The Agent of Change

Girls can do anything!As inhabitants of our modern culture, we find ourselves trapped in a world of “cause and effect.” It is a physical explanation of the universe that has, for all intents and purposes, become a universal metaphor, dominating religion and the most personal aspects of our lives.

We see ourselves as the agents of change – or responsible for the disasters that litter our lives. Those who “succeed” imagine that they are the masters of their fate, or, perhaps the ones who responsibly “chose” God.

For the weak, the addict, the genetically impaired, the myth of choice and the power of freedom are often experienced as a merciless taunt. We not only fail – it is judged that we fail because we have not willed to succeed. Our weakness becomes a curse, while the blessed enjoy their prosperity and their health. Choice is a myth believed best by the young. Old age almost invariably makes a mockery of its boasts. The “pro-choice” movement and the growing acquiesence to legalized euthanasia are but natural extensions of our “free will.” These last manifestations of our “freedom” are the freedom to kill and to commit suicide, which, of course are only illusions of freedom.

There is an important and occasionally subtle difference between these modern concepts of freedom and choice – man as the agent of change – and the traditional Orthodox understanding of the world and the place that free will plays within it. On the most fundamental level, the world of cause and effect (the realm of our willful choices) is an insufficient arena for the Truth as revealed in Christ. God cannot be described merely as an agent in a world of cause and effect. He cannot be described as First Cause – because He cannot be described by a term of which there is a Second. God is not the First of anything – God is the Only of which there is no other.

The God Who has made Himself known in Christ Jesus is rightly identified as the Creator of all that is. However, how God creates is not a proper subject for scientific study. Cause and effect are simply insufficient as a description of God as Creator. Instead, an interesting verse in the LXX translation of Exodus offers the suggestion of a better starting point for understanding the role that our choices do and do not play:

Now Moses built an altar and called its name The-Lord-My-Refuge; for with a secret hand the Lord wars with Amalek from generation to generation (Exodus 17:16).

God’s secret hand well describes His involvement in our world – a metaphor which is a recurring theme in the images of Scripture (particularly as understood by Orthodox Christianity).

An excellent example of this theme can be found in the account of the Three Young Men, in the book of Daniel and its continuation in the Song of the Three Young Men (LXX). There, the faithful youths are confronted with the command to commit idolatry, to fall down and worship before an image of the wicked King Nebuchadnezzar. If you will, the threat is typical of those who view the world as simple “cause and effect.” Power is defined as the ability to cause your own will to be done. As such, the Three Young Men are powerless. They are able to do nothing against the power of the King. His threat, of course, is death in a furnace of fire. They refuse, adhering to the commandments of God and trusting in His goodness. Their reply to the king is classic:

So they brought these men before the king. Nebuchadnezzar spoke, saying to them, “Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the gold image which I have set up? “Now if you are ready at the time you hear the sound of the horn, flute, harp, lyre, and psaltery, in symphony with all kinds of music, and you fall down and worship the image which I have made, good! But if you do not worship, you shall be cast immediately into the midst of a burning fiery furnace. And who is the god who will deliver you from my hands?” Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. “If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. “But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up” (Dan. 3:13-17).

Thus power, as defined by the world, confronts the power of God, and His secret hand.

Then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished; and he rose in haste and spoke, saying to his counselors, “Did we not cast three men bound into the midst of the fire?” They answered and said to the king, “True, O king.” “Look!” he answered, “I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire; and they are not hurt, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.” Then Nebuchadnezzar went near the mouth of the burning fiery furnace and spoke, saying, “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego, servants of the Most High God, come out, and come here.” Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego came from the midst of the fire (Dan. 3:24-26).

In the LXX Song of the Three Young Men we hear this added description:

And the flame streamed out above the furnace forty-nine cubits, and it broke through and burned those of the Chaldeans whom it caught about the furnace. But the angel of the Lord came down into the furnace to be with Azariah [Shadrach] and his companions, and drove the fiery flame out of the furnace, and made the midst of the furnace like a moist whistling wind, so that the fire did not touch them at all or hurt or trouble them (Song of the Three Young Men 24-27).

