Father Lawrence Farley - What is the Hardest Thing About Being Orthodox in the West?

I recently had the privilege of spending some time with our chief Rhys Lawrence Farley of st. Herman of Alaska Orthodox Church in Langley British Columbia father Lawrence runs the blog no other foundation and has written many books especially on topics relating to Holy Scripture we have some great conversations and he generously agreed to sit down for an interview we're going to be releasing episodes from this interview over the next weeks and months so please subscribe to get notified of when they're available [Music] um I think the most difficult thing about being an Orthodox in the West or in States or in Canada are it's probably the same thing as being the most difficult thing in Orthodox anywhere any place which is to say till the to recognize that we are in the world but not of the world that in baptism as the Lord said to the Apostles once you are in the world but I chose you out of the world therefore the world hates you aren't any right therefore if you're obedient you will never fit in so in other words the challenge is to live eschatologically the challenges to live as children of the eschaton they were discs that means the last the last day the age the age to come so that now we do not belong to this world now we belong to the age to come s-s-san Peter says we are strangers and sojourners upon the earth before we fit in we were either a Jew or a Gentile led to biblical categories and now st. Paul says now we belong to but with some of the father's called the third race there's the st. Paul talked about Jew Gentile or the Church of God now before you word you you were Gentile now you are a Jew or Gentile no longer now you belong to the Church of God now you no longer belong to this age you belong to the age to come and you got to live like children of the age to come and not like children down here and that's the that's the difficulty because you're you you you don't so having so much divided loyalties but you have subordinated loyal basis so as the subordinate subordinated loyalty is that to your country to your tribe to your flag to your people to your political party to your family do you can you know you love your mom you love your dad you love your brother and sister you love your country stick up for your president okay let's make it that what if you want your prime minister your Queen stuff like that you cheer for your country's team and the Olympics and fight for your three in the wars' if your if that kind of works in your of draftable age and things like that and so but that that's a subordinate loyalty and if you're a child of this age you say that's my fundamental loyalty that gives my fundamental identity but as a Christian you say that doesn't actually give me my fundamental identity I'm a stranger and a soldier of the earth and I do not wrap myself and any country's flag because at the end well all it if you make a subordinate loyal to your ultimate one it will betray you and destroy your spiritual life and if you wrap yourself in the flag you'll find on the last day when the whole world is consumed in the presence of the gods fire that flags are very flammable and and you will burn with it so you do not wrap yourself in any country's flag giving their ultimate allegiance to that country you stand under the cross now wrapping yourself in the flag is the the cross will not burn all flags are flammable and they will burn which is to say all countries get some stuff right and all countries get some stuff spectacularly wrong and if you wrap yourself in the flag you will obliterate your ability to distinguish between the two so that the challenge is therefore to have these really good loyalties but to keep them subordinate to your ultimate loyalty to Christ you got to give things that belong to Caesar to Caesar but not to things that belong to God to Caesar you need to give give to Caesar what belongs to him but the higher loyalty belongs to God and that means for example that when you talk about your people if you're if you're in the United States your people are not your fellow Americans your people are the fellow Christians regardless of their politics regardless of their country regardless of our flag they may salute or stand under we gotta say whatever color they are race whenever there you are people the Christians are your people because that is your highest loyalty belongs to the Church of the Living God not to whatever Jew or Gentile tribe you happen to belong to and that's very difficult especially because the rest of the people down here and you're in your country may not appreciate that and may regard that as a fundamental disloyalty you would say no it's not a fundamental disloyalty it just means that it's not my fundamental loyalty my fundamental loyalty is elsewhere so I'll die for my country but I won't live for my country I will live for Jesus Christ yeah doctor him to you if I have to but I'm so and that's the challenge how to navigate through the various competing demands for time loyalty money energy how you do that and to say I am I'm living here in this world but I am no longer of the world now I belong to Jesus Christ therefore I belong to the age to the age to come so you gotta kind of continually tell yourself the form of this world is passing away and it's lust but does the will of God abides forever first John you gotta kind of constantly remind your cellphone it was almost tattoo not literally tattoo maranatha on your arm our Lord come you know there was a literally there was a early document called the dedicate of the teaching which I'm giving you the anglicized pronunciation of the teaching of the trough apostle to dock you a manual written about 180 ish one of the prayers and there's let grace come and let the world pass away and that's one of our fundamental prayers we love the world but we but we love the kingdom of God more and we want grace to come well the second coming to occur so that grace will fill the world even if it means the world as we know it passes away we look forward as as a Peter says in second Peter 3 to a new heaven and a new earth in which righteousness dwells that's what we're looking for so it's not to be hate the world but we love the kingdom more and I believe that's the challenge for living as an orthodox way in in the West or in the East or in any climb or any century that the challenge is to navigate those competing claims of loyalty and to try to give to Caesar what is his due but but more fundamentally to give to Jesus Christ where this is due which is which is all of you and every drop of blood in your veins we breath in your lungs all belongs to him that's the challenge I hope you enjoyed this episode of my interview with father Lawrence Farley please subscribe below to get notified of future episodes and please leave a comment below to let me know what you thought of this video

Channel: Protecting Veil

Views: 13,267

Rating: 4.9674268 out of 5

Keywords: Orthodoxy, Orthodox Christianity, Russian Orthodoxy, Greek Orthodoxy, Romanian Orthodoxy, Bulgarian Orthodoxy, Wisdom, Spirituality

Id: NsBQ8FHXxZ8

Length: 7min 43sec (463 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 24 2018