Communion vs Content

Saint Nicholas Planas and Secular3 Christianity's obsession with making and consuming stuff.

Worship is the arena in which God recalibrates our hearts, reforms our desires, and rehabituates our loves. Worship isn’t just something we do; it is where God does something to us. Worship is the heart of discipleship because it is the gymnasium in which God retrains our hearts.

-You Are What You Love, James K.A. Smith

It is time for the Lord to act.

-Prayer at the start of the Divine Liturgy

A few Sundays ago, we celebrated the feast of Saint Nicholas Planas, a remarkable 20th century saint.

Saint Nicholas devoted himself wholeheartedly to the work of the priesthood as he celebrated the Divine Liturgy and other services daily. He spent hours commemorating thousands of names as he prepared to celebrated the Eucharist, bringing scores of people with Him to the Lord’s Table.

Every day, he partook of the Lord’s Body and Blood and shared it with the flock entrusted to him: “taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 34(33):8).

Years ago, in an episode of Be the Bee, we reflected on the phrase “you are what you eat.” Unpacking the wise words of Father Alexander Schmemann, we explored how worship—the central act of the Christian life—transforms us into who we are created to be.

Of course, that worship is a shared meal: the Eucharist.

We are what we eat. And we are called to eat the Lord’s Body and drink His Blood.

We are, in other words, called to be deified: to be brought into the household of God in His Son, as sons and daughters.

And by receiving the Lord’s Body and Blood from the chalice, we in turn become little chalices that share the Lord for the life of the world.

Saint Nicholas ate of the One he was called to imitate; and imitate Him he did! While he never asked for money, Saint Nicholas received much from the faithful; and yet, whatever drachmas he received would find their way, not into his pockets, but into the hands of the poor: “freely you have received, freely give” (Matthew 10:8).

Saint Nichola dedicated himself both to the Divine Services and to philanthropic service which are, it’s important to note, inextricably linked. In fact, that’s another theme we explored in an episode of Be the Bee.

But why do I bring all this up, dear reader?

Because I continued to be troubled by the cultural shift I’m seeing in the Church…

The servant must take a step back so that the Holy Spirit may step forward. He must conceal himself so that Christ alone may be revealed.

-If You Love Me, Matthew the Poor

Since you’re here, I expect you’ve seen the pieces I’ve written on the Church’s relation to the internet:

• Can Anything Good Come from the Internet?

• Is the Orthodox Church Growing?

(If you haven’t yet, give them a look to understand the axe I continue to grind.)

Saint Nicholas Planas provides us an inspiring model of Christian priesthood specifically and, more generally, the Christian life. His life centered on the Lord’s Table in the Eucharist. And he spent his life inviting others to that table: both serving the Divine Services and engaged in philanthropic service.

He both fed those who were hungry and fed all with the Lord’s Body and Blood.

Yet the ethos of the Church continues to shift from Communion to content; from sacrament to pseudo-sacrament.

This is yet another manifestation of Secular3 culture which has been with us for quite some time…

Credit: Tenor.

Growing up, for example, the model of the priesthood that I saw in practice focused on administration rather than worship: “successful” presbyters were to spend more time concerned with meetings and finances and ministry resource development than at the altar. It was an expression of our Age of Authenticity and the unspoken assumptions of Secular3: caught in the cross-pressure between faith and doubt, we’re not convinced God is really there.

So we simply act as we see fit.

In our Secular3 Age, being an authentic Christian doesn’t mean laying ones life at the Lord’s feet, but rather doing as much as one can—often as publicly as one can, to boot.¹

This Secular3 impulse has simply sharpened over time: building on an existing emphasis on administration and analog resource creation, we spend more and more of our time writing, filming, and posting. The food we serve the faithful is content (a never-ending stream of it, in fact).

But content is designed for the individual, not the Body. Content is something we consume alone and on our own, our eyes glued to screens and our attention overcome by the infotainment we mistake for actual spiritual transformation.

While we’ve spent decades immersed in a Secular3 culture—with online content creation being just the next step in our decades-long obsession with analog ministry content—things definitely feel different in recent years. For most of my life, the Orthodox Church has felt the same anywhere and everywhere: whether I was at home with my grandparents, or at my local parish on a Sunday morning, or studying at seminary, or at a monastery for a retreat, it was all the same.

Heck, it was the same whether I was at a monastery or listening to Father Tom Hopko in a podcast.

