A beautiful quote from Abouna Maxym's article on Serving Through Outreach which calls attention to authentic expression of Orthodoxy and of living in and participating in the Divine Life of Christ. Again the theme is being not just doing, being Christian and not artificially implementing a 'Christian' worldview, genre, philosophy, programme, ethic or activity.
"The first thing that must be said about acquiring this spirit of service is that it will not happen by simply reading about Christ’s acts of service in the Gospel and trying, with no preparation, to imitate Him. The fact of the matter is that the Lord did not simply perform acts of service; rather, His deeds of love flowed naturally from His gracious character. His deeds reveal His identity. If we try to analyze the activity of Christ in the Gospel with a view to implementing a programme of Christ-like service to others, we will fail. Acts of service that do not have their origin in a gracious character are not credible and are often undertaken for the wrong reasons. Unfortunately, the wounded human heart is capable of sin even in performing good deeds if it is not being purified, enlightened and strengthened by the Holy Spirit. We come face to face with a fundamental problem: we cannot act as Christ acts through observation and implementation alone. We cannot acquire the spirit of service as we would a skill or a discipline. We must instead receive Christ’s life and then struggle to allow His character to emerge in us. This is why the Orthodox Church carefully distinguishes between the imitation of Christ and the life in Christ. The former allows us to learn about Christianity; the latter allows us to become Christians."
+ Very Rev. Maxym Lysack, Serving Through Outreach
Also check out Fr Maxym's talk entitled "Orthodoxy and the World."
