Thoughts of ‘hesed’ on July Fourth
It came as a shock in the past week to see temperatures rise to almost 120º in British Columbia…in Canada! The village of Lytton, BC, in which all the heat records were broken, was destroyed by the wildfires that resulted from the excessive heat. And who knows, this early in the season, how many wildfires will ravage the entire west coast in the months ahead! Many still prefer to ignore the problem of climate change, but the writing is already on the walls of what we have built. Arctic ice is thinning twice as fast as had been predicted by climate models. Siberia – yes, Siberia – endured temperatures over 100 Fahrenheit last summer and is doing it again. And there is strong suspicion that even the apartment building collapse in Miami could have been partly caused by climate change and the rise of sea levels. In the decades to come, environmental issues will become the prime driver of refugee movements around the globe. Studies of population movements within the US are showing that even within our country, people are already moving because of climate considerations.
Today we celebrate the 245th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, ratified by the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia on July 4th, 1776. It is a magnificent statement of the human aspiration for freedom and justice. It established the principle on which this country was founded: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. It is a lofty statement that still inspires many in our country, and it inspires many to come to this country.
But the world is seeing an alarming level of anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies. That should trouble most of us here in our Holy Trinity community, since most of us are immigrants or children of immigrants. How should we respond to the challenges that are daily increasing? For starters, let’s encourage each other to take the path that God has repeatedly shown—the way of what the Hebrew Bible calls hesed, tender-loving-kindness…and which the Greek version of the Bible translated as έλεος. One of the great Polyeleos songs of Orthodox worship (Psalm 118) has the refrain: ὅτι εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα τὸ ἔλεος αὐτοῦ – usually translated as “For his mercy endures forever” or, “His loving kindness endures for ever.” The Greek word ἔλεος translates the Hebrew word hesed.
Many Bible scholars attribute the first chapter of Genesis to a priestly author, and indeed there is a musical flow to the description of the six days of creation, each ending with the refrain, “And it was good” – which is another way of saying, “Amen.” And on the sixth day, when God created human beings, God said, “And it was very good.” Why was it “very good”? Because humanity’s original purpose was to be priests of creation, offering back to God all that God created – and offering it with thanksgiving and blessing and understanding of what it’s all about. That understanding is given voice in the Liturgy: Τα σά εκ των σών – Your own of your own we offer to You. This proclamation is at the heart of the Orthodox Liturgy and at the heart of how we Orthodox should relate to the world and life around us. All of us are meant to be priests – and not priests in the ecclesiastical sense. The Offering Prayer of St. Basil’s Liturgy calls us, “a royal priesthood.”
All of us are called to this royal priesthood because we are called to continue the liturgy of creation that began in chapter 1 of Genesis. Every time we attend to one of the least of Christ’s brothers and sisters (as we read in Matthew 25) we are attending to Jesus himself in the original meaning of liturgy (leitourgia: work by and for God’s people). We come to Liturgy every Sunday, the Lord’s Day, to remember, honor and continue the liturgy of creation that began in chapter 1 of Genesis. We receive life from the Lord, and we go out to share our life, talents and wealth with others. We become participants, co-workers with God, in the new creation that is mystically taking shape around us. Among the many gifts of Liturgy is the gift of discernment, so we can see behind the curtain and understand the working of hesed. We become partners with God in hesed: He has shown you, O man, what is good and what the Lord requires of you: To do justly, To love mercy (kindness, hesed), And to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8)
I can only pray that the Declaration of Independence will inspire us in the coming years and decades to stand against those things that divide us and make us vulnerable to the threats of climate change and popular unrest. We live in challenging times. But so did the Founding Fathers of this nation. They did their best to establish a country worthy of that July 4th declaration. May our generation and the generations to come do our share to make sure this country and life on this planet endure. Fr. Constantine Sarantidis
