Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“Know that we must serve, not the times, but God” (St. Athanasius the Great).
This sage counsel comes to us from St. Athanasius the Great, whom you might remember, was a fierce and stalwart defender of the Orthodox Faith in the face of a very determined and pernicious Arianism – a heresy that made our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ out to be a creature rather than the eternally begotten Son of God, as we confess in the Nicene Creed – “the only-begotten, begotten of the Father before all ages: Light of Light, true God of true God; begotten, not made; of one essence with the Father; by Whom all things were made.” Athanasius’ wise words are 17 centuries old! That’s 1700 years! And yet, they are stunningly and remarkably contemporary, confirming in my mind the adage: “Ever ancient, ever new.” Wisdom much needed then, if not even moreso today! They have been rattling around inside of me ever since I read them Saturday, a week ago: “Know that we must serve, not the times, but God.”
It is easy – as it has always been – to fall prey to the Zeitgeist, that is, to the pervading “spirit of the times or of the age.” We see this throughout the life of the Church when fad and fancy versus the Faith once and for all delivered to the saints (Ju. 1:3). We see this as well when sectarian groups get hooked on and hone-in on one point or aspect of the Faith to the near exclusion of the whole, such as when certain sectarians pit faith against works or Law against Grace, love and mercy against the Judgment.
We see this in today’s Epistle from Galatians. In fact, the whole Epistle is written to address the Judaizers who have been plaguing the Apostle incessantly to the point that the contention between them and St. Paul is sharp and biting, to put it mildly. The Judaizers insisted on circumcision as necessary for salvation, perverting the Gospel (Ga. 1:7). Indeed, even preaching a foreign gospel than that of the apostolic Gospel. Thus, let these perverters of the Gospel be anathematized or accursed, the Apostle says (Ga. 1:8-9)! Strong language indeed! Their influence proved to be powerful and seductive, intimidating to those souls seeking Jesus Christ, even to the extent of persuading St. Peter at one point whom St. Paul says he had to withstand to his face (Ga. 2:11)!
These Judaizers slandered St. Paul terribly, despite his being blameless in the Law as a Jew. At one time, he fiercely targeted and attacked the Church viciously and unmercifully with the sole aim of her destruction, that is, until our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ encountered this zealous but highly misguided soul on the Road to Damascus where Paul “saw the light.” He who had been the apple in the eye of the Judaizers now had become their bane by his conversion to Jesus the Messiah Whom he had one persecuted. These Judaizers, then, followed the Apostle about trying to hinder his ministry wherever he went, dogging his every step, sowing weeds of dissension and discord with their false doctrine among the wheat (Mt. 13:24-30, 36-43). So upset by how their false gospel was turning the Galatians away from the apostolic Gospel that Paul minces no words concerning what he thinks. “I could wish that those who trouble you,” he declares, “would even cut themselves off [i.e., castrate themselves]!” In today’s lection, the Apostle lays down the gauntlet and puts to rest this bitter controversy. “From now on let no one trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.” “You Judaizers revel in circumcision? I’ll see your circumcision and raise you the very marks in my flesh received from my persecution for the sake of Jesus and His Cross! Show me that as evidence of your love and proof of apostleship!”
For Paul, it wasn’t just the Judaizing doctrine of circumcision, as distorted as it was, but it was their avoidance of persecution for the sake of Christ and His Cross. These Judaizers preached circumcision, he charges, so that they could avoid being persecuted for the Messiah’s Cross by their fellow Judaizers. In other words, they succumbed to “the spirit of the times.” They served the times rather than God. Paul had no place for those who would distort and pervert the saving Gospel – the Truth – because they want to save their hides and somehow fit in and appear acceptable in the eyes of the culture about them. Truth be told, it is easier to be a Christian when you live within a culture that supports the Faith of the Church or, at least, supports your right to hold such faith. It is a very different story, however, when the Faith and morals of the Church go against the cultural grain and that culture views you as a threat to it. This isn’t something unheard of by the Church. In the early days of the Church – if not throughout her two millennia – she has always been falsely accused of untrue things, especially of being “atheists” because of our adamant refusal to fall down at the altars of pagan cultural gods!
