When the Homily is about Immunology

Fitting your lifestyle

Some non-denom mega church advertises on numerous local radio stations with a hip commercial that notes that they offer features that "fit your life and lifestyle" and an overall ability to "empower people to succeed in every sphere of life."

Whenever I am blessed to hear this ad I can't help cringing a little. Now I understand the need to have your church "appeal" to you, and I'd be dishonest in denying that ultimately the Orthodox Church had a huge amount of appeal to me, but I could not honestly say that Orthodoxy "fits my life and lifestyle." Rather the opposite I would say...ask me again in a few weeks when I'll likely find it even less fitting with my normally meat ridden lifestyle.

Isn't it backwards, in a way? I mean, isn't the Church supposed to CHANGE our life and lifestyle? This was always my complaint during my brief circuit in a similar church: not a lot of change, just a lot of feeling good about ourselves. Not a bad thing in and of itself, but the last thing we need - I think - is to feel "empowered to succeed in every sphere of life." It begs the question: What does it mean to succeed?

When I heard such sermons and exhortations in my past, I kept thinking about all the apostles and early church fathers who I was just beginning to read about: most of them died horrible deaths and is that what we mean by success? Isn't it the job of the church to REDEFINE what we popularly understand "success" to be?

Now before this begins to seem overly critical of my non-Orthodox friends, stop and think, my Orthodox brothers and sisters: Are you seeing your life and lifestyle changed? Do you feel that your understanding of success is conformed to the image of Christ? Are you allowing yourself to be empowered for that success?

Me? Not as I should. Thus, instead of cringing at the error I hear in the spirit of that commercial, I shall cringe at my generally ignoring the treausre of tools sitting dusty beside me.