Sacrifice: The Missing Dimension
On Monday, 10 June, at the closing ceremony of the Fourth
International Environmental Symposium in Venice, His All Holiness the
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I gave the following address. The
Patriarch emphasized the "need for an ascetic spirit that can be
summed up in a single key word: sacrifice. This exactly is the missing
dimension in our environmental ethos and ecological action". The
Ecumenical Patriarch noted that sacrifice is primarily a spiritual issue
and less an economic one. Contrary to the modem dread of
sacrifice, the Biblical notion of sacrifice did not involve loss or
death as much as the giving of life. He summed up his point in the
phrase "Kenosis means plerosis; voluntary self emptying brings
self-fulfilment. All this we need to apply to our work for the
environment. There can be no salvation for the world ... without the
missing dimension of sacrifice ".
Beloved and learned participants,
As we come to the close of our Fourth Symposium on Religion, Science
and the Environment, we offer thanks to God for the fruitful proceedings
as well as for your invaluable contribution. We recall the prophetic
words of our predecessor, Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I of blessed
memory. In his historic encyclical letter of 1989, urging Christians to
observe 1 September as a day of prayer for the protection of the
environment, he emphasized the need for all of us to display a
"eucharistic and ascetic spirit".
Eucharistic: receive creation as gift
Let us reflect on these two words "eucharistic" and
"ascetic". The implications of the first word are easy to
appreciate. In calling for a "eucharistic spirit", Patriarch
Dimitrios was reminding us that the created world is not simply our
possession but it is a gift—a gift
from God the Creator, a healing gift, a gift of wonder and beauty—and
that our proper response, on receiving such a gift, is to accept it with
gratitude and thanksgiving. This is surely the distinctive
characteristic of ourselves as human beings: humankind is not merely a
logical or a political animal, but above all a eucharistic animal,
capable of gratitude and endowed with the power to bless God for the
gift of creation. Other animals express their gratefulness simply by
being themselves, by living in the world in their own instinctive
manner; but we human beings possess self-awareness, and so consciously
and by deliberate choice we can thank God with eucharistic joy. Without
such thanksgiving we are not truly human.
Ascetic: voluntary self limitation, self restraint
But what does Patriarch Dimitrios mean by the second word,
"ascetic"? When we speak of asceticism, we think of such
things as fasting, vigils and rigorous practices. That is indeed part of
what is involved; but askesis signifies much more than this. It
means that, in relation to the environment, we are to display what The
Philokalia and other spiritual texts of the Orthodox Church call enkrateia,
"self-restraint".
That is to say, we are to practice a voluntary self-limitation in our
consumption of food and natural resources. Each of us is called to make
the crucial distinction between what we want and what we need.
Only through such self-denial, through our willingness sometimes to
forgo and to say, "no" or "enough" will we
rediscover our true human place in the universe.
The fundamental criterion for an environmental ethic is not
individualistic or commercial. The acquisition of material goods cannot
justify the self-centred desire to control the natural resources of the
world. Greed and avarice render the world opaque, turning all
things to dust and ashes. Generosity and unselfishness render the world transparent,
turning all things into a sacrament of loving communion—communion
between human beings with one another, communion between human beings
and God.
Ascetic: need for sacrifice
This need for an ascetic spirit can be summed up in a single key
word: sacrifice. This exactly is the missing dimension in our
environmental ethos and ecological action.
We are all painfully aware of the fundamental obstacle that confronts
us in our work for the environment. It is precisely this: how are we to
move from theory to action, from words to deeds? We do not lack
technical scientific information about the nature of the present
ecological crisis. We know, not simply what needs to be done, but also
how to do it. Yet, despite all this information, unfortunately little is
actually done. It is a long journey from the head to the heart, and an
even longer journey from the heart to the hands.
How shall we bridge this tragic gap between theory and practice,
between ideas and actuality? There is only one way: through the missing
dimension of sacrifice. We are thinking here of a sacrifice that is not
cheap but costly: "I will not offer to the Lord my God that which
costs me nothing" (2 Sm 24,24). There will be an effective,
transforming change in the environment if, and only if, we are prepared
to make sacrifices that are radical, painful and genuinely unselfish. If
we sacrifice nothing, we shall achieve nothing. Needless to say, as
regards both nations and individuals, so much more is demanded from the
rich than from the poor. Nevertheless, all are asked to sacrifice
something for the sake of their fellow humans.
Spiritual issue of sacrifice
Sacrifice is primarily a spiritual issue and less an economic
one. In speaking about sacrifice, we are talking about an issue that is
not technological but ethical. Indeed, environmental ethics is
specifically a central theme of this present symposium. We often refer
to an environmental crisis; but the real crisis lies not in the
environment but in the human heart. The fundamental problem is to be
found not outside but inside ourselves, not in the ecosystem but in the
way we think.
