By Rev. Dr. Frank Marangos

 

The Christmas-New Year holiday season in Manhattan is marked by elaborate window displays created at many of the city’s most famous and popular stores. From Macy’s and Lord & Taylor to Bloomingdale's and Barneys, the holiday season in New York City would not be complete without a visit to these beautifully decorated Yuletide windows! While some prefer just to look, other Christmas window-shoppers are lured into purchasing what they will soon discover in the New Year they can't afford. An activity without clearly defined intent, seasonal window-shopping motivates wishful thinking and unrealistic expectations. With every window display more enticing than the other, “surely,” we think, “this one will finally solve all those nagging difficulties in my life!”

 

The first ten years of the 21^st century may be characterized as the decade of unremitting window-shopping. Never before have we seen such a multi-media array of sophisticated “catechetics,” all promising ever-lasting happiness through their respective branding of what is true. Our lives were introduced to interactive television, rich-media Internet service, and global video cell-phone networks. These societal windows provide intimate inspection into competing worldviews that draw us towards their respective gospel – that if we do this, accept this, purchase this – we will be free, transformed, changed for ever, happy as never before, fulfilled, enlightened. By allowing our minds, hearts and finally, our bodies to pass through their beaconing windows we are guaranteed endless adoration, wealth, fame and happiness – or our money back!

The Book of Acts has a great deal of advice for such contemporary window-shopping. Its message provides an alternative and a valuable remedy for those who have tragically fallen headlong through the depersonalized windowpanes of secularity. While it’s first 19 chapters generally illustrate the key characteristics of the early Christian community as spirit, unity, and philanthropy, the 20^th Chapter of Acts powerfully reveals the more specific nature of the Church. It is not so much a fixed location . . . as an intimate relationship with the Sacred . . . the Resurrected Lord Himself!

 

What then does Acts 20:10 have to say to the Year 2010? What wise counsel for the New Year can be discerned from an unusual biblical pericope concerning a young man’s fall from a three-story window? Apart from describing the first liturgical gathering of the apostolic community, the 10^th verse of the 20^th chapter of the Book of Acts provides an important framework for Orthodox Christians preparing to pass through the window-break of New Year resolutions.

 

Acts 20:10 is the climactic verse of a liturgical story of mixed incongruity. While on his way to Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Pentecost, Saint Paul is described as having stopped off at the Turkish town of Ephesus. Since it was Sunday, he prepared to celebrate the Eucharist at the place where the local Christian community normally gathered . . . a large room on the third floor of a house. It is here, that a young adult named Eutychus, whose name literally means "well-favored," “blessed,” or “lucky,” fell asleep while sitting on the precarious edge of a windowpane. As Paul’s long sermon lingered, Eutychus fell asleep and tragically tumbled to the pavement below.  The young adult may have been tired and fatigued from the previous day’s toil. Perhaps he was distracted, lulled to sleep by the sights and sound emanating from the nightlife outside. In many ways Eutychus represents the minds, hearts and bodies of all young worshipers throughout the ages who struggle at the outermost border of contending visions.

 

One might say that Eutychus was “unlucky” to have chosen to window-shop in such a fashion. He was "fortunate" however, to the extent that he had a loving, wise and concerned Church leader, the Apostle Paul, nearby. By imitating the Old Testament action of Elijah and Elisha (1 Kings 17:21, 2 Kings 4:34) who resuscitated lifeless children by stretching out their bodies on them, Saint Paul was able to similarly resurrect young Eutychus from the dead! Significantly, both returned upstairs, and resumed their worship of God “until daybreak” (Acts 20:11)!

 

What does this life-restoring story have to say to young window-shoppers of 2010? Is it a warning against sleeping during church . . . or preaching too long? Is it a note of comfort to long-winded and boring preachers that the Spirit will rescue if we harm one of God’s flock with our words? On the contrary, Saint John Chrysostom upholds the story of Eutychus as a life-style model for young adult Christians. While some may stay up into the night for the purposes of entertainment, drunkenness or immorality, Chrysostom insists that Eutychus stayed up because he desired to be spiritually discerning, moral and brave. Rather than seek secular entertainment at late-night parties Eutychus chose to listen to the gospel message of Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, suggests Chrysostom, as Paul continued his homily “the Devil disturbed the feast . . . by plunging the hearer in sleep, and causing him to fall down.”

 

Perched on the windowsills of life, the contemporary Orthodox Christian is likewise sandwiched between two competing worldviews – the Church and secularism. While physically present and frequently attentive to the essential messages of Orthodoxy, young adult professionals are nonetheless, in danger of losing interest, nodding off and, like Eutychus, falling headlong into the concrete lap of a beckoning post-modernism. What can be done to effectively guard against the occurrence of such ill-fated calamities?

