We see this escapism in the increasing popularity of adopting or incorporating into one’s spiritual ‘path’, aspects of Buddhism or vague concepts of Eastern mysticism, on ‘escaping reality through meditation’ rather than focus and contemplation of Christ.
I believe that many, if not most people today, are thirsting; they may even be looking for the Truth, but many people are also very, very confused: we’re a fast-food culture that’s grown accustomed to having it ‘my way’ and buying into the arguments of the culture without submitting them to the Church, that we can come to know the “faith once received.” I’m not here to give you what you want; I’m here, the Church is here, to give you what you and I need, what is the timeless Truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Anything else is just delusional.
This is the truth: if we’re not willing to submit ourselves and our ways to learn the way of Christ, that He has entrusted to the Church, then we’re only deceiving ourselves in our thinking that what we’re gaining is actually real enlightenment. In other words, if we’re crafting a religion that suites us but does not transform us, through submission and self denial, then what we’re finding is actually just more escapism, and not the path of true enlightenment.
This is the problem of sin: We want it ‘our way,’ not ‘God’s.’ ‘My will be done’ rather than ‘Thy will be done.’ Then people wonder why they’re not fulfilled, why they’re still stuck, why they become so reliant on all those temporary things that help them ‘escape,’ but in no way satisfy their thirst for God and growing in that knowledge and love of Him. Jesus reminds us, that, “the way is narrow that leads to life and few are those who find it” (Matt. 7:14).
Why is this the case, that few are those who find it? Because many are looking for the way of Christ, Christianity, on their terms, and that is NOT Christianity. Jesus says, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” The Way is narrow because it is ONE way because Christ is one, God is one, the way of Christ as He has revealed it to His Body, the Church. Christ proclaims that this is the only way of ultimate enlightenment. We find in Him a single path, not a multitude of choices which somehow equal the same thing. Christ’s life is the way to freedom from our pride—from all that we fear, from all our struggles with ego.
As Christians, we don’t gain peace through escapism: our struggles, our sins follow us, continue to haunt us, harm us and others! Instead, we gain peace by bringing Christ into the midst of our struggles, our passions, our struggle for healing. Through our participation in the Church, we learn to give them over to Christ, to lay them at the foot of the cross through confession, so He can transfigure them and bring us true enlightenment—as much as we allow Him to. Healing, like relationship, can never be forced if it’s real.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus meets a Samaritan woman at the well. She’s lost, confused—just as many are in today’s world. She has had five husbands and the man she lives with now is not her husband. She’s abandoned the faith of her fathers and embraced a licentious life—all to no avail. She’s still unfulfilled, she’s still suffering; she’s still in the dark, lost and confused. Christ proclaims to her that He is the Messiah, God incarnate, “the living water.” He proclaims freedom to her—not escape, but transfiguration, redemption.
Jesus says to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, ‘but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” Desiring this water, desiring true life, eternal life, she repents of her sins, turns from them, and finds Him who is Life itself. The Apostles rightly name her, “Photini,” ‘the enlightened one.’ Her deeds are all revealed; nothing more is concealed; no longer does she walk in the darkness and shame, for now she has found the joy and freedom of life with God through repentance.
Not only does Photini herself turn to the Light, repenting; she also brings her people to the knowledge and love of God, that they too can find healing and salvation thru repentance. Photini becomes one of the great evangelists of the Church, helping others to find the same Living Water. It is exactly that love for God, found in her new life in Him, that motivates her missionary zeal—a lesson for us as well. If we hope to grow our church, we learn to love more as God loves, not as the world loves.
There are no temporary, fast-food solutions to the problem of our egos, our pride, our struggles with sin, and the sickness of our souls. Christ God offers us not a way of escape, of pretending these problems don’t exist, of ‘positive thinking.’ Instead, He offers us the opportunity to grow, to heal, to overcome them by embracing the reality of who He is and who we are called to be.
As we grow in the knowledge and love of God, we learn the way of Christ, the narrow way, the only way to true enlightenment. This path, this way of struggle that leads to our enlightenment, our healing, is found in the Church that Christ Himself founded through repentance of our old way, our own way, and embracing the truth and light of Christ so we may never thirst again.
Christ says to us today, that if we follow Him, His way, not the way we want, but the way of patience, of godly submission, of humility, of conforming ourselves to the life that He shows us through His Church and exemplified in the lives of countless Saints who have gone before us like Photini, then we will have our thirst sated too.
Examine your life. What are you thirsting for? Is there anything holding you back from the Lord, from true enlightenment, from the fullness of life in Christ that He beckons us to receive? What struggle with sin—anger, lust, pride, or ego, is standing in your way? Nothing is too great for God! Each of us is given the opportunity today to follow the lead of St. Photini. She stepped out from the shadows of the darkness of her sins, of her escapism, to embrace the spiritual rebirth of life with Christ. With her, we too can thirst for Christ and drink from the water that Christ offers, His way—the water that springs up inside us to healing and eternal life. Christ is risen!
Fr. Robert Miclean
Holy Archangels Orthodox Church
Sunday of the Samaritan Woman
June 2, 2013