Thus, like the bush that Moses saw on the Holy Mount that burns but is not consumed , or the womb of the Virgin that gives birth to Christ and yet remains a virginal womb (and so the image may be multiplied), God acts in a manner that cannot be described. If we say that He causes these things – then the word “cause” has a meaning other than what we normally mean.

Azariah states it this way in his prayer:

Do not put us to shame, but deal with us in Thy forbearance and in Thine abundant mercy. Deliver us in accordance with Thy marvelous works, and give glory to Thy name, O Lord! Let all who do harm to Thy servants be put to shame; let them be disgraced and deprived of all power and dominion, and let their strength be broken. Let them know that Thou art the Lord, the only God, glorious over the whole world (Song of the Three Young Men 19-22).

I have added emphasis – “deliver us in accordance with Thy marvelous works.” This is a proper description of the work of God. The power of God is not a power to be compared to the king’s, only bigger. For however the king works, he does not do so in a “marvelous manner.” Such works belong to God alone.

This phrase, “Thy marvelous works,” is echoed in the service of the Great Blessing of the Waters (used at Theophany, Baptism, and all blessings of Holy Water).

“Great art Thou, O Lord, and marvelous are Thy works. There is no word sufficient to hymn Thy praises.”

Calling such words over the waters of the Jordan [as I experienced on pilgrimage in September] only emphasizes the secret handof the Most High. For in the course of the Blessing of Waters, we specifically call down upon the waters “the blessing of Jordan.” It seems strange, at first, to ask God to make the Jordan to be the Jordan. It is an illustration of Fr. Alexander Schmemann’s statement that in the sacraments, we do not ask God not to make things to be something they are not, but to be what they truly are. Thus a blessing is not added to the Jordan, but in the prayer, the Jordan is revealed to be what it is: an icon. It is the place where the people of Israel cross to enter the Promised Land. It is the place that reveals the Pascha of Christ – who descends into death to lead the dead to the Promised land of life. An icon does not symbolize, in the modern sense of the word, but makes present that to which it points. Thus, “as many as are Baptized into Christ are Baptized into His death.” The Jordan and all water so blessed are an entrance into Pascha.

Icons do not cause, but reveal. To cause would be a magical understanding (magic itself being something from the early modern world – see alchemy).

When we bring this understanding of God’s work to bear on the human predicament – the will is revealed to be other than what we imagine it to be. Rather than the agent of change, it is simply one part of the human creature which is itself in need of redemption and healing.

I can no more will my salvation than I can will my resurrection.

Like everything else in the human life – the will is in need of redemption, even though it plays its own small role in its cooperation with grace. We cannot be saved except by grace – even though grace requires our cooperation. That cooperation, however, can sometimes be as minimal as a cry for help. It is the voice of the thief on the cross crying, “Remember me!”

We are not the agents of change – but subjects in need of change. The world of cause and effect in which we can imagine ourselves (like Nebuchadnezzer) to be people of great power, is not, after all, the realm of true power. That realm, ruled by God’s secret hand, became flesh and dwelt among us – doing for us what we could not ourselves do. We could not ascend into heaven and become Divine. He descended among us and became Man – that we might ascend with Him and become partakers of the divine nature.

God cannot be chosen or consumed as though He were a product among products. Neither is He an idea or slogan to which we may give allegiance. He is the God to Whom we may cry for help and Who has manifested His love and assured us of the ready answer to our feeble call.

