from the Pastoral Common Room list

By temperament I do not like hearing confessions or giving spiritual
direction. I do not like telling people what to do (just as I dislike
being told what to do!), and I only do so under some sort of
obligation. I approach scheduled confessions or office hours for
'pastoral conversations' with a kind of dread. But I do it, however
unhappy it makes me, because it is part of my job and because I know
that to do the job well - which I want to do - one simply has to do
it. So I am happy to be able to say that the Lord is merciful to me
and what so often begins in unhappiness frequently ends with a certain
pastoral joy. This is what makes it all bearable, the joy that comes
with the grace given 'in the moment'.

I say all of this because I am convinced that it really is the duty of
those in pastoral leadership and authority to make sound judgements,
whether they want to or not, and to do so humbly as servants of the
Lord and His Church, following the teaching, canons, customs we have
received and promised to uphold in our ordination, and that we do this
- at least I do this and I am sure that most readers on this list do
this - not because we want to assert ourselves, dabble in other's
lives, pretend to be holy elders, exercise control, or further any
sort of political or social agenda - but simply because we have both
embraced the message of Christ and His Church and been given the task
as pastors of helping the faithful connect the dots between this
message on the one hand and how they live their lives on the other.

Making sound judgements is a complex thing, and requires skill, but it
isn't brain surgery or advanced calculus or something that involves a
massive amount of preparatory research. We need to know what the
Church teaches and affirms. I do not think that this 'content' is in
any way obscure or difficult to understand. We should not fall prey to
the temptation to overly nuance (or waffle about) the teaching of the
Church, just as we not fall prey to the temptation to pontificate or
moralise. The only nuance we need to embrace is not in fact a nuance,
it is the principle that the pastoral life of the Church and therefore
the fundamental impulse of the pastor is restorative, not punitive.
The complexity in making sound judgement comes with the application,
the connecting of the dots, rather than with the principles involved.
Those principles are pretty straightforward. I guess I am simply
asserting this rather than demonstrating this, but still...

In spite of recent (and I think highly unsuccessful attempts) to
deconstruct it - a sort of trahison des clercs? - one such principle
is that the intimate communion of a man and a woman is part of the
pre-lapsarian created order of things, is part of the post-lapsarian
'economy' of salvation, can be a unique, sanctified way of life, is an
image that 'adequately' expresses the mystery of God's love for us, of
Christ's love for the Church, and is bound up with our language about
Pascha and the Kingdom of God. In other words, the communion of
marriage understood as between a man and a woman is privileged in the
tradition of the Church. (It is not, of course, the only or highest
good privileged by the Church. Virginity (or celibacy) committed to
ministry is, in the Apostle's view, highly privileged. In any event,
neither marriage nor virginity are ultimately privileged apart from
Christ and service, and both ways of life are subject to falling short
of the privilege accorded them, in other words it is not by nature but
by grace that their potential and dignity are fulfilled.)

We exist as male and female, that is we are sexual beings, and part of
our sexual being involves a providential design for a complex
integration of biological, psychological, emotional, spiritual
intimacy in inter-personal relationship with another of complimentary
sexuality. At least this is how I understand the story (or theology)
of our sexual givenness. Please note that I haven't reduced sexuality
or complementarity to genitals, but genitals are surely part of the
story, of the design, of the integration.

We absolutely acknowledge that our sexuality, like all aspects of our
existence, exists in a way which is fractured, broken, hurting, and
often sinful. But not only is our sexuality a place of real and
potential fragmentation and sin as are all aspects of our existence,
but somehow we have the intuition in the tradition that our sexuality
is *in particular* fraught with the consequences of the fall. I
imagine that this is precisely because the fall - the fracture - of
something so deeply and fundamentally integrative has led and leads to
profoundly disruptive outcomes. So many things about us are bound up
with our sexuality that in being pulled apart and broken in our
fallenness we have been left a deep and troubling wound. This is true
of us as sexual beings and true of us as sexual beings in intimate
relationship and therefore it is also true of our intimate
relationships, even - and perhaps especially when these are
relationships that are striving to live according to the image
privileged by the Church.

The first commandment, which follows from the creation of male and
female, is to be fruitful and multiply. Although to be fruitful is not
a concept exhausted by procreation, procreation is the most basic sign
of the fruitfulness, creativity, enlargement, openness for which we
were created. Fruitfulness is bigger than procreation, but it doesn't
oppose or negate or dismiss or choose against procreative potential.

I am rambling here, but for all these reasons (and more) I am saddened
when I come across Orthodox priests, pastors attempting to deconstruct
the tradition we have received and our pastoral obligation to connect
the dots according to the tradition. Exceptions to rules or principles
or affirmations or practices do not negate those things, they only
point to a certain openness (in light of grace) and generosity (thank
God!) and a very human inconsistency and sometimes incoherence in
striving to make things right or at least better.

I suppose that it is only to be expected. Once upon a time there were
many sexual sins (aka dysfunctions, brokenness, fracturings, fallings
short of the mark) that we as a community of Orthodox believers
acknowledged as sins, were ashamed of, tried to repent of, tried to
help others struggle with, tried to encourage in their embrace of the
moral vision of the Church. Take for example fornication (although of
course I am speaking of same sex relations). It was once recognized,
taught, generally accepted that pre-marital intimacy was 'not
according to the image' - it happened, of course, and it was handled
appropriately or inappropriately, whatever, but no one said it was of
no consequence to the integrity of one's Christian identity - but
today many of the parents of our children simply accept that their
children - who are also our parishioners and assumed to be believers -
will be having sexual relationships, if not in high school then almost
certainly in college, and that it is normal, natural, probably even
healthy for them to do so. Quite a few accept that their adult
children are living together, see no problem, no inconsistency, in
spite of the crystal clear teaching of the Church about all of this.
And of course many of the young folks themselves have no urgent sense
that their life-style involves such contradiction.

The real problem is not the fornication and not the living together,
the real problem is the bland, bourgeois, self-satisfied, dull-witted,
unreflective idea that one can be actively fornicating and yet 'a decent
Christian', without any whiff of repentance and amendment of life. (But
to forestall the sophomoric rejoinder, let me say that one can replace
'fornicating'with, say, - as the Lord Himself says - murder, adultery,
theft, false witness, slander - or the Apostle - impurity, licentiousness,
idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness,
dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like,
etc etc etc)

Perhaps as pastors we have failed to connect the dots, perhaps we are
reaping the legacy of our predecessors who did not or could not
connect the dots, perhaps we simply have little leverage in the face
of the powerful and insidious ambient social messages. Perhaps when
our own friends and parishioners and family members are struggling
with or even opt out of the moral vision of the Church we suffer, fall
silent, try to find some way to accommodate, nuance, accept, to be
nice.... God help us! I would hope such 'nuancings' have a clear
restorative goal rather than being a sign of defeat, accomodation, or
a loyalty to something other than the one who says 'if you love me,
keep my commandments'.