A Sunday Only Christian

For the longest time, I was very vocal that one of our biggest problems in our Church was that we were "Sunday only" Christians  i.e., we attend Church "religiously" on Sunday, but on all other days returned to our normal world.

More and more though, I'm beginning to understand that our issue is actually not that we are Sunday-only Christians, but rather we're not even Christians on Sunday! 

St. John Chrysostom from his homily on 1st Timothy:

Let us learn at last to be Christians! If we know not how to pray, which is a very simple and easy thing, what else shall we know? Let us learn to pray like Christians. The Christian's (prayers) are the reverse, for the forgiveness and forgetting of offenses against us.

St. John then used St Stephen, who is remembered in our Church as the chief of the deacons and the first of the martyrs, as an example:

Hear Stephen saying, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." Instead of praying against them, he prayed for them. You, instead of praying for them, utter imprecations against them. You then are wicked in the degree that he was excellent. Whom do we admire, tell me; those for whom he prayed, or him who prayed for them? Him certainly! And if we, much more then God. Would you have your enemy stricken? pray for him: yet not with such intention, not to strike him. That will indeed be the effect, but let it not be your object. That blessed martyr suffered all unjustly, yet he prayed for them: we suffer many things justly from our enemies. 

The Saints understood that we had to learn to be like Christ.  Moreover, they had no instruction on how to live their own life other than the life of Christ Himself.  No excuses were given that the teaching was not "practical" to our day-to-day life ... instead, our holy role-models dedicated their life to God and eagerly sought not what improved their own wealth, health or stature but rather changing themselves to be like Him.

If we were truly were "Sunday-only" Christians - one who at least one day a week, completely gave up our own life to learn and become like our Lord, there is no doubt that this world would become a better place. 

Again, leaning back on the wisdom of St. John Chrysostom, this time in his homily on the Gospel of St. John:

And we shall be able to do this, if we are bold, and give heed to the Scriptures, and hear them not carelessly. For if one should come in here regularly, even though he read not at home, if he attends to what is said here, one year even is sufficient to make him well versed in them; because we do not today read one kind of Scriptures, and tomorrow another, but always and continually the same. 

The blessed Saint then acknowledges the pitiful state of those who call themselves disciples of Christ even in the ancient days, and what really is the core of the issues of our Church today:

Still such is the wretched disposition of the many, that after so much reading, they do not even know the names of the Books, and are not ashamed nor tremble at entering so carelessly into a place where they may hear God's word. Yet if a harper, or dancer, or stage-player call the city, they all run eagerly, and feel obliged to him for the call, and spend the half of an entire day in attending to him alone; but when God speaks to us by Prophets and Apostles, we yawn, we scratch ourselves, we are drowsy. 

Rather than being the problem, the solution is really that we need to START by becoming Sunday-only Christians! As we see in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, Christ (i.e., the Samaritan) brings the wounded to the Church (i.e., the Inn), and there starts our healing.

On Sunday, in the Presence of the God, through prayer, fellowship (Matthew 18:20 i.e., "For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them"), through Scripture and the Body and Blood (John 6) ... our lives can and should change.  We learn that we cannot look at anything in the same manner, for in Christ all things are made new (Revelations 21:5).  We become healed.

And from Sunday, after learning from the fullness of the Word, we start to become like Him if we truly mean all the prayers, responses and hymns that are sung.  The experience of Divine Worship brings within us His Presence, and like the Prophet Isaiah we become completely and totally "undone" (Isaiah Chapter 6).  The more we understand and grow, our whole life will change and we naturally continue through the week with a greater understanding of how a Christian should live.

Being a Sunday-only Christian is really not a bad starting point.