Among the truest insights within our culture (although itself the product of Christian theology rather than modern culture) is the understanding found within the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. The first step recognizes that we are powerless over the addictions which bind us. Strangely, the alcoholic who wants to be sober, must begin by recognizing that he is powerless to become so alone. The second step recognizes that “only a power greater than ourselves could help us.” I would say that only a power that is utterly unlike anything we know as power can help us. The third step is to turn oneself over to that power. Strangely, millions of men and women have found sobriety, not because of the power of their will, but through the recognition of the weakness of our will. It is the most non-consumer community within the whole of our culture – aside from Christianity rightly lived.

We are not the agents of change, though without change our very existence will become moot. The change for which we and the world hunger is finally dependent upon the secret hand of the Most High, Who created us, sustains us, and redeems us through His marvelous works. In Him the weak become strong, the meek inherit the earth, and those who weep laugh, while the mighty fall from their thrones.

From the midst of the flames we hear the Song of the Three Young Men, who see the true freedom of creation – not as inert objects or brute beasts to be coerced by wordly power, but as a joyful chorus of grateful creatures, whose voices unite in the great song offered to the God Whose secret hand sustains us in His presence:

O all ye works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever,
O ye heavens, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever.
O ye angels of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever.
O all ye waters that be above the heaven, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever.
O all ye powers of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever.
O ye sun and moon, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever.
O ye stars of heaven, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever…

 

About Fr. Stephen Freeman

Fr. Stephen is a priest of the Orthodox Church in America, Pastor Emeritus of St. Anne Orthodox Church in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. He is also author of Everywhere Present and the Glory to God podcast series.



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16 responses to “The Agent of Change”

  1. Michael Patrick Avatar
    Michael Patrick

    Father, again, thanks!

    You said, “in the sacraments, we do not ask God not to make things to be something they are not, but to be what they truly are”.

    Coming to mind is Deuteronomy (8:3 NKJV): “man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.”

    The source of man’s life is Christ himself broken and distributed to us for food. All other bread is a wannabe next to the Eucharist, Christ. All water is a wannabe next to His blood, quenching and vivifying forever the divine icon He made us to be.

    The prayer of Epiclesis just calls it like it is, putting all food and drink in its proper place in the kingdom.

  2. Dino Avatar
    Dino

    Thank you Father for the insightful and inspiring words!

  3. Ann K Avatar
    Ann K

    Thank you, Father. To my (Protestant) mind, this seems related to the admonition to be in the world, but not of the world. If you are ever looking for a topic to write about, this would be of great interest to me.

  4. […] The Agent of Change – Glory to God For All Things […]

  5. […] in response to scientific discovery is so laughable its pathetic) and from the other direction, Father Freeman’s observation that ultimately God is not to be understood in the web of cause and effect.  And with those fine […]

  6. Andrew Avatar
    Andrew

    “The Agent of Change” – A truly inspired title Father, and one which begs the question: change to what, exactly? The God that is presented to us today is unlovable. That’s quite a problem (cf. Dr. A. Kalomiros in Rivers of Fire). The answer to all our ills (from the breakdown in family values, to spiraling Church attendance, Obamacare etc) is found in the constant recollection of the image of God. Tradition points to this. God is the divine physician not the judge. (If he judges, it is always therapeutic and beneficial)…

  7. fatherstephen Avatar
    fatherstephen

    Andrew,
    I would say this differently. The answer to all our ills is God, not an action of ours. The point of God as the agent of change is that He is the cause, not us. We yield ourselves to Him (through recollection, etc.). But it is God who is the agent of change.

    I’m not terribly concerned about “all our ills.” This is the concern of the 24/7 news cycle. It plays to our anxieties, judgments, etc., so that we will continue to consume their product: the 24/7 news cycle (and its ads). All our ills is simply a daily snapshot of what we are being sold at any given moment.

    All my ills is another question. All my ills has nothing to do with family values, Obamacare, etc. My ills are the same as human ills have always been. I live as though there is no God instead of living in union with Him.

