This is part of the ongoing series that will provide real examples on how one can incorporate such things as story, poetry and the mythic in teaching. If you haven’t read the previous installments, you can do so here:
Sunday School
Homiletics (part 1)
Homiletics (part 2)
As in the previous installment, I address the mythic, imagination and symbolic patterns; however, this time the homily is centered on icons and the need to cultivate an Orthodox mind. Agrarian metaphors abound.
Homily – Sunday of the Seventh Ecumenical Council – 10/13/19
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, One God.
Christ is among us!
Today we remember the Seventh Ecumenical Council, the last of the official ecumenical councils. This came at the end of centuries-long Christological debates, climaxing with the iconoclast controversy.
The seed for this controversy is found hidden beneath certain traditions since the beginning of Christianity. Influences from Jewish law which forbids depictions of God were found in Christian theology. In the early centuries, Christ was simply depicted only with symbols to avoid association with paganism and to protect against idolatry. Human beings are wont to create idols. The history of God’s people, called out of Egypt, soon returned to the worship of other gods, which was a form of idolatry and harlotry. With the Hebrew scriptures at their disposal, the Church wanted to steer people away from a chance mishap or flagrant act of idolatry. The first phase of iconoclasm—what I call the “pre-iconoclastic period”—is marked by this concern and the increased popularity of the practice of veneration in the sixth and seventh centuries. Men like Emperor Leo III rose to the occasion to snuff out the sin of idol worship. A volcano erupted in 726, and Leo saw this as a sign of God’s vexation regarding the use of icons. The result: ensuing icon “smashing”, which is what the word iconoclasm means. The Seventh Council convened at Hagia Sophia on 24 September 787. The concern of great consequence was the difference between the veneration of icons and worship that was solely for God. St. John of Damascus’ apologies on divine images were influential for those present because they offered a detailed and sober argument in the defense of icons:
“I boldly draw an image of the invisible God, not as invisible, but as having become visible for our sakes by partaking of flesh and blood. I do not draw an image of the immortal Godhead, but I paint the image of God who became visible in the flesh, for if it is impossible to make a representation of a spirit…”
I don’t intend to bore you too much with history. What I want to talk about are the reasons why icons are important, and the critical need for cultivating an Orthodox life where one can properly engage with an icon, and not just icons, but also the Liturgy, prayers, writings of the Church. It is our responsibility to embrace the traditional — and here I mean ancient and medieval — symbolic nature of icons, and to do this we also need to be cognizant of the symbolic nature of reality. What I mean by this is that when one gazes upon an icon, the icon not only represents a person or an “event”, but it also says — or reveals — something about the nature of the cosmos, of reality itself, and since the Church is the new creation, it reveals the nature of the Church as well. Or to say it more succinctly, there is a symbolic structure to the cosmos which is renewed within the Church herself. I wish to focus on this because there is a disparity, or better still a disconnect, between the modern world and pre-modern. We’ve lost this perception; we’ve lost the language of creation, of traditional symbolic and hierarchical structure. This symbolic structure is the very structure of reality itself.
This past week I was listening to a famous youtuber/podcaster. The discussion came around to the supposed depiction of extraterrestrials in medieval art. A painting of the Crucifixion was mentioned. One of the guests on the show made the audacious claim that there were two figures seen in the sky in what appeared to be spaceships. So, naturally, I looked up “painting, crucifixion, UFO…” And much to my chagrin… the painting in question was an icon in a monastery in Kosovo. An Orthodox icon. Immediately, I realized what was going on. Our modern society has become so bereft of traditional religious language that when something like that is seen, something which falls outside our purview of knowledge and experience, we will usually superimpose our worldview, our ideological framework on it. In this case, someone predisposed to the non-spiritual, will interpret such a painting through a materialist, scientific lens, and this guy who has a predilection for aliens, sees aliens. It’s not entirely their fault, the language has been nearly lost, but it is still lazy research with sensationalist motives. What this person did not understand was that these “spaceships” were the personification of the Sun and Moon. The Sun on the left, the Moon on the right, from our perspective. From the perspective of Christ, the Sun is on the right, the Moon on the left–which is in itself symbolic. Both faced towards Christ. Time has stood still…or better still, the Event transcends Time itself. The entire Cosmos revolves around Christ crucified, this Event is at the center of reality. The basic structure of reality: day and night, up and down, heaven and earth, left and right, hot and cold–we can even add male and female–all of these have a meaning which we don’t have time to get into, and this is not the appropriate time to do so anyway–what matters is that they are understood by a person’s interaction with the world, from experience, not scientific investigation, they are categories of meaning, a symbolic understanding from experience. For now what is important is that these polarities (without duality) find their center and resolution in Christ. Traditionally, men and women were separated in church to symbolize the polarity of humanity coming together and uniting itself with Christ the Bridegroom. This icon reveals the nature of the cosmos and the Church. It is emphatically not a depiction of extraterrestrials.
So we arrive at the need for us as Orthodox Christians living in a post/anti- (and I’ve also heard said, pre-) Christian culture to not only learn our own tradition — specifically, the language/grammar of iconography — and also be the voice in the chaos, sharing our Tradition, which is the remedy for our age.
The Gospel reading for this morning is the Parable of the Sower. Why? The Matins Gospel talks about Jesus having a real body after the resurrection–this is obviously pertinent concerning the debates that raged during the iconoclast period. But why seeds? Christ instructs us that not all the seeds which have been sown will produce, many will be snatched away, some will produce plants that will be strangled. The initial seed sown came to fruition with the debates centered on icons because it had to do with Christ’s humanity. Icons safeguard the Church’s teaching about the humanity of Christ. If he truly had a body…then He can be depicted. If an icon reflects its prototype, then veneration passes to it and doesn’t become adoration (worship) of matter itself. Lest the seed yield nothing in our lives we must cultivate the soil of the heart. Icons as “windows to heaven”– and more importantly, the doctrine of Christ being fully God and fully man, and icons being the fullness of this understanding — can only be accepted (or sown and germinated and grown) by a heart that has been cultivated. As St Cyprian once wrote: “He can no longer have God for his Father, who has not the church for his mother.” The Church is our mother, we will be raised by her. Just as the Theotokos points us to her Son, so too does the Church prepare us to be received as the Bride of Christ. But we have a responsibility to till the soil of our hearts so we can receive the great mystery!
As St. Paul prays: “that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— 19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” (Eph 3)
It is unfortunate that there are many people who hear the Gospel or see an icon or attend the Divine Liturgy and their hearts are not yet ready to receive the seed. They see traditionalism and legalism in the liturgy. They hear nonsense in the Gospel. They see a fascinating remnant of medieval art…or they see aliens. These are men and women who cultivated ungodly things, passions, and have allowed pernicious seeds to take root. This always results in various expressions of an antipathy towards the things of God. We like to think of ourselves as already being the good soil, but there are times in our life that we are not. And there are times that we are the good soil, but we’ve let weeds take over.
The question, therefore, remains. What are you cultivating?
Glory to Jesus Christ!