We see this poignantly in today’s world. Because of our ancient Faith and morals, and our rejection of the gods of this world that call light darkness, evil good, men women and women men, and that introduce confusion and chaos where none existed beforehand (Is. 5:18-23), we are falsely tagged by the “spirit of this age” as “homophobic,” “transaphobic,” “unsophisticated and irrational,” “unyielding bigots,” “racists,” “behind the times,” “benighted fools,” and other vicious monikers. It hasn’t happened over night, mind you, but has instead come about ever so subtly and seductively as we accepted the world’s interpretation of the divine revelation rather than that which we have received, as though somehow Truth is in flux or what we make it to be. With each passing fancy and fad of the world, the mainline churches of this country that once dominated the religious landscape and wielded heavy cultural influence, accommodated themselves to the Zeitgeist and assimilated it so that the historic Gospel once believed became distorted, if not perverted, thus earning the Apostle’s righteous indignation and chastisement, “[I]f we, or an angel from Heaven, preach any other gospel . . . than what we have preached . . ., let him be accursed [anathematized]” (Ga. 1:8-9). If we seek to become man-pleasers instead of pleasing God, then we are no longer slaves and servants of the divine Master Whose Cross is our mark and Whose Passion is our salvation (Ga. 1:10; Hb. 11:23-31).
When you are a minority voice in a vast sea of dissonant, seemingly majority, voices each pushing their twisted version of Jesus, it is sometimes difficult to stay the course or to believe that what this Jesus delivered to us, Whom we have received in the Mystery of Holy Baptism (Ga. 3:26-29), is still “the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hb. 13:8) and that He remains yesterday, today, and forever “’the Way, the Truth, and the Life’” (Jn. 14:6). Sometimes it is easier, though not right, to “go along in order to get along,” instead of “speaking the Truth in love” to the powers that be (Ep. 4:15). It should not surprise us that when we seek the Kingdom of God first and foremost above all other things that the “spirit of the age” – the kingdom of this world – reacts, pushing back against us. It will seek to isolate us from the rest of humanity by demonizing – and thus de-humanizing – the Church, calling us “reactionaries and extremists,” “intolerant and uncompassionate,” favorite labels of the world imposed when it doesn’t know how to dialog with the Truth.
But, beloved in the Lord, we are to take heart because “He Who is in [us] is greater than he who is in the world.” “You are of God, little children, and have overcome [the world]” (1 Jn. 4:4). This is what St. John the Theologian wrote to the Church confronted with the same spirit of the Antichrist which he says is already in the world working (1 Jn. 4:3). When you look like the world, when you sound like the world, when you smell like the world, the world thinks you are of it. Because the Church, slain with modernity, has long sought not to offend but to blend in, the world is glad to hear from this Church, not for its salvation but to reinforce the comfortability of its error and darkness (1 Jn. 4:5, 6). This is as our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ has taught us. Despite the reality of God’s love poured out “for the life of the world and for its salvation” (Prothesis) on the Cross, the world, however, prefers its darkness to the Light of the God Who dwells in unapproachable Glory and refuses to come to this God lest that darkness be exposed, and their deeds be judged by the Light of God (Jn. 3:15-21; 8:12; 12:35-36; 1 Tm. 6:16).
Beloved in the Lord, in these days, let us renew our efforts to be well grounded in the Faith and morals of the Apostles, to re-familiarize ourselves with the Truth espoused in the Sacred Tradition, especially her Sacred Scriptures. Not only can we or should we return to Sacred Scripture (not apart from the Church, however), but we can trust even those who have faithfully and obediently delivered to us this saving and sanctifying apostolic Truth because they have earned our trust by their marks of Jesus in the flesh. This is what St. Paul tells Timothy. Timothy has known from childhood the Sacred Scriptures, Paul assures him, and he has received the Truth from certain others who have proven their love for and devotion to Jesus and the Word of God: the Apostle Paul himself; Timothy’s grandmother, Lois; and his mother, Eunice (2 Tm. 1:5; 3:10-17). These have embodied the saving and sanctifying Truth of Jesus handed down to them which Timothy can trust.
Beloved, let us likewise call to mind those souls sent to us by God who have given us birth in the Faith of the saints once delivered and how they sought by the grace of God to be conformed, not to the world, but to the likeness and image of the Son of God. For these souls esteemed the reproach of Christ greater than the world’s treasures, looking to their heavenly reward (Hb. 11:26). Let us draw closer to God and He will draw closer to us, St. James assures us (Jm. 4:7-10). Let us do this with prayer and fasting, and with a renewed zeal and commitment to worship our God in the midst of His Church with thanksgiving. And, “let us commend ourselves, each other, and all our life unto Christ our God.” Because this we know – and this is the value of our soul and her salvation (Mt. 16:25-26; Mk. 8:35-37; Lk. 9:24-25): “we must serve, not the times, but God.”
Through the prayers of our holy Fathers, O Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us. Amen.
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!

PROPERS:

Ga. 6:11-18
Lk. 8:41-56