nurture of this virtuous and God-pleasing garden is accomplished through godly labor, the struggle -- or ascesis.
We can say briefly that to practice asceticism is to apply God’s law, to keep His commandments. The effort which we make to subordinate the will of man to the will of God, and to be changed by this, is called ascesis.[1]
Ascetic disciplines are nothing more than the means to mortify the old Adam and crucify our will, our passions, and the desires that work in us for iniquity. Ascesis is only a way of showing our love and tender feelings toward God.[2]
This godly struggle, ascesis, may serve as both a catalyst toward and the fruit of Confession. We offer to God that which we have. Sometimes, what we have is awful, diseased, and sinful. This we offer to God in Confession; the more of this disease that is purged, the more we are cleansed by grace to receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
The point is this: he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully (2 Corinthians 9:6).
[1] Hierotheos Vlachos, Orthodox Psychotherapy, (Greece: Birth of the Theotokos Monastery, 1994), p. 47.
[2] Father Matta El-Meskeen (Matthew the Poor), Orthodox Prayer Life – The Interior Way (Crestwood, New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2003), p. 118.
Fr. Joseph Huneycutt is the assistant priest at St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church in Houston, TX. He is the author of two books, "Defeating Sin," and "One Flew Over the Onion Dome." He is also the author of a popular blog, Orthodixie, where you can read reviews of both books.
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