November 4, 2014 Tuesday of the Twenty-fourth Week after Pentecost Full of Light: Luke 11:34-41, especially vs. 34: “The lamp of the body is the eye. Therefore when your eye is good, your whole body also is full of light. But when your eye is bad, your body also is full of darkness.” In this reading, the Lord Jesus cautions us to pay attention to the innermost state of our hearts and souls. He uses tangible images to contrast integrity and hypocrisy. Ironically, the Pharisee who “asked Him to dine with him” (vs. 37) proceeds to illustrate the choice that haunts every one of us. Will our hearts be ruled by darkness (vs. 35) or a “bright shining” light to aid us in overcoming this fallen world (vs. 36)? Saint Symeon the New Theologian clarifies the Lord’s words by commenting on the importance of the nous, or eye of the heart, which is at the center of our inner life. “What else does He mean by ‘the eye’ than simply the mind [nous] which will never become simple unless it contemplates the simple light? The simple light is Christ. He who has His light shining in his mind is said to have the mind of Christ” (cf 1 Cor 2:16) (“Discourses,” ACCS New Testament, vol. 3, pp. 196-7). What kind of light shines deep in the center of our heart, in our nous, and dominates our thoughts? Christ is plainly giving us a noetic warning. Deep within, we are either sound or corrupt, healthy or sick. “Therefore,” He says, “take heed that the light which is in you is not darkness” (vs. 35). We find it easy to become diverted and caught up in futile struggles against distractions, soothing images, or alluring enticements of all sorts. But take heart! In another place, Saint Symeon says, “As soon as the intellect [nous] attains the place of the heart, at once it sees things of which it previously knew nothing. It sees the open space within the heart and it beholds itself entirely luminous and full of discrimination” (p. 197). What is the source or identity of this “simple light” that shines noetically within us? According to Saint Symeon, “The simple light is Christ.” The Apostle Paul says, “Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light” (Eph 5:14). Christ is the light, as we sing during the Resurrection service of Pascha: “Come ye take light from the Light, that is never overtaken by night.” What makes it so difficult for our “whole body [to be] . . . full of light, having no dark part, [so that] the whole body will be full of light, as when the bright shining of a lamp gives [us] light” (vs. 36)? We turn away from Christ, of course, but that answer is overly simplified. Our Lord reproaches a certain Pharisee who “asked Him to dine with him” (vs. 37). By all appearances, the man does not turn away from Christ. He even offers Jesus the hospitality of his home and table. But our Savior focuses on his noetic state, on the innermost life: does he, and do we, strive for light from Him who is Light? Note that no word is spoken by the Pharisee. Yet Christ, who already knows what is “in man” (Jn 2:25), hears his thoughts as clearly as if they are spoken out loud when the Pharisee “marveled that He had not first washed before dinner” (vs. 38). We turn away inwardly because we are of the flesh, so that “the sinful passions which were aroused by the law [are] at work in our members to bear fruit to death. But now we have been delivered from the law . . . .so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter” (Rom 7:5-6). We have the freedom to heed the Master when He warns us about the dangers lurking within our heart. This is the place where our salvation is being fought out! If we attend to the nous and never allow it to be filled with greed and wickedness, we can make sure “that the light which is in [us] is not darkness” (Lk 11:35). May we ever embrace Christ, the true Light. Dispel all darkness from our heart, O Light of all, lest we sleep unto death in sins. – Orthros Prayer
Posted on: Tue, 04 Nov 2014 14:23:08 +0000
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