His Eminence Metropolitan SABA Archbishop of New York and Metropolitan of All North America, His Grace Bishop Alexander
Pastor: Fr John Vazquez | (518) 462-0579 | fatherjohnvazquez@gmail.com | stgeorgealbany.org | 1 St George's Pl Albany, NY
Office Hours: Mon/Fri 10am-5pm | Confessions: After weekly services (Wed, Fri, Sat, Sun) or by appointment
Wednesday, November 20th—6pm—Great Vespers w/Litia and Artoklasia for the Great Feast of the Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple
Thursday, November 21st—8am—Orthros and Divine Liturgy for the Great Feast of the Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple
Friday, November 22nd—8am—Orthros
Saturday, November 23rd—5pm—Great Vespers with Bible Study to follow
Sunday, November 24th—9am—Orthros and Divine Liturgy
Monday, November 25th—8:15am—Coffee with the Fathers at Alias Coffee on North Pearl St in Albany.
FR JOHN OUT OF TOWN FOR THANKSGIVING—Wednesday the 27th through Monday the 2nd—CONTACT FR EMMANUEL MANTZOURIS AT ST BASIL'S IN TROY IN CASE OF EMERGENCY (508) 573-1884
Fr Paul Fedoroff serving Orthros and Divine Liturgy on Sunday December 1st
DECEMBER 5TH 6PM—VESPERAL LITURGY AT ST NICHOLAS COHOES FOR THE FEAST OF ST NICHOLAS
DECEMBER 7TH—NATIVITY RETREAT ON PRAYER—SIGN UP HERE
Sermon 11.17.24—Gal 2.16-20
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit—one God—Amen!
When I was planning baseball I had a friend who I met who was a fellow Christian. We would talk about our faith and try to encourage each other. Well, one year when I came back to spring training, he shared that he had been doing some things that he knew he shouldn’t but that he “knew where he stood with Christ” in other words that there was nothing to worry about because he was secure…
Beloved, if this is what we think faith is we are in big trouble. If we think we simply need faith and nothing else—that what we do doesn’t matter we are greatly mistaken.
No where in the bible does it say that we are saved by faith alone. And anyone who reads the scriptures closely will understand that faith is a certain kind of life lived—that it involves doing things
Faith without works is dead as St James tells us in his epistle.
But there is another side to this coin too.
We cannot make good works into an idol. We cannot make keeping the rules more important that having a relationship with he rule giver.
We just heard from Paul that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by Faith in Jesus Christ and also for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified.
So what does this mean? How are we to understand this mystery of faith? That what we do matters and demonstrates our faith but at the same time we cannot make what we do into and idol and pretend that our salvation lies in that.
A good and holy thing—the Law, meant to point the Jews toward Christ—had become an idol. The law had become their salvation.
What law?—the law of Moses given by God on Mt Sinai to Moses.
The Jews had taken this good thing and made it into an idol
They had made it their salvation.
So we can error in these two ways…
Like my friend, who unfortunately thought that faith was limited to simply a mental belief or like the Jews who thought that keeping the law would save them.
Today I want to talk only about this one side of the coin—about setting up idols in our lives.
Idols—even if they are good (work, children, church, family)—get in the way of our relationship with God. Or perhaps more precisely they, are substituted for our relationship with God.
And if we allow something to get in the way of our saving relationship with God we wont be saved, even with good intentions.
Think about it.
Are there things in your life that come before your relationship with God?
Work? Family? Money? Children? Sports? Health?
Well, look at your life.
Look at the rhythms, look at your habits, look at your priorities
What do they show you?
Do you they show you that no matter what you make an effort to be with God every day in silence and prayer.
Do they show you that no matter what you make an effort to be in God’s house—the Holy Church—to worship every week?
Do they show you that no matter what you make a point keep God’s commandments so that you can show your love?
We want to get to the point that we can say like Paul—it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.
Do our habits and rhythms bear witness to the fact that we are moving in this direction?
What does this look like to say our lives are moving towards state of having God dwell within us?
It means that we remove the idols from our hearts—those things keeping us from a true relationship with God—and we drink the cup that our Lord has drunk and that we are baptized with the baptism that He was baptized with.
How do we remove these idols?…
One way is that we embrace suffering…
The cup and baptism that our Lord speaks of are His suffering and death.
So often we want the Resurrection without the cross
We want the joy without the hardship
The money without the work
And this is why we have idols—so that we can get what we want…
But our life with Christ is not about getting what we want its about dying…
Its about dying with Him.
It turns out that if we call ourselves Christians then, when we reject suffering in our lives we are rejecting, we are pushing away our own salvation.
God help us.
Let this never be the case that we push away our own salvation.
How can we ensure that we dont do this?
One way we can ensure that we don’t do this is through being thankful
One of the things that Khouriyeh does is keep a gratitude journal where she writes what she is thankful for every day
Getting into this habit of gratitude will help us to embrace our suffering
Are you suffering with illness? Give thanks and receive the health of your soul
Are you plagued by a difficult person? Give thanks for the opportunity to fulfill the command to love your enemy
Are you plagued with pain of loss or ridicule? Give thanks and remember that nothing is lost in Christ.
Are you beset with financial troubles? Give thanks and remember that Christ is that treasure for which we sell all that we have.
And when we do this we transform these painful experiences.
They are transformed into an opportunity for communion with God
This is what we do during the Liturgy—we call the Holy Spirit down upon bread and wine and these common, mundane things are transformed—along with us—into the body and blood and Christ.
I will say it in just a few minutes
Send down Thy Holy Spirit upon us and upon these gifts here spread forth
So the life of Thanksgiving—Eucharistia—is transformative
And we saw today in the gospel that the man was not grateful but greedy…
Perhaps he was grateful for a moment…for the great abundance but then his mind turned to what he could do to keep and hoard. I will pull down my barns and build bigger ones.
At its core thanksgiving—eucharistia—is to be shared.
This is why another name for what we do when we partake of the Holy Eucharist is Communion.
We share communion with each other
So my brothers and sisters take care to not set up idols in your life that get in the way of your saving relationship with Christ our Lord.
For these idols—which may very well be good things—separate us from union with God They keep us from having God dwell within us which is paradise itself.
Through the the intercessions of the Theotokos and the Great Martyr George our patron may Christ our God together with his Unbegotten Father and the All Holy and Good and Life Giving spirit have mercy on us and save us. Amen.
