I saw this quote from St. Sophrony of Essex posted on Facebook yesterday. It speaks to the heart of our life and the mystery of sin and forgiveness. It is a theme that is common in the Fathers:
“Many of us cannot, or do not want to, accept and suffer of our own free will the consequences of Adam’s original sin. ‘Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit but what has that to do with me?’ we protest. ‘I am ready to answer for my own sins but certainly not for the sins of others.’
And we do not realise that in reacting thus we are repeating in ourselves the sin of our forefather Adam, making it our own personal sin, leading to our own personal fall. Adam denied responsibility, laying all the blame on Eve and on God Who had given him this wife; and by so doing he destroyed the unity of Man and his communion with God. So, each time we refuse to take on ourselves the blame for our common evil, for the actions of our neighbour, we are repeating the same sin and likewise shattering the unity of Man.
The Lord questioned Adam before Eve, and we must suppose that if Adam, instead of justifying himself, had taken upon his shoulders the responsibility for their joint sin, the destinies of the world might have been different, just as they will alter now if we in our day assume the burden of the transgressions of our fellow man.”
Adam’s sin is not a legal problem. Adam is legally correct: “Eve did it first and then gave it to me to eat.” The sordid nightmare of human sin can be broken into its discreet, individual components. But this takes us into the very depths of the problem: we do not love one another. Adam had not seen Eve as a legal gift when God presented her to him. “This now is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh!” he cried when he first saw her. That is the heart of love. But where is love when Adam stands before God beholding his own sin?
The season of Great Lent is a call to true repentance. It is not an entanglement in our private wrong-doings and failures – it is a movement towards the truth of our existence, the fullness of the “whole Adam” (as St. Silouan often called it). Our fragmentation and disintegration into our private worlds is a contradiction of God’s intention for human well-being. Just as the Trinity is One God in Three Persons, so we are One humanity in a multiplicity of persons. The fullness of our existence is never found within ourselves, but within the mutual indwelling of each in all and all in each. St. Silouan said, “My brother is my life.”
Christ did not separate Himself from us when He became what we are. And so, St. Paul says to us:
“…we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Cor. 5:20–21)
In Dostoevsky’s, The Brothers Karamazov, the Elder Zossima serves as a representative of the Orthodox spiritual tradition. He tells the story of his older brother, Markel, who died young. As he came to accept his death, he was reconciled to God and had a profound understanding of the common life of all. We have this wonderful passage:
The windows of his room looked onto the garden, and our garden was very shady, with old trees, the spring buds were already swelling on the branches, the early birds arrived, chattering, singing through his windows. And suddenly, looking at them and admiring them, he began to ask their forgiveness, too: “Birds of God, joyful birds, you, too, must forgive me, because I have also sinned before you.” None of us could understand it then, but he was weeping with joy: “Yes,” he said, “there was so much of God’s glory around me: birds, trees, meadows, sky, and I alone lived in shame, I alone dishonored everything, and did not notice the beauty and glory of it at all.” “You take too many sins upon yourself,” mother used to weep. “Dear mother, my joy, I am weeping from gladness, not from grief; I want to be guilty before them, only I cannot explain it to you, for I do not even know how to love them. Let me be sinful before everyone, but so that everyone will forgive me, and that is paradise. Am I not in paradise now?”
Forgive everyone for everything and share the burden of the sins of all. If we come to know that we are truly forgiven – we will be in paradise.
Why be anywhere else?
Leave a Reply