  8. Andrew Avatar
    Andrew

    Absolutely, yes agreed Father. The problem of “Facing up to God” (the title of an earlier post) is that we have utterly forgotten what the divine image looks like (as many Orthodox theologians/ Fathers have been at pains to point out). To quote Dr. Kalomiros: Who can love an angry God?

  9. Dave in Dallas Avatar
    Dave in Dallas

    There may be some nuances that I’m not picking up on. What I read out of your post is almost a doctrine of “total depravity” / monergism. There is some synergism indicated — but in a practical sense it’s not anymore that what reformed protestantism concedes.

  10. fatherstephen Avatar
    fatherstephen

    Dave,
    Interesting thoughts. I certainly had no intention of advocating a “monergistic” or “total depravity” doctrine in the post. It’s more or less foreign to my thought. Rather, it is the myth of cause and effect (and I would add the myth of free choice) that I wanted to establish. The debate about synergism is, more or less, not a debate in Orthodox thought. Of course we cooperate in our salvation. Of course our freedom plays a role. But it’s really quite minor in the scheme of things – not because we are not free, nor because we are depraved. But salvation is union with God – and thus depends on His goodness towards us. Grace, in Orthodox understanding, is not just the means of our salvation, it is also the substance of salvation. Grace is nothing other than the Divine Energies, God Himself. Thus union with God is union with grace. Of course we are saved “by grace.” No hint or even discussion of merit.

    But we are saved by grace, thus there is synergy – because we are the subject of salvation (it’s not something separate from us that we either contribute to or not). The problem in these debates is their forensic character when Orthodoxy thinks in an ontological character.

  11. Paul Avatar
    Paul

    Thank you for this post Father.
    I frequently debate with a friend of mine the role of free choice, fate and destiny in shaping our lives.
    When I look at my life and look at the lives of people I am close to (family members, close friends), I find myself assigning very little responsibility or accountability for their outcome because I feel a sense of “powerlessness”. We do our best, we receive as much grace from God He blesses us with and we move forward.
    To give you a clearer example, I have one younger sister. She has made terrible decisions in her life. I think a lot of those decisions were a reaction or result of a damaged relationship with my parents. She is now paying the consequences of those decisions. Do I blame her for those decisions? I do. But I also feel that her fate was written before she was born. I can’t blame her so much as I can give credit to somebody else who has made more fruitful decisions in their life.
    I don’t want to sound defeatist and not assign us accountability but I think our current society and culture gives us the illusion that if we make enough of an effort at something, that we will succeed at it, which is dangerous and deceitful.
    I think the essence of being human is accepting our powerlessness, especially when it comes to controlling our fate.
    It’s a tough pill to swallow, especially when we are dealt a bad hand (devasting illness, or accident) but what else can we do?

  12. Dave in Dallas Avatar
    Dave in Dallas

    Father Stephen,
    Thank you for the clarification. I am thinking… While I would not equate the Protestant idea of a “personal relationship” with God as the same idea as theosis there is a similarity in that our salvation is more than just ascenting to one time affirmation of belief or a meeting of the bare minumum requirements/rules to get the ticket to the promised land.
    As I am in the midst of middle age I realize that I’ve probably lived my life as if I am trying to get by in some college course with a passing grade on the final exam by “doing just enough”. Theosis sounds like a.much fuller life both now and in the age to come.

  13. Michael Patrick Avatar
    Michael Patrick

    Dave in Dallas,
    I have a similar experience and believe you’re onto something significant and possibly life-changing. My prayers are with you.

  14. Dave in Dallas Avatar
    Dave in Dallas

    Michael Patrick,
    Thank You.

  15. AR Avatar

    “For the weak, the addict, the genetically impaired, the myth of choice and the power of freedom are often experienced as a merciless taunt.”

    I find Psalm 122:3 (OSB)

    “Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us,
    For we are greatly filled with contempt;
    Our soul is greatly filled with it.
    We are a disgrace to those who prosper,
    And a contempt to the arrogant.”

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