Homily

I remember a flyer that some of you who live in North Eugene found in your mail boxes some years ago. This flyer announced the establishment of a new Protestant church in that area. Printed on the front of these ads, bold letters, "We hate church!" Their idea was to show that they know you've been turned off by churches in the past, but they are different because they are not like those churches you went to, which you hate. They were cooler, hipper, more casual, an easy kind of church. The flyer said, "Short services," because who wants to spend much time worshipping God? "Dynamic music," because what's wrong with being entertained at church, especially when we spend so much time trying to entertain ourselves outside of church? "Great programs for the kids," because why would you want to worship the Lord together as a family? It's churchy, it's religious sounding, but is it worship or just secularism with a Christian label? Because it's not about God, it's all about us. Hospodi pomiluy!

The theologian Fr. Alexander Schmemann talks about two extreme ways of viewing Christian life. On the one hand, you have people who talk about the “spiritual life” in the sense that it is a life that is supposed to exist above, beyond, and apart from the normal course of life in this world. The other extreme is thinking that Christian life is all about action in the world, where prayer, silence, and worship get in the way of making this world a better place for everyone. It is obvious that it is our duty to care for the needs of the poor and sick, such as Lazarus. But that can’t be the main job of Christians, or else the poor and sick cannot be Christians because they can’t take care of the poor and the sick!

Fr. Alexander describes secularism, which basically is the idea of focusing on this world, not some supernatural reality. Secularism is not the same as atheism, because many secularists believe in God. But secularists do not worship God, and therefore, Father says, they cannot fulfill one of the most basic and most human of needs, the need to be in communion with God. We sing in the Liturgy, “It is proper and just to worship the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit…” We sing those words because they are true. It is proper and just to worship God because we were made for Him.

So, Father Alexander says for those who believe that Christianity is basically about this world and trying to make it a better place to live, when we worship it seems only right to bend that worship to serve the secular age we live in, and to adopt its perspective, because if we do not we will be considered irrelevant as believers. He writes,

“If the proponents of what basically is nothing else but the Christian acceptance of secularism are right, then of course our whole problem is only that of finding or inventing a worship more acceptable, more 'relevant' to the modern man's secular world view. And such indeed is the direction taken today by the great majority of liturgical reformers. What they seek is worship whose forms and content would 'reflect' the needs and aspirations of the secular man….”

He wrote this in 1971, and if we look at Christianity in general, we can see how true these words have become. It's a very, very popular approach today for churches to ask, "What will bring people in? What do they like, what do they want, what will attract them?" And those questions seem very reasonable don't they? How can you give them the Gospel unless you get them in the door and create an atmosphere that people will enjoy? But Fr. Alexander is right when he claims that this way of thinking is all focused on us, and certainly not on the worship of God, so who then are we worshipping? Or is this style of Christianity simply an exercise in therapy? It makes us feel better about ourselves, and then it becomes all about us, just like the flyer advertising the new church in Eugene.

When we look at the New Testament we don’t find the Church looking for ways in which believers could pray, and live in ways that are attractive and entertaining and fit into the lifestyles of busy Christians. Christian life and worship do not start with what the people want, but rather they start with God. God Who so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son Who suffered, died and rose from the dead so that we might be able to share in His own divine life. So that we might live not according to our lowly hopes, but to live in the hope of all that the Father has promised us. So that we are not tempted to believe that the lives that have been given to us are meant to be lived according to our daily desires, but rather according to the truth of Christ. When we hear His word, and when we are nourished by His Body and Blood, what else can we say but,

“May our lips be filled with your praise, O Lord, so that we may sing of Your glory… Keep us in Your holiness, so that all the day long we may live according to Your truth.”

As time goes on, we find fewer and fewer people worshipping the Lord. It should not surprise us that when people do not make this most fundamental connection with their God things start to go wrong and lives become disordered according to the desires of every individual. I think of the rioters in Portland and wonder how many of them worship God. I wonder about their need to meet together daily, in their church of the street, to create division and destruction together. If we do not come before the altar of the Lord, we will find another altar to take its place, and it is most unlikely that those altars we choose will bring us to lives of virtue and peace. It is more likely they will lead us into the danger of self-satisfaction and sin, rather than to a genuine humanity.

My friends this time here is so important. The Liturgy instructs us to come and worship and bow before Christ, that He might save us who sing to Him. That He might save us for Himself, save us from ourselves, save us for life and not death, for virtue and not sin, for faith and not for self-confidence. We are distracted so very easily, but let us do our best to focus on the Lord while we are here. Let us do our best to worship Him in petition, thanks, and praise. We were made to connect with God in worship, and it is only when we live in that great vocation that we find what so many people are chasing after today – only in worshipping God can we find that sublime satisfaction for our souls.