In Christ, God is faithfully always Yes, not Yes and No, always Amen, always glory to God (2 Cor 1: 18-20). The promises of God in Christ are faithful and true, always Yes, not yes and no, always Amen, ‘so be it,’ ‘thus so,’ always giving ‘glory to God.’ This indivisible Yes springs from the very heart of God into the heart of God’s saints, uniting them with God’s Yes in the heart of Christ, which is the Yes in the heart of God the Holy Trinity. This Yes, this Amen, is the Yes of glory, the Yes of glorification of God, the Yes of glorification by God. Living this Yes is quintessential glorification, quintessential Christian Orthodoxy, quintessential holiness, quintessential catholicity. Catholicity accords with this wholeness because the uncreated holon is always God’s Yes, quintessential catholicity.
Indivisible Yes-ness is timeless Yes-ness, the Amen of the age to come, the Amen of glory which is God’s unceasing prayer. Always Yes, it expresses the unceasing prayer of the Holy Spirit in Christ, restoring glory to the Father. Always Yes, it remembers the Yes of Christ in the Eucharist, which precedes the yes and no of schism, anti-ceding the no of heresy which leads to schism and the no of division that separates Christians. Always Yes, it remembers the Yes of the Holy Name, the Yes of ‘I AM’ revealed by God the Holy Trinity. Always Yes, it is the Yes of the Cross, the Yes of divine love, the Yes of deifying at-onement that embraces the whole world. Paul mentions Sivanus as well as Timothy when he speaks of this Yes, of the Yes that always frees from yes and no (2 Cor 1:19), so this Yes is also the legacy of Silvanus or Silouanos, in every age.
The Amen of glory arises from the Yes of Christ in the Eucharist, in the Holy Name of God, in the Cross of boundless love and in the Gospel of the glory of grace. When there is uncertainty of mind so that thoughts waver between yes and no, the Amen of glory re-minds the mind with the integral mind of Christ, which is always Yes. This is metanoia, which restores the wavering mind to the mind of Christ, which is always Yes. This is theoria, which contemplates the Yes in the uncreated light of Yes, beholding the glory of Yes, extinguishing the no of satan, the no of schism and the no of hell. This is the Yes of theosis, deification, which unites every yes and no into the Great Yes, the Great Amen of glory. God’s ultimate Yes is the Great Peace, which completes temporal incompleteness with the glory of God’s Great Completeness, extinguishing every no with God’s ultimate no, which is his Great Yes, eschatologically excluding every no.
Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee