Lenten Reflection 2: Forgiveness Vespers

I have nothing against Ash Wednesday in the Western tradition. I actually kind of like the idea of carrying a visible reminder of my sins on my forehead. But if I had to choose (and I have), I'd much rather start our Lenten journey the way we do in the Orthodox Church.

Lent begins with Forgiveness Vespers. Like any other Vespers service, we gather together to pray. The hymnody is the only visible reminder that we are about to enter Great Lent. Then the lights are cut as we change the colors behind the icons of Christ and the Theotokos, a reminder that we are about to enter the long night of Christ's journey to Jerusalem. But we also don't forget that this journey is ultimately a journey to the empty tomb. As a reminder of what lies ahead we sing the same hymn we do at Pascha (only in more subdued tones), "Christ is risen from the dead..."

After the church is darkened, the clergy face the iconostasis (the icon wall) and prostrate before the altar. They lead the congregation in the prayer of St Ephrem. Then the clergy begin to ask forgiveness from each other. As they do this, they make their way to a corner of the church near the iconostasis and face the congregation. Then the clergy are joined by their families, from whom they also beg and receive forgiveness. People whose Protestant reflexes incline them to think that we elevate our clergy to god-like status need to pay attention to just how much our priests confess their sins to the congregation and ask us to forgive them. They are the first ones to drink from the chalice during Liturgy, and the first one's to beg forgiveness from us last night, because (the church expresses) they are the most in need of forgiveness. (Even during confession the priest reminds us of his own unworthiness to readmit us to Communion.)

When the clergy and their families exchange forgiveness, their families join the line facing the congregation. Then the rest of the church begins to dismiss from the front, forming a center line that also makes its way forward. If this is hard to visualize, I'll try to paint a picture so you can see it. Members of the congregation approach the first line, the line with their backs to the altar/wall, the line facing the center of the church. As members of the second line approach, those in the first line cross themselves and ask for forgiveness. Those in the second line grant it, and in turn ask those in the first to forgive them. And on it goes, a line from the center moving up to the front corner, and then snaking around the church. When someone in the second line exchanges forgiveness with the last person in the first line, she turns around (now with her back to the wall) and becomes part of the first line. The line grows around the church (eventually looking like a donut) until everyone has exchanged forgiveness with everyone else.

Asking for forgiveness can be somewhat formulaic, "Forgive me my many sins and trespasses against you." Or it can be more personal. One priest I rarely speak to put his hand on my shoulder and very gently said to me, "Would you please forgive me if I have offended you in any way this year." I've always had a child in my arms, so my response tends to be a formulaic, "Forgive me a sinner." But I've never felt like the exchange isn't genuine. After exchanging forgiveness people almost always hug each other, even if they don't know each other at all (which often happens because we have so many new members, catechumens, and inquirers). There are no strangers, no enemies, in the body of Christ.

I was holding my son, George, who also became part of the exchange. Those who embraced me, embraced him and even asked him to forgive them. The last people I asked to forgive me before I became part of the first line (now a circle) were my wife and my daughter. I crossed myself, got down on one knee, and said to my little almost-five-year-old, "Kyla, forgive me a sinner." She said nothing back, but she hugged me.

On a humorous side-note, my daughter tends to be shy around people she does not know well. Last night, like many children, she clung to her mother while people asked her to forgive them, occasionally venturing out from behind Stephanie to hug one of her friends. Then a young woman approached. I did not know her, but Stephanie knew her a little from a book study. She was an inquirer, not Orthodox but interested in Orthodoxy. Kyla had no idea who she was, but for some reason, when this woman bent down to ask Kyla for forgiveness, my daughter through her arms around her neck and squeezed. She actually choked her a little. It was as if, at some level, she were trying to say, "Welcome to our church! I like you!" Sometimes we all need to hear that, I think.

My daughter is beginning to learn how the body of Christ relates to each other. One of the great truths of the Orthodox faith – something the church regularly reminds us of – is that our relationship with God takes on the character of our relationships with each other. Just that morning one of my Sunday School students had raised the issue, "What should we say if someone asks us if we are saved?" I told her that most of the time we should try to understand the concern that lies behind the question. We should just say "Yes" and try to move on. But, I added, in Orthodoxy (and in the Bible) the question is not whether or not we are saved, but whether or not we are being saved. This is a journey. If someone asks us if we have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, we should try to think about what they mean. But we should also remember that the phrase "personal relationship" appears nowhere in the Bible. For Paul, for instance, there was no personal relationship to Christ without a communal relationship to the church. So, our salvation is wrapped up in the salvation of the people we bow before, embrace, and ask to forgive us. I hope Kyla will come to understand that they way we love each other is the way we love God.

I also hope that she will come to understand that sin and forgiveness always go beyond our immediate, more obvious actions. One of the great truths of Orthodoxy captured by Forgiveness Vespers is also expressed by Doestoyevsky's character Fr. Zossima. In a nutshell he says we must all take responsibility for the sins of every last person in the world (even animals). The sins we commit never stop at us or the ones we sin against. They ripple away from us and touch lives we never meet. Forgiveness Vespers reminds me of this fact. It reminds me that I need to ask forgiveness from those I barely know, because in some way I *have* sinned against them.

Finally, there's just something about the physical closeness that I enjoy about Forgiveness Vespers. Not being Greek or Arabic, the kiss of peace in our church tends to be more like a holy hug. We hug each other because we are family. As a theologian, I tend to think in very hifalutin ways about the church. I develop complex arguments about the relationship between the earthly and the heavenly, between church and society, the head and the body, etc. But in the end, the church is kind of about the holy hug. I don't want to minimize the hifalutin aspects of the church. If the church were just hugging, then Care Bears and hippies make the best Christians. On the other hand, Forgiveness Vespers reminds me that behind all the high and lofty talk about the church, behind the vestments, the colors, the icons and vigil lamps lie the pressed together bodies of real people, people with their hopes and their dreams, people with their problems and their sins. And in the church, these people, these sinful people (of whom I am chief) find forgiveness from God and forgiveness for each other.