26th Sunday after Pentecost

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. So when we hear the Epistles of St. Paul, we certainly hear in many of the Epistles very powerful warnings and very powerful understandings of the dangers around him and of course around the people. And so today’s epistle from Ephesians is one of these epistles that points out the dangers of their time, and I think we can easily see through the eyes of St. Paul the dangers of our own time. And you know, as a priest and person who delivers words of encouragement, hopefully sometimes—most of the time—and other times perhaps even warning, it’s actually a very difficult task. Because it’s very important for us to trust in our Lord and to believe that He’s going to help us and to pray and lead spiritual lives that will cause Him to bless us and to surround us. However, it’s also true that there are difficulties at times that are such that there is real danger. And it’s very, very complicated because if, for example, you were on the beach and a big wave came in and took a child from you, you would probably, if you had some strength anyway, you would go after that child. You would put out of your mind any of the dangers of yourself being taken away by the current, and you would run for the child and try to rescue them. And I think this is a very beautiful thing about human nature—that when we see these dangers that come to our loved ones, we have this ability to abandon all common sense, as it were, and go and try to resolve the problem, to save the child. And I think St. Paul, his difficulties were a little bit different than ours, but we certainly have difficulties.

So he begins in Ephesians, “Be imitators of God as dear children and walk in love as Christ has loved us and has given Himself for us as an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.” And the sweet-smelling aroma, of course, is the awareness of the Holy Spirit coming. And many times the Holy Spirit manifests itself—there is the sweetness that surrounds the phenomenon. Then he goes on. He says, “But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is appropriate for saints, neither filthiness nor foolish talking nor coarse jesting, which are not appropriate, but rather giving of thanks. For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not be partakers with them.”

And this is a very, very powerful statement—very compelling—and it’s a statement that could easily be spoken today. And perhaps even the dangers—I think the dangers have become much greater for the debauchery that he’s talking about. And so I think he speaks to this. This is the context. Then he goes on. He says, “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light, for the fruit of the Spirit is all goodness, righteousness, and truth, finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light. Therefore, he says, ‘Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.’” And that last is from the prophets.

“We must walk in wisdom. See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing, making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God.”

So here, I think my intent is to try to bring these words, which are 2,000 years old basically, into the present time. And it’s very, very clear that particularly for children—particularly for children—that they are now exposed to all kinds of uncleanness and darkness and evil. Really, it seems as though that in reality, many people—maybe the majority of people, I think probably the majority of people, and maybe the vast majority of parents—have in a sense lost control of their children. They are no longer able to define the space and the emotional environment that they live in. And not to reveal that I’m an old man, which I’m not really an old man, but a little bit older—there was a time when we lived in this society that did not have immediate media. I knew this time. And that you just didn’t have websites like TikTok and so on, all these—and that your children are going out into where they’re being tempted, continuously tempted. And tempted—it’s not just by the imagery. The imagery is certainly the front, the face of what is dark. But what’s behind the face is truly darkness. It’s spiritual darkness.

And I think it’s fascinating because we venerate holy icons knowing that as we stand in prayer before the holy icon of our Savior, the Mother of God, or of saints, that we commune, actually, with the saint. We commune with our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ. We are in communion with the most holy, precious Mother of God. And the light of our Lord shines through them, but it shines through their personality too. The light that shines on us from the most precious icons of the most holy Mother of God might be different than, say, the Great Prince Vladimir, who was a warrior. But nevertheless, our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ shines His light upon us. And if this is true of our holy icons, it’s also true of the images of darkness and death. The darkness and death shines through these images, and it captivates the imaginations, and it plays upon the emotions and the feelings of those who watch these images. We know this. Adults know this. We have seen images that created a real and powerful effect in us. And we have sometimes seen images, maybe not of our own pursuit, that defile us. We know this—stimulating feelings and passions that are extremely powerful and that can lead to very difficult and very bad decisions and actions that follow the decisions.

And so it is true that these images that our dear children are being exposed to are defiling them. And it’s in profound ways. And back to having a little distance on things because of age, we really didn’t have these images when I was a child. We didn’t see them. I mean, maybe they had them in big cities and so on and so forth. I never saw them. And I do remember when I was a teenager seeing a Playboy magazine, which in a sense was the beginning of corruption, you might say. But nevertheless, it was nothing like what’s going on. And it’s not just the images. These images have persons behind them. There’s this whole attempt through the media to create personas, and the people talk and so on, and they share things and they act together and so on. And that acting together creates literally connections between the persons who are depicted. And it’s like a net. That net then goes into the consciousness or unconsciousness of the people who are looking at these images, and it draws them. It pulls them away from perhaps their home or perhaps their values, and it brings them into a vortex—like a swirling whirlpool, which is so powerful you can’t swim out of it. You just can’t swim out of it. You’re captivated.

And I am certain that this is what’s going on in our very profoundly ill society. And I’m sorry to be a voice, as it were, for darkness in this sense. I mean, exposing darkness does involve darkness, actually. When you expose darkness, you feel the darkness. And nevertheless, it’s such a serious issue that, I mean, it’s time for us, in a sense, through prayer, through any way we can, to pull the scales off our eyes and look at what’s going on, because it is swallowing up now at least a third generation. If generations are around 30 years, it’s certainly—this debauchery really became more and more turbulent and powerful, and it’s swallowing up our children. And whether we have children, and whether perhaps we’re grandparents and, you know, our children are all grown up and so on, it doesn’t matter, because in a sense, as children of God, all the children are our children. We’re responsible to some degree for all of the children. Same as, you know, our Savior preached beautifully about how we are so responsible for the poor. And so we are also responsible for those who are caught in this net and vortex of debauchery.

And it really brings us to a point where it’s one thing to know it and to expose it, but the question is, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? Are we going to feed the poor? Are we going to bring respite to the weak and the lame? Because it’s the same thing. Namely, are we going to find the grace and the strength of will to put on our armor and to take up our sword? And what is the armor? It’s the armor of the Lord. It’s the grace of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ which we wrap our chest in to protect us from the demons so that we can go and do war against the debauchery. And of course, this is very powerful imagery, but one thing we desperately need to do is we need to build a school. We need a school. For our parents, schools are needed because what’s going on in the schools around us is poison. Literally, it’s just poison. It’s pure brainwashing. It’s a cult. It’s darkness. It’s poison.

And so today, in a sense, I believe our charge is to pursue those things that we can do to gather our children in safe places and educate them in ways that give them freedom. It used to be that education was to make you free. You learned sciences and literature and writing and mathematics and history and so on because it freed you, it liberated you from the bondage of social chaos. It used to be, though. And we need to restore that. We need to have this at the very core of our life, because we are adults, and I think to some degree we’re able to protect ourselves and so on, but our children—they do not have the protections of maturity and discernment—and they’re being defiled. And it’s all of our children. It’s not just this child over there. Yes, some parents are much better than other parents, and some parents are very, very strict, and they have a real desire to protect their children and educate their children as best they can. It’s true. But what’s going on affects all. And we need to gather them into safe places.

So I’m going to just read a little bit more from—so St. Paul speaks again in Galatians, and in maybe a little more specific way. He says, “I say then, walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.” So those of us who are being enlisted as warriors for Christian faith and true virtue have to guard ourselves. I mean, the battle begins within us—to work against all of the things that stimulate lust and debauchery and basically a kind of numbness to reality. He says, “Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like, of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.”

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.