Those experiences weren’t identical, of course, and the Church has always been full of flawed people doing flawed things—but one could discern the same Holy Spirit throughout.

But now, things feel fractured: the seamless garment of the Church feels like a sloppy patchwork at best, or a tattered mess at worst.

The simplest way I can describe it is that there’s simply an unmistakeable difference between the sphere fueled by Communion and the sphere fueled by content.

And you can feel it in the culture, in the lived experience of what we call Orthodox Christianity.

Because what used to be a culture defined by its relation to the altar is now defined by its relation to platforms that host a never ending flood of content.

What used to be a culture defined by silence is now one defined by incessant noise: a never-ending flood of content.

What used to be a culture defined by humble withdrawal is now one defined by prideful posturing: a never-ending flood of content.

Credit: Tenor.

Orthodoxy Christianity is a thing we do in the divine services and in our services to each other; or rather, bursting the bubble of the Secular3 buffered self, Orthodox Christianity is something the Lord does to us.

By contrast, Orthodoxy is a thing we talk and argue about in videos, podcasts, chats, and more. It is something we do because, in Secular3, that’s all that matters.²

(In fact, it’s all that truly conceivable. Enchantment is something we talk about rather than actually experience because the prospect of divine action is so foreign to our lived experience; so we do our will rather than ask the Lord’s will be done to us.)

Saint Nicholas Planas spent hours every morning serving the Liturgy.

“Taste and see that the Lord is good.”

Now it’s normal to spend hours a day scrolling and posting: content, content, and more content.

“Taste and see that I am good.”

The Eucharist, as the Lord’s Body and Blood, points to Him. Yet content simply points to the creator.³

So that’s what I’m seeing. But where should we be going?

Let’s end with an excerpt from Father Matthew the Poor, whose words I quoted above in brief. In the second chapter of If You Love Me, he lists out ten qualities of the Christian servant. The below is taken from the seventh quality he lists: spiritual simplicity.

His words are a helpful reminder of what we’re in the process of losing—and what we should be striving for.

(I’ve highlighted some phrases I find particularly powerful; the emphasis below is my own.)

[W]hen one excels in knowledge and in verbal exposition, where the excellence is not spiritual but merely intellectual, the servant may be deluded into thinking he may use these gifts to demonstrate his personal skills. This may further lead to a dangerous kind of attachment on the part of his spiritual children, an enthusiastic preference for his teaching alone, and an unhealthy desire to be just like him…

When a person serves others through excellent speech, relying on human means of knowledge more than on the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he cheats the sheep, leads them away from the way of the Kingdom, and undermines his own calling. This is because the sheep will cling to him and trust in his knowledge; therefore, the servant effectively crucifies the truth of Christ. For these reasons, it is imperative that the servant rely on the simplicity of the Holy Spirit and strive to avoid places of honor. The servant must take a step back so that the Holy Spirit may step forward. He must conceal himself so that Christ alone may be revealed.

The servant must be always vigilant to weigh the words and opinions that inform his teaching against the dictates of the Holy Spirit and the requirements of love. This will prevent him from falling into the errors of human wisdom and human opinion…

(If You Love Me: Serving Christ and the Church in Spirit and Truth, pages 23-24.)

Saint Nicholas, pray for us!

Father Matthew, pray for us!

Father Tom, pray for us!

1. I saw this a lot in the realm of youth & young adult ministry. People are far more likely to spend time developing new curricula and resources for young people rather than praying for them.

Prayer, to the Secular3 mind, feels like a waste of time. A presbtyter even once told me, during a meeting, that my emphasis on prayer was a gimmick that was distracting attention from “real work” that needed to be done.

But developing a new resource for ministry? That’s something that will make a concrete difference! It’s something people will see and use—and thank us for!

2. Contrast this with some of Father Tom Hopko’s 55 Maxims:

• Practice silence, inner and outer (#8).

• Be simple, hidden, quiet and small (#31).

• Never bring attention to yourself (#32).

• Think and talk about things no more than necessary (#35)

• Don't seek or expect pity or praise (#40).

• Give advice only when asked or when it is your duty (#47).

Or, as the deacon prays at the start of Liturgy: “it is time for the Lord to act” (Psalm 119:126)

3. Recall that we understand the honor and veneration we give to icons as “passing to the prototype.” I think there’s a deeply unhealthy inversion of that in the way we approach content.