 

To safely enter the second decade of the third millennium, the Orthodox Church should diligently aspire to help its young adults cultivate their ability to appraise truth from deceit by nurturing their spiritual intellect and moral character. In his most recent book, Five Minds for the Future (2006), Harvard professor Howard Gardner describes five ways of thinking and acting that are essential if individuals are to develop the requisites for effectively engaging an ever-changing future society. While three are related to the intellect: (a) disciplined, (b) synthesizing, and (c) creative minds; two emphasize character: (a) respectful, and (b) ethical minds.

 

Gardner is one of many distinguished educators and cognitive researchers that insist that the next decade will require American citizens to demonstrate "out-of the box," non-linear, and creative thinking to solve increasingly complex challenges. Social scientists warn that only individuals with interdisciplinary expertise and enhanced inner discernment will be able to successfully resolve real world problems with their interrelated moral dilemmas. As a result, Orthodoxy has been provided a wonderful opportunity to share her wisdom, as the Apostolic Church has always refrained from over-emphasizing one-dimensional thinking. Reflecting a scriptural perspective, the patristic witness has alternately promoted the cultivation of the “mind of Christ,” a balance of cognitive, moral and spiritual competencies.

 

The cognitive capacity of Orthodox young adults should be cultivated to accept and comprehend pertinent information about Church History, Scripture and the Sacraments (the disciplined mind). The next decade, however, will require them to likewise nurture the capability of sorting and wisely appraising the value, importance and truth of massive amounts of opinions that will most certainly compete for their acquiescence (the synthesizing mind). In order for such judicious review to occur, however, Orthodox Christians will have to develop rich and robust window-shopping theological filters. Only those who have been guided to develop such an Orthodox-framed synthesizing mind will be capable of effectively engaging information in such a sensible fashion.

 

The next decade will further reveal the life-transforming truth that self-definition should not be equated to career choice. Our identities, as persons formed in the image and likeness of God, should not be reduced by self-serving philosophies of individualism into the sum total of occupational résumés and professional vitaes! On the contrary, Orthodox young adults must be strengthened to disallow their precious humanity to be scaled by the hollow weights of functionalism and moral relativity! Once they have mastered and synthesized the knowledge and discipline of their respective secular careers with the worldview of their Orthodox Faith, they must then be prepared to “think outside” of strict occupational boxes (the creative mind). Herein lies the Church’s greatest offering, for God-inspired creativity is the hallmark of Orthodox Christianity! In the final analysis, it is the Sacramental Grace of God that empowers inspiration, meaningful innovation and lasting creativity. Only in this fashion can work retain its ontological liturgical character and avoid regressing into self-distorting meaningless toil!

 

Gardner’s two additional “minds” cultivate personal character. If we honestly desire to guard young adult faithful from spiritual slumber, Orthodox leaders must recognize the importance of establishing pastoral strategies that will help them develop the capacity for personal and interpersonal reverence (the respectful mind). Young adult professionals must learn how to distinguish between real respect and “politically-correct” tolerance. Cultivating such respect, however, does not mean a juvenile abdication of core truths. On the contrary! All perspectives must be respected, but they must not all be understood as equally valid. Consequently, while the development of a respectful mind is a worthy and essential goal in a world where diversity of perspectives is a fact of life, true holiness insists on honest assessment and truth.

 

It is significant that advertisers utilize the windows of broadcast television and the Internet to lecture insomniacs on how to make millions of dollars in real estate, change their careers, predict the future, speak a new language and cook perfect burgers. At the same time, the world begins to nod off when the length of the Sunday sermon exceeds the customary ten-minute mark! The story of Eutychus, however, must be preached in its fullness as it illustrates the gospel in miniature. Consequently, Acts 20:10 has much to say to the Year 2010 for it illustrates that faith in Jesus Christ leads to life. Its message brings hope to a continually fragmented and daydreaming world. The “good-news” is whenever humanity dozes and drops from the ledges of an inauthentic life; God does not simply look down from heaven’s window and lament our self-destructive preoccupations. Rather, He continually stretches out the Grace of His Son’s Bloodied Body on our own, and through the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, restores us to True Life. This is the eternal window of Love . . . the blessed Icon through which all of our New Year resolutions and visions should pass. I can think of no more valuable message for the next decade of window-shoppers! May our New Year be so blessed . . . so “Eutychus!”