By the Very Reverend Stelyios S. Muksuris, Ph.D
Recently, a woman shared with me a series of endearing stories of how she feels called by God to spend time with elderly men and women in nursing homes, whose only hope and joy is a smile or hug or good word. But more than such acts is the presence of another person in their lives who simply listens and stands by them in their suffering. Now some may complain: “But you really don’t do anything.” Well, that’s precisely the problem: not her problem but the one who asks the question. We don’t need to do anything to do something; we can do far more for a human heart by simply being with them. It is here, in the realm of being, that we discover true growth and real happiness that is everlasting.
Even in the Divine Liturgy, many of our people attend because they want to get something out of it. They want God to fulfill a need they have, to answer a prayer, to provide help. After all, He is God and that is what He does, is it not? So, if a need is fulfilled and we are pleased with how God responded, we feel even closer to Him. This is natural, to be sure. However, what happens if another more serious need arises, and we pray to God again, but He does not respond as we expected, do we then hold something against Him? Are we angry at Him? Do we never again approach Him in prayer or, if we do, is it because we fear His punishment or repercussions due to our faithlessness or doubt? Can we see the illogical nature of our thinking here? Do we understand that we are using God rather than loving Him for who He is? Do we see that we only want to be with Him, that we love Him, only because He can give us something? Is this not conditional love? Do not our pets at home, on the whole, behave similarly?
Sadly, we human beings forget God’s beneficences too quickly. It is because we have been conditioned to relate to the Lord only on the basis of need, but not on the basis of love. We must learn to be with other people and so love them and be loved by them for the right reasons. Not enough of this happens and so our relationships are artificial and strained – to put it bluntly, outright fake. This is why in Psalm 45, the Lord commands us to “be still” and not worry. We must stop being gods and doing things. We must start being more and doing less. We must become more like Mary and less like Martha (cf. Luke 10:38-42), enjoying our time with God and one another rather than bustling about and performing tasks that will always be with us and will naturally be repeated in this life. But the ability to be with God and with one another is priceless, and one day we may have neither if we don’t appreciate that which we do have!
As parents, we told our children when they were toddlers or very young to sit still and be quiet, because oftentimes their childlike noises were loudly disruptive. But they were disruptive to the work that we were busy performing. What if our children were beckoning to us to be with them? What if God was sending us a message through our earthly angels to do less and be more? What if they were trying to parent us and correct our own immaturities and weaknesses? Have we ever thought about how God can work in mysterious ways in this regard? When the Lord God decided to create woman, His rationale was: “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him” (Genesis 2:18). Personal companionship and fellowship precede any functional relationship.
My dear people, let us likewise learn the magnanimity of being with God and with one another. In our iconographic tradition, the majority of the depictions of the saints show them graced with the presence of God as they look solemnly and nobly through the window of the icon toward us. Their serene faces are proof that they are in the presence of God. Their successful activities for the glory of God – be they martyrdom, confession, asceticism, teaching, or writing – all flow from their being with the Lord. When one possesses the joy of fellowship with God, he is already in heaven; what he does afterwards is simply a doxological commentary on that which he celebrates continuously throughout his life. Let the activities of our lives then also be doxologies of that treasure of fellowship we share with God first and foremost.
May God always be with us, and may we always be with God. Amen. (+)
~THE V. Reverend Protopresbyter Dr. Stelyios S. Muksuris, Ph.D, The Superiority of Being over Doing, “The Sounding”, Orthodox Christian Network (OCN),http://myocn.net/superiority-being-over-doing/.
Father Muksuris serves the Kimisis Tis Theotokou Greek Orthodox Church in Aliquippa, PA, and is Professor of Liturgy and Languages at SS. Cyril and Methodius Byzantine Catholic Seminary in Pittsburgh, PA. A native of Boston and a graduate of Hellenic College and Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline, MA, he received his postgraduate degrees and his doctorate in liturgical theology from the University of Durham in the United Kingdom. He is an active member of several academic societies (AAR, SL, SOL, BSC, OTSA), a frequent conference speaker both nationally and internationally, the author of a monograph, Economia and Eschatology: Liturgical Mystagogy in the Byzantine Prothesis Rite (Boston, 2013), and the author of an introductory chapter for a textbook on Christianity, as well as numerous papers and studies in theological journals. He is a frequent consultant on liturgical matters for the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America and the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Pittsburgh.
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