Matthew Henry John Bartlett

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Friday 11 June, 02004

More divinisation stations

by Matthew Bartlett @ 12:48 pm

Orthodoxy’s theosis, with fasting understood in terms of Isaiah 58 is AWEXOME, and the greatest and most beautiful synthesis you will see this week. I guarantee it.

4 responses to “More divinisation stations”

  1. Richard D. Bartlett says:
    Friday 11 June, 02004 at 1:52 pm

    first he says

    If you pour yourself out for the hungry
    and satisfy the desire of the afflicted,
    then shall your light rise in the darkness
    and your gloom be as the noonday.
    And the Lord will guide you continually
    and satisfy your desire in scorched places
    and make your bones strong;
    and you shall be like a watered garden,
    like a spring of water,
    whose waters do not fail.

    and we all go ‘yeah, cool, if you are good to others, God will be good to you.’ but then you continue reading and see he says the same thing about keeping the Sabbath and you go ‘ooh. eek. maybe we should work on that.’

    If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath,
    from doing your pleasure on my holy day,
    and call the Sabbath a delight
    and the holy day of the Lord honorable;
    if you honor it, not going your own ways,
    or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly;
    then you shall take delight in the Lord,
    and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth;

    I think we are good at not talking idly on Sabbath, but we could work on the bit about not making it about our own pleasure.

  2. aaron says:
    Friday 11 June, 02004 at 2:26 pm

    nah Richard I reckon “your own pleasure” and “speaking your own word” is the evil opression of the poor etc, the word of people that contrasts with the Lord’s word, which is about freedom and release from oppression. So the prophet says that if the Sabbath is the day when we repent from our pleasure and our words, and do the Lord’s, we will recieve the Lord’s blessing.

    Jesus reflected the same attitude when he said “forgive, that you may be forgiven”…”by the yardstick you use, you will be judged…” etc.

    So, the contrast is between evil and good, the one becoming the other because of what the Sabbath means. It is not between doing ‘stuff that we like’ as a bad thing on Sunday (movies, swimming, feasting etc) and a kind of ascetic ‘spirituality’ that is somehow ‘what God likes’.

  3. Richard D. Bartlett says:
    Friday 11 June, 02004 at 11:55 pm

    maybe

    just seems like a good day to go out and do nice things for people when you would rather be watching movies, feasting, and swimming

    and didn’t you listen? asceticism is all good

  4. Sternum says:
    Saturday 12 June, 02004 at 1:07 pm

    Watching movies is a stupid way to spend a Sunday.

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