When the Homily is about Immunology

We cannot create community anymore than we can create personhood

There are two little songs for kids on a tape my daughter has which apparently relates the experience of the songwriter in a small village in some traditionally Orthodox country. One of the song laments: "Take me back to the village, I want to stay." In such villages, it seems, community comes naturally as they all share the same beliefs and values. They are united by the Church in every aspect of their lives, all of them gathering together for daily prayers, Great Vespers, and Divine Liturgy. Sharing the same periods of fasting and feasting...dancing the same dance to the same music....unity.

But we here in America are taught to value diversity, dancing different dances to different music. And thus we cannot find community...we seek to invent it like mad scientists seeking to genetically engineer life. The fact is, the little villages do not create community either...rather I suspect they simply realize community. Human community exists as naturally as our spleens do.

I continue to read Bishop KALLISTOS' book How are we saved? and I continue to glean a great deal from this humble little work. In it Bishop Ware reminds us that "salvation is not solitary but social."

Underlying this approach there is the conviction, deeply rooted in the Orthodox conscience, that we are not saved in isolation but in union with our fellow humans from every generation.

But I am not sure I understand this entirely...in a sense, somehow, our sins belong to one another and this is in part why we Orthodox have Forgiveness Vespers at the beginning of Lent - to remind us of our inner-connectedness and need to forgive one another even if we perceive that we have done nothing to cause a grievance. THAT perception would be wrong, for we are constantly grieving one another whether either of us knows it or not. In our fallen state, perception of reality is seriously flawed. This is why community escapes us.

As I know I've mentioned before, in the story of creation the Orthodox generally understand IMAGE and LIKENESS to be seperate concepts. Wherein during the Fall we lost the LIKENESS (or potential to be like God), and have tarnished the IMAGE of God in us. Through the all encompassing life work of Christ (from Incarnation through Ascension) the IMAGE is renewed and the LIKENESS is restored to us. Now, as coworkers (says St. Paul) with God we move toward fulfilling that LIKENESS: Theosis.

God, through Christ has revealed Himself to be Community. Yes, God as Trinity is Community! And as we are made in His IMAGE and LIKENESS we might assume that Community is apart of our nature as well. But since most of us have not reached Theosis, perfect community comes to us only in short revelatory spurts.

We are called to wake up to the reality of our God-IMAGE and then by God's Grace we progress toward the LIKENESS of God. When we begin to perceive the reality of our God-IMAGE we also awaken to the reality of community. How do we awaken this? There are 2000 years of experiences to guide us...give your ancestors a vote. The music is playing...the dance steps are hard, but we learn.

We are members of one another
St. Paul's Epistle to the Church in Ephesus 4:25