The root cause of all our difficulties consists in human selfishness
and human sin. What is asked of us is not greater technological skill
but deeper repentance, metanoia, in the literal sense of the
Greek word, which signifies "change of mind". The root cause
of our environmental sin lies in our self-centeredness and in the
mistaken order of values, which we inherit and accept without any
critical evaluation. We need a new way of thinking about our own selves,
about our relationship with the world and with God. Without this
revolutionary "change of mind", all our conservation projects,
however well-intentioned, will remain ultimately ineffective, for, we
shall be dealing only with the symptoms, not with their cause. Lectures
and international conferences may help to awaken our conscience, but
what is truly required is a baptism of tears.
True notion of sacrifice: giving and receiving of life
Speaking about sacrifice is unfashionable, and even unpopular in the
modern world. But, if the idea of sacrifice is unpopular, this is
primarily because many people have a false notion of what sacrifice
actually means. They imagine that sacrifice involves loss or death; they
see sacrifice as sombre or gloomy. Perhaps this is because, throughout
the centuries, religious concepts have been used to introduce
distinctions between those who have and those who have not, as well as
to justify avarice, abuse and arrogance.
But if we consider how sacrifice was understood in the Old Testament,
we find that the Israelites had a totally different view of its
significance. To them, sacrifice meant not loss but gain, not death but
life. Sacrifice was costly, but it brought about not diminution but
fulfilment; it was a change not for the worse but for the better. Above
all, for the Israelites, sacrifice signified not primarily giving up but
simply giving. In its basic essence, a sacrifice is a gift—a
voluntary offering in worship by humanity to God.
Through sacrificial communion with God, the believer receives life
Thus in the Old Testament, although sacrifice often involved the
slaying of an animal, the whole point was not the taking but the giving
of life; not the death of the animal but the offering of the animal's
life to God. Through this sacrificial offering, a bond was established
between the human worshipper and God. The gift, once accepted by God,
was consecrated, acting as a means of communion between Him and His
people. For the Israelites, the fasts—and
the sacrifices that went with them—were
"seasons of joy and gladness, and cheerful festivals" (Zec
8,19).
Willing and voluntary sacrifice
An essential element of any sacrifice is that it should be willing
and voluntary. That which is extracted from us by force and violence,
against our will, is not a sacrifice. Only what we offer in freedom and
in love is truly a sacrifice. There is no sacrifice without love. When
we surrender something unwillingly, we suffer loss; but when we offer
something voluntarily, out of love, we only gain.
When, on the fortieth day after Christ's birth, His mother the Virgin
Mary, accompanied by Joseph, came to the temple and offered her child to
God, her act of sacrifice brought her not sorrow but joy; for, it was an
act of love. She did not lose her child, but He became her own in a way
that He could never otherwise have been.
Christ proclaimed this seemingly contradictory mystery when He
taught: "Whosoever wishes to save his life must lose it" (Mat
10,39 and 16,25). When we sacrifice our life and share our wealth, we
gain life in abundance and enrich the entire world. Such is the
experience of humankind over the ages: Kenosis means plerosis;
voluntary self-emptying brings self-fulfilment.
Sacrifice will make us priests of creation
All this we need to apply to our work for the environment. There can
be no salvation for the world, no healing, no hope of a better future,
without the missing dimension of sacrifice. Without a sacrifice that is
costly and uncompromising, we shall never be able to act as priests of
the creation in order to reverse the descending spiral of ecological
degradation.
The Cross plunged into the waters symbolizes that the Cross and
sacrifice must be central
The path that lies before us, as we continue on our spiritual voyage
of ecological exploration, is strikingly indicated in the ceremony of
the Great Blessing of the Waters, performed in the Orthodox Church on 6
January, the Feast of Theophany, when we commemorate Christ's Baptism in
the Jordan River. The Great Blessing begins with a hymn of praise to God
for the beauty and harmony of creation:
"Great art Thou, O Lord, and marvellous are Thy works: no words
suffice to sing the praise of Thy wonders.... The sun sings Thy praises;
the moon glorifies Thee; the stars supplicate before Thee; the light
obeys Thee; the deeps are afraid at Thy presence; the fountains are Thy
servants; Thou hast stretched out the heavens like a curtain; Thou hast
established the earth upon the waters; Thou hast walled about the sea
with sand; Thou hast poured forth the air that living things may
breathe...".
Then, after this all-embracing cosmic doxology, there comes the
culminating moment in the ceremony of blessing. The celebrant takes a
Cross and plunges it into the vessel of water (if the service is being
performed indoors in church) or into the river or the sea (if the
service takes place out of doors).
The Cross is our guiding symbol in the supreme sacrifice to which we
are all called. It sanctifies the waters and, through them, transforms
the entire world. Who can forget the imposing symbol of the Cross in the
splendid mosaic of the Basilica of Sant'Apollinare in Classe? As we
celebrated the Divine Liturgy in Ravenna, our attention was focused on
the Cross, which stood at the centre of our heavenly vision, at the
centre of the natural beauty that surrounded it, and at the centre of
our celebration of heaven on earth.
Such is the model of our ecological endeavours. Such is the
foundation of any environmental ethic. The Cross must be plunged into
the waters, The Cross must be at the very centre of our vision. Without
the Cross, without sacrifice, there can be no blessing and no cosmic
transfiguration. Amen.
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