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I Lent Monday – Proverbs 1: 1 – 20
1The Proverbs of Solomon son of David, who reigned in Israel; 2 to know wisdom and instruction, and to perceive words of understanding; 3 to receive also hard saying, and to understand true justice, and how to direct judgement; 4 that he might give subtlety to the simple, and to the young man discernment and understanding. 5 For by the hearing of these a wise man will be wiser, and man of understanding will gain direction; 6 and will understand a parable, and a dark speech; the saying of the wise also, and riddles.
7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; and there is good understanding to all that practise it: and piety toward God is the beginning of discernment; but the ungodly will set at nought wisdom and instruction. 8 Hear, my son, the instruction of thy father, and reject not the rules of thy mother. 9 For thou shalt receive for thine head a crown of graces, and a chain of gold round thy neck.
10 My son, let not ungodly men lead thee astray, neither consent thou to them. 11 If they should exhort thee, saying, Come with us, partake in blood, and let us unjustly hide the just man in the earth: 12 and let us swallow him alive, as Hades would, and remove the memorial of him from the earth: 13 let us seize on his valuable property, and let us fill our houses with spoils: 14 but do thou cast in thy lot with us, and let us all provide a common purse, and let us have one pouch: 15 go not in the way with them, but turn aside thy foot from their paths: 16 17 for nets are not without cause spread for birds. 18 For they that are concerned in murder store up evils for themselves; and the overthrow of transgressors is evil. 19 These are the ways of all that perform lawless deeds; for by ungodliness they destroy their own life.
20 Wisdom sings aloud in passages, and in the broad places speaks boldly .
So here we are at the beginning of Great Lent, and we begin reading Proverbs, or – if we are so blessed as to have Vespers in our parish church – listening to them in Church, or perhaps listening to them as an audio recording. It is a genre we are not used to, but if we persist in reading, and especially if we read the proverbs for ourselves out loud, they begin to acquire a deep attraction, and we start to enjoy it. St. John Chrysostom says that Solomon “…renders the material amenable by introducing charm in proverbial form, since lack of clarity normally stimulates the soul.” In other words, the way the author writes is mysteriously attractive, but the meaning is just a little beyond our reach, which arouses our curiosity, and then we make the effort of stretching a bit to understand it, which is more pleasant and exciting than simply being told something straight out. All good teachers, as well as poets and novelists, understand this dynamic. So, to repeat, just stick with it, and you will start to enjoy it. And you do not have to understand all of it. It will soak in.
Verse seven is one of the best known in all Scripture: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” There are people who claim that they just love God without ever fearing Him, but, unless they have gone through the entire course of spiritual life and have attained the level of St. Anthony the Great, who after many years of superhuman struggle famously said, “I now no longer fear God, but I love Him,” they are kidding themselves. Verse seven concludes with “…the ungodly will set at nought wisdom and instruction.” Chrysostom comments that it is impious people who do not like the idea that they must fear God, and this proves the truth of the saying that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. Only freethinkers and immoral people say, “Oh, you don’t have to fear God…’LUV is all you need’ (as the Beatles song goes).” No saint, no person who actually did love God, ever said such a thing.
So what does it mean to fear God? It is fashionable to look down on those who openly show a primordial, animal fear of God, like the worldly Russian aristocrats who would say disdainfully, “When the lightning strikes, the peasant makes the Sign of the Cross.” But such know-it-alls have forgotten that we are animals, or, rather, that we are part animal, part angel, and that our animal side is – if we are honest – the part we are most in touch with. We are all afraid to suffer and to die, and we are all afraid – deep down – that God is going to punish us in some brutal, unpleasant way for something we did, unless we are either very holy on the one hand or total sociopaths on the other hand. So it is all right to start there, but of course we cannot stay there, because we are called to something higher, according to the angelic side of our nature, which is to fear God with childlike trust and reverence as a child fears a loving father, to acquire longing for His loving presence, and to shed warm yet consoling tears over our sins.
Great Lent provides simple ways to acquire this better and more noble fear of God. One is prostrations. Either ask your father confessor for a rule of prostrations – a daily number – or simply read the Hours in the Horologion (or the little red book of the Hours available from Holy Transfiguration Monastery bookstore) and do the prostrations prescribed, or do the Prayer of St. Ephraim by itself several times a day, with the prostrations indicated. After awhile, the attitude of the soul conforms to the attitude of the body, and we start calming down physically, but also mentally and spiritually; we begin to have a sober attitude towards God, a godly fear springing from the knowledge of Who God is and who we are. He is our Creator and we are creatures. He is everything and we are (comparatively though not absolutely) nothing. Our very existence depends every moment on His sovereign will. And this gives us peace.
Another simple thing we can all do is to make the Sign of the Cross more frequently outside the set times of prayer. At the very least, we should make the Sign of the Cross when we awake in the morning and before we go to sleep at night, before and after we eat, before we leave the house, before we start the car, before we start any task, before we go into a meeting or conversation in which temptations may arise…in other words, before anything we do. We should make the Sign of the Cross when seductive or unhappy or angry thoughts come to mind, when impure attractions stir in our bodies, when any temptations arise. This constant reminder that we live in the presence of God, that we walk before God, that He sees and hears every thought, every feeling, every action of ours at all times and every moment, will sober us down and teach us to rely on Him – will teach us that He is everything to us. This constant awareness leads to that godly fear which is the beginning of wisdom.
Our dear Christ, the Wisdom, Word, and Power of God, give us the holy fear that will lead us finally to love of Thee, Our Creator, Redeemer, and Savior, our God. Amen.