Sunday Sermon

 

St. James says, "Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God."

At enmity with God, what a terrifying position to be in, and isn't that where we are now as a nation. For example, how many billions of dollars were made in profit over 30 years of war, which we curiously didn't win, and how much of that money was spent on the love of God and neighbor? None, to speak of. On the contrary, the cash flowed into the pockets of our rulers and their puppets, making them even richer than they were already.

Again, can you imagine any country claiming with any legitimacy that they worship God when they subsidize abortion to the tune of over $600 million annually. That's almost $2 million dollars a day, to kill children in the womb of a mother. A country which does that doesn't worship God, it worships some other thing.

I'll cut to the chase. America, to say nothing of any other country, Anglosphere, we're looking at you, has become worldly. We've become, as a nation, friends of the world, and people who love the world do all in their power to possess as much of the object of their desire as they can.

Thus, driven by prideful greed and vainglorious ambition, the worldly heap up for themselves money, possessions, power, and influence. After all, what's the point of all that cash when you can't fly your private jet to Davos and scheme the greater imposition of your will upon others. And the result?

James is clear. Discord, fighting, division, killing, and every kind of "vile practice." Is that not us, as a country, right now? I'll spare you the examples, all you have to do is throw a dart at the internet and pull out a story. But suffice to say, America's at enmity with God. 

The worldly, who rule and influence us, promote pride instead of humility, hatred instead of love, disbelief instead of faith, division instead of peace, death instead of life, and iniquity instead of righteousness. They are, when we pause to reflect, against the qualities which Christ revealed to us on the Cross.

They hate that, they're opposed to it, and mock, deride and blaspheme it, they are enemies of God. What a terrible position to be in, not least on account of its telos or end. Writing to the Philippians, St. Paul describes their character and fate, "They are enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction. Their god is the belly and they glory in their shame."

St. James is no less fierce, "Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire."

The end of the way of the cross is paradoxically very different. As Christ teaches his uncomprehending disciples on the way to Capernaum, “The Son of man will be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him; and when he is killed, after three days he will rise.” 

He will rise, triumphant over Hell and death.

The way of humility, faith, love and righteousness is the way of life, the way of the Cross. Choose that and live by the grace of God.

Here Endeth the Lesson,

LSP

PS. Do you not think "Friends of The World" sounds like a Soros funded NGO? Just sayn.