Tonight is our initial Lenten Evening Prayer Service (or LEPS for short) and I should probably tell you a little about how I think it is going to work. I had toyed with simply giving the same sermon as Sundays, but it seems that would miss something of the point. Because if this is an extra thing for Lent…. well then it should be extra and not just a shorter, non-Eucharistic version of what happens tomorrow. So my thought is that our readings, rather than being the same as those on Sunday, will be either the readings for the saint of the day or those from the daily office. If this means nothing to you, don’t worry it will all be written down so you can just follow along. And so now to the sermon.
If you noticed at the top of your handout we are remembering a saint and that saint is Gregory of Nyssa. I was hoping to say that this is very appropriate because of some deep connection between his work and Lenten Evening Prayer, but I could not find one, so I will simply say that it is appropriate that we remember Gregory of Nyssa on this inaugural Lenten Evening Prayer because he was awesome.
I assume that he is not all that familiar to most of you so let me give you a bit of biography. He lived from roughly 330 through 395 in the area known as Cappadocia, which is in modern day Central Turkey. His older brother was also rather famous and is known as St. Basil the Great. The other person largely associated with Gregory and his brother Basil is St. Gregory of Nazianzus. These three are collectively known as the Cappadocian Fathers and are much remembered for their contributions to the definition of the Trinity as found in the Nicene Creed. Incidentally, as a bit of trivia St. Gregory of Nazianzus served as Patriarch of Constantinople. His successor was a guy named Nectarius who was then succeeded by a guy named St. John Chrysostom (whom you have heard of), but back to Gregory of Nyssa. As his name sort of indicates he served as Bishop of Nyssa. He began his role as Bishop in 371 but was deposed by the Arians in 376 and exiled. The Arians were a group who followed the teachings of an Egyptian guy named Arius. Arius believed that Jesus was not the same as God but was created by God at a later time. In practical terms this meant that Jesus was similar to God but not, as we say in the Nicene Creed, of one substance of the Father. Not to go down too far of a rabbit trail but St. Nicholas (of Jolly Old St. Nicholas fame) is reported to have punched Arius in the face at the first council of Nicaea. [I have sometimes pondered if after doing this St. Nicholas pointed to his biceps and said this one is Donner and this one is Blitzen…don’t get caught in the storm (its funnier if you know German), but back to Gregory.] He would get his see back in 381. Many biographers believe that it was only after the death of his brother Basil in 379 that Gregory would come into his own, having felt overshadowed by Basil. Which seems entirely plausible, I mean if my brother was called Paul the Great, I might feel a little inadequate as well. It also seems plausible because it was after Basil’s death that Gregory wrote most of the ideas for which he is remembered today. And at this point I want to take a moment and reflect on two of those ideas.
The first of these is just kind of something to think about and it has to do with Gregory’s view of God’s judgment. I bring this up not because it is the traditional teaching of the Church, but because it is rather interesting. Gregory believed that everyone would ultimately be saved. His reasoning for this was not that God would decide to simply get rid of all of his standards and like Children’s T-Ball leagues give everyone a trophy just for showing up. Rather he felt that across eternity the love of God would be so strong and so irresistible that everyone would ultimately have amendment of life and come into communion with God. For a bad example it would kind of be like the Millennium Falcon being sucked into the tractor beam of the Death Star. There was ultimately nothing it could do to resist. Incidentally I always wondered who in marketing came up with the name Death Star? I always thought they should have called it something like shady acres, thereby projecting a kinder and gentler Empire to the galaxy. But anyway Gregory’s idea was that given enough time the entire universe would be reconciled to God. There are some issues with this, most prominently the fact that it means that our free will ultimately collapses, but it does set us up for a nice transition into the second idea I want to look at from Gregory.
In his book Life of Moses and elsewhere, Gregory developed something known as epektasis. It was a doctrine he came up with which essentially posited that we will never end our journey towards God. The basic argument is that if God is infinite goodness, then there will always be more of God’s goodness to discover. As a result of this we will spend not just our time on this earth growing towards and becoming more like God, but we will spend eternity in this same way. In other words we are never finished. We are always moving closer to God.
This understanding can be very useful in the season of Lent, because Lent in many ways is about us moving closer to God. However, the danger in this is if we come to see Lent as a sort of annual reset. That is, to use numbers, we view being spiritually right as being something like a 6. So if we arrive at Lent at a 4 we then spend the time getting ourselves up to a 6. Then at the end of Lent we slowly begin to slide back to 4 and the next year we show up on Ash Wednesday ready to start the whole thing over again – rinse lather repeat. Or if you want to get all Greek about it - it is like Sisyphus pushing the rock once again up the hill. Gregory would say that this is not the case at all. 6 is not the place we stop or the place to which we aspire, but is rather a marker on the way to infinity. If God is infinite, being at a 6 is not the place we need to aim for as a permanent destination. So ideally, we should have arrived at Lent this year better than we arrived at it last year, whatever number that may be.
And if you do not feel this way, do not fret, because in Gregory’s understanding salvation is not about getting enough points but is rather about a direction. That is are we journeying towards God or away from God? To go back to my silly numbers explanation it is better to be at a 2 journeying towards a 3 than at 35 on our way back to 34. Lent in one sense serves as a reminder to keep on our journey towards God. And if it has gone off the rails, that is okay. It is not about where we were but rather about where we are going. So in the beginning of this season I would encourage all of us to keep our eyes firmly on God growing into his image not only today or during this season, but for evermore.