Combating moral relativism while remaining true stewards of Christ’s mercy
The Church reaches out with compassionate love to anoint those who are ill with sickness because the Church is a hospital. Likewise she must reach out with the same love and compassion to those who are struggling to live Christ-centered lives and are living with same-sex attraction. She must recognize that for many individuals same-sex attraction is not necessarily a willful rebellion against the commandments of God for to rebel implies that one knows what he or she is going against. If the Church has only reacted to individuals with same-sex attraction with hate, disdain, and shunning, then are we to blame them for not wanting to come to the hospital for souls? When the Church reaches out in ministry to bring healing to her same sex attracted children, compassion and love must rule, and there can be no place for disdainment.
Compassionately working with those who are struggle with sexual sin, be they same sex attraction, masturbation, pornography, or cheating on their spouse, must be ministered to with a clear knowledge that like all sin, the person who is struggling must be brought to believe they can be liberated from the downward spiral of their sin, and be taken into the place of light where there is true healing. If the therapists (the priests and confessors of the Church) react rather than respond, they will be unable to offer help to the person who is struggling with temptation and sin.
The priest must support the struggling penitent in their desire to grow in all purity and chastity, and help them to know that their struggle will eventually lead them to the state where they can freely, and with joy, embrace the holiness that is their inheritance. If the priest ministers from his heart, and is grounded in the love of Christ, he will be able to give hope to the person who struggles with habitual sin, or relapses into sin already confessed.
When priests center the ministry of healing in compassion rather than passion, they are able to help the person who is struggling with same sex attraction embrace chastity as a gift, and not a terrible burden that forever dooms them to a life of loneliness and exclusion from the Mysteries of the Church. If priests do not marginalize the persons who are struggling with their homosexuality, but make a place for them within the life of the Church, they will give them the opportunity to grow in holiness and truth, just like all of us who have turned to the Church for healing.
Pushing aside those who have such a great cross to bear, or barring them from the life of the Church while accommodating those who relapse into sins such as masturbation, pornography, or gossiping, sends the wrong message to the lesbian or gay man who is struggling to maintain their Orthodox faith. They need love and support to live a life of chastity and holiness, and the priest must lead the parish community to be their welcoming family. The Church needs to lovingly say to the persons who struggle with same-sex inclinations that “we love you, and we are going to be patient with you. If you fall a thousand times, we will still be there for you”.
When we demonize those with same sex attraction, we do a disservice to everyone who is struggling with sin, for if that person’s sin is viewed as far more serious than ours, we are inadvertently distracted from our own road to repentance. If we would rather drive out the homosexual from our midst than create an atmosphere of hope and healing within the community of faith, we condemn ourselves, and our sin is compounded by our having judged another more harshly.
At the same time, we priests must not, in our desire to embrace them with our love and acceptance, fail to call them to repentance. Regardless of what psychologists are saying, or what the courts are declaring, or pop artists and sports heroes are proclaiming about themselves, the priest must not fail in his duty to proclaim the unchanging message of the scriptures regarding biblical morality. Priests must resist moral relativism, while remaining true messengers of Christ’s mercy.
With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon
Saturday December 13, 2014 / November 30, 2014
27th Week after Pentecost. Tone one.
Nativity (St. Philip’s Fast). Fish Allowed
Holy and All-praised Apostle Andrew the First-called (62).
St. Elias, schemamonk of Valaam and Verkhoturye (1900).
New Hieromartyr John priest (1937).
St. Frumentius, archbishop of Abyssinia (380).
St. Tudwal, bishop in Wales and Brittany (6th c.) (Celtic & British ).
St. Alexander, bishop of Methymna on Lesbos (Greek).
Sts. Peter I (5th c.) and Samuel I (5-6th c.), Catholicoses of Georgia.
St. Vakhtang Gorgasali, King of Georgia (502).
Scripture Readings for the Day:
Galatians 5:22-6:2
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. 24 And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.
Bear and Share the Burdens
6 Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted. 2 Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.
Luke 12:32-40
32 “Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 33 Sell what you have and give alms; provide yourselves money bags which do not grow old, a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches nor moth destroys. 34 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
The Faithful Servant and the Evil Servant
35 “Let your waist be girded and your lamps burning; 36 and you yourselves be like men who wait for their master, when he will return from the wedding, that when he comes and knocks they may open to him immediately. 37 Blessed are those servants whom the master, when he comes, will find watching. Assuredly, I say to you that he will gird himself and have them sit down to eat, and will come and serve them. 38 And if he should come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants. 39 But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. 40 Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”
Shamelessly promoting your book!! Good for you! I will getting my own copy after the first of the year.
Very well written, Father Abbot!
This is about as succinctly put as I have ever seen on this topic.
This blog article needs to be set up on everyone who reads it’s favorite Social Media site to be disseminated as widely as possible.
I am glad also, to see that your new book is shown being available for sale at the Monastery Gift Shop. You can just bet that I will be grabbing a copy tomorrow, before they are all gone!
Father, I am going to ask a question. I hope it is not misconstrued, because on this subject in particular (as you yourself note) passions are such that clear thinking and faithful reflection is defiantly what is called for.
I want to say that I do not disagree with anything you say. However, my question is about the overall *emphasis* you place on the subject. Allow me to explain in this way: your post is 7 paragraphs. Of those, 6 emphasize for us (laity and clergy – I am laity) not to have a “pharisaical” or worse reaction/over reaction to those struggling with this passion. Only in the 7th paragraph do you warn of it’s opposite, a faithless moral relativism in dealing with those who struggle with this passion.
When I look around me, say in the culture at large, there is no “Pharisaical” overreaction because the culture has in fact accepted this passion as a good. When I look around me in the Church, I also only rarely see a Pharisaical reaction. Unfortunately, what I do see in the Church is a laity (and to some extant a hierarchy perhaps best represented right now by the OCA priest Fr. Robert Arida) who too often think in the morality and language of the culture, which is to say a moral relativism.
This is perhaps not surprising, given the culture we live in. So I am wondering, why did you choose the *emphasis* that you did on this subject? I suppose what I am saying is that it seems the exact opposite emphasis that this age needs…