THE OTHER IS MY SALVATION

THE OTHER IS MY SALVATION

Fr Luke Veronis

“Each of us is guilty - before everyone, for everyone and for everything.” This is what Fydor Dostoevsky has the holy Elder, Father Zosima say in The Brothers Karamazov.

“Each of us is guilty - before everyone, for everyone and for everything.” This is not exaggeration. It is our Orthodox way of looking at life. I am my brother’s (or sister’s) keeper. We are not isolated individuals. We are not self-contained spiritual units trying to get to heaven alone. We are one humanity. We are bound together. My sin affects you. Your holiness blesses me. My repentance heals more than myself. Your suffering wounds the whole Body.

We will see this integration of one with another so beautifully next week on The Sunday of Forgiveness, when everyone in the church will ask everyone else in the church for forgiveness. My actions impact you. Your actions influence me.

In other words, the other is not an interruption to my salvation. The other is the path of my salvation. The other is my salvation.

Today’s sobering Gospel of the Last Judgment presents this clearly. We stand before the throne of Christ, with all the nations gathered, and our Lord separates us on His right and left with a very simple criterion: “I was hungry and you gave Me food. I was thirsty and you gave Me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed Me… Truly, as you did it to one of the least of these My brothers or sisters, you did it to Me.”

Christ reveals the Judgment of the world as a judgment of love. Not doctrine alone. Not simply ritual. Not only words. Our judgement comes through our relationship with one another. It’s based on the concrete, embodied, sacrificial love we show toward the other.

And notice what shocks both the righteous and the unrighteous. They ask the same question: “When did we see YOU hungry, Lord? When did we see YOU thirsty?” They did not recognize Christ in the other.

Here lies the heart of not only our judgment but our salvation. The other is my salvation. To commune with God means to commune with the stranger. To commune with God implies communing with the outcast. To commune with God, and thus to taste our salvation, demands us to commune with the foreigner, the marginalized, and each of the least of our brothers and sisters.

My salvation depends on my communion with the other — no matter how different, how inconvenient, and how strange or uncomfortable and difficult it may seem.

Of course, the opposite is true. What is hell other than isolation from the other, from Christ Himself. As Dostoevsky puts it, “Hell is the suffering of being unable to love.” Hell is not some punishment. It is our isolation from one another. Hell is our egocentric self-enclosure. Hell is the rejection of communion with God by rejecting our communion with the other.

The tragedy of too many in the world today is not that they committed spectacular crimes, but that they have closed themselves off from their neighbor. They passed by Christ disguised as the poor, the marginalized, and as the other. They did not see Him and thus they did not love Him.

St. Maria of Paris offers these thought-provoking words: “If someone turns their spiritual world toward the spiritual world of another, they encounter an awe-inspiring mystery. They come into contact with the true image of God in the other. Yet, they will perceive that the divine image is veiled, distorted and even disfigured by the power of darkness. Then, they will engage in spiritual warfare with the devil for the sake of the divine image.”

Every human being we encounter is an icon of Christ. Even when that image is distorted. Even when it is wounded. Even when it is hidden beneath the brokenness of sin, anger, addiction, ideology, or difference.

To turn toward another person with reverence is to stand before an icon. And just as we venerate icons in church, we are not venerating the wood and paint, but the Prototype it represents. In like manner, in our interactions with others we venerate the person created in the image and likeness of God.

Today, we hear through the Gospel, “Did you venerate the icon of your brother or sister? Did you defend the divine image when it was disfigured? Did you fight the devil for the sake of that image, or did you ignore it or worse yet attack it and despise it?

Society tells us that we live in a world of division, fear, and separation. The Church reveals the deeper truth that we are bound together in love. My salvation is tied to your salvation. And your salvation is tied to your neighbor’s.

“I was hungry and you fed me,” Christ says to us. “I was a stranger and your welcomed me. I was imprisoned and your visited me.” When I ignore the least, I ignore Christ Himself.

So, let’s reject a private or personal Christianity. The road to union with God leads directly through the other person. If we wish we could grow closer to God, then draw closer to your neighbor. If we desire deeper communion with Christ, then embrace the least of your brothers or sisters.

Communion with God need not be some abstract mysticism detached from the world. Communion with God is embodied in the flesh in our relationship with the other. Christ has so united Himself with humanity that He hides within the hungry, the stranger, the sick, the imprisoned.

So, as we prepare for our Great Lenten journey, we are to awaken to love. Break down the walls of self-enclosure and step out of our isolation. Let us reject the temptation of indifference and choose communion with the other. Because in the end, our Judgment will reveal whether we learned to see the other as my salvation.

 “Our brother or our sister is our life,” Saint Sophrony of Essex said. “When we gain our brother, we gain God; when we lose our sister, we lose God.”

Whatever we do to the least of our brothers or sisters, we do to Christ Himself. That’s why the other is my salvation.