Wednesday, August 25, 2004
Apostles Titos of the Seventy and Bartholomew
Kellia: Joshua 8:14-29 Epistle: 2 Corinthians 9:12-10:7 Gospel: St. Mark 3:20-27
Joshua 8:14-29, especially vs. 18: "And the Lord said to Joshua,
Stretch forth thy hand with the spear that is in thy hand toward the city, for I have delivered it
into thy hands, and the liers in wait shall rise up quickly out of their place." To return to a
problem, a place, and a circumstance where one has tasted bitter defeat, as Israel did at Ai, is not
usually a bright prospect. Nevertheless, returns may be transformed into a spiritual gain if one is
open to learning from failure. The truth is that return to a lost opportunity can yield spiritual
victory if humility is learned along the way. St. Nikolai of Zica observes that "The first exercise
for a recruit in Christ's army is practice in obedience and humility."
After their first foray against Ai, Israel was brought to a severe humiliation. The death of thirty-six good fighting men and the flight of an able military force before the enemy faced God's
People with the cost of acting arrogantly apart from the commanding leadership of God. In going
back to Ai, God gave Israel an opportunity to grow beyond humiliation into true humility. Every
disciple of the Lord needs to realize that growth in the virtue of humility means ridding oneself of
the negative spiritual opposite of pride. Thus does one acquire all God-pleasing virtues.
Humiliation and humility are not the same thing, although they are based on the same semantic
root - humus, earth. The defeat at Ai provides examples of the difference. The thirty six who fell
before the pagan defenders of Ai plainly constituted humiliation for Israel, a bringing down to the
earth, for God's People. Up to that time the People had been victorious. Recall Israel's joyous
psalmody which sings of her earlier victories, praising the Lord, for the "horse and rider...He
hurled into the sea" (Ex. 15:1) and thanking "Him that smote great kings" (Ps. 135:17). Just
before Ai, Israel had experienced the miraculous collapse of the walls of Jericho, the taking of
that fortress, and its offering as a holocaust. Then came defeat and humiliation.
Undoubtedly, one may trace back to pride as the sinful element, the passion, that led to the
People's defeat on the heels of the Jericho victory. The clue that pride was their undoing can be
seen in the thoughtlessness to approach an enemy without seeking the Lord's will. Even the soul
of Joshua the Prophet was puffed up by the tide of victories. He sent spies to Ai without ever
seeking the Lord's will and wisdom (Josh. 7:2), and, worse, he deployed a contingent of three
thousand on the opinion of his spies, who were mere men, after all. Humiliation followed
swiftly, "the heart of the people was alarmed and became as water" (Josh. 7:5).
That Joshua and Israel then humbled themselves is evident in their response to the defeat at Ai.
He and the elders of the People "fell on the earth...before the Lord until evening...and they cast
dust on their heads" (Josh. 7:6) Earth, in this instance, served as a sign that God's People had
owned in their hearts the sin of pride and had returned to the Lord in life-giving humility.
Today's reading shows the strength in humility, for having sought, received, and followed the
Lord's plan; and having made good their humility in obedience, they were able to execute a
tactical ruse and defeat their enemies (Josh. 8:14-25). Then, to encourage them in their growth in
humility, the Lord gave them "all things which the children of Israel took as spoil for themselves
according to the command of the Lord, as the Lord commanded Joshua" (vs. 8:27). Hear St.
John of the Ladder: "The beginning of the mortification of both the soul's desire and of the
bodily members is much hard work.....Only when [the disciple] sees himself doing his own will
does this blessed living corpse feel sorry and sick at heart...of using his own judgment."
O Thou Who resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble, enable us to humble ourselves
under Thy mighty hand, to be clothed with humility, casting all our care upon Thee.
