Sermons to the People 388.1–390.2

This reading, brothers, which we have just heard from the holy gospel, urges us to give alms; and it urges us in such a way that in his judgment the Lord credits to those on the right only the alms they gave, and charges to those on the left only the alms they did not give. Not that the other deeds of human beings, good or bad, will not come into judgment; for it is written that all things will come into judgment; and yet our Lord Jesus Christ, foretelling to us that his judgment will come, chose nothing to admonish us with except almsgiving alone. Will it not be said to those on the right: "Because you lived chastely, because you did not seize other people's goods, because you confessed my faith even to the shedding of your blood"? For all these good deeds must be honored in the judgment of Jesus Christ. Again, do you think it will not be said to those on the left: "Because you were unchaste, because you committed fornication, because you seized other people's goods, because by your pride and bad conduct you caused my name to be blasphemed," and whatever else might be listed? Yet our Lord, foretelling his judgment, is silent about all the other right deeds of the righteous and chose to mention almsgiving alone. He is silent about all the evil deeds of the wicked and judged that only the barrenness of their almsgiving was to be rebuked, for no other reason than to admonish us. Why so? Because all crimes are redeemed by almsgiving. That is why he praised that fruitfulness and blamed and condemned this barrenness.

But what you have heard, that all evil deeds are redeemed by alms, do not understand as certain perverse people understand it. Alms can help you to blot out past sins if you change your ways. But if you persist in the same evils, you do not bribe the judge with your alms. I am speaking of those crimes and grave sins which all who receive the body and blood of Christ ought by now to have left behind. For the rest, I am well aware that this mortal life, set in corruptible flesh, cannot be without sins; but those daily and light sins have their own daily washing. This is why we beat our breasts and say in prayer to the Lord our God, "Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors." For we do not say this without reason; nor would the heavenly master himself have taught this prayer unless he had foreseen that we are sinners. For he saw what we ought to beware of, and he saw what is hard to beware of. He judged that it is impossible to beware of everything, he who taught this daily prayer not to just any Christians but to the rams of the flock themselves, the apostles. And where the apostles beat their breasts and say, "Forgive us our debts," that is, our sins, does any little sheep dare to be proud of its righteousness? See what John the apostle was like: he reclined on the Lord's breast; he drank secrets from that deep fountain of wisdom. For from there he drank what he poured out in the gospel: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." And the gospel repeatedly testifies that the Lord loved him especially. And yet he says, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." Yet because these things are said, no murderer ought to feel secure if, on account of his daily fornications and robberies, he comes and says, "Forgive us our debts." For what God established to be said daily for light sins, he thinks can help him with those grave ones from which he does not want to depart, but in which he wants to remain for ever. Let him beat his breast for these too, let him give alms for these too, but with his life changed: let him withdraw from there and come over here. But if he says in his heart, "Even if I commit robberies every day, and defile myself every day with adulterous corruptions, and seek out fortune-tellers, sacrifice to idols, consult astrologers, and do not withdraw at all from such a life, yet by giving alms every day I extinguish all my sins": you extinguish them indeed, but you are extinguished with them. For this bargain of yours will turn out badly for you, so that there will be someone to say of you, "Yet a little while, and the sinner will be no more; and you will look for his place and not find it. I saw the ungodly exalted above the cedars of Lebanon; and I passed by, and behold, he was not; and I sought him, and his place was not found." Your sins perish, then, but with you. For you will not be allowed to sin in Gehenna, nor, once the eternal fire has begun to torment you, will you be thinking about satisfying your lusts. Your sins perish, then, but with you. But if you change your life, they perish and you are found, and it will be said of you, "He was dead, and has come to life again; he was lost, and is found."

The Lord admonishes us through the gospel reading to speak to you about obtaining the heavenly bread. For this earthly bread is necessary for earth, since our flesh is earth. But it cannot be that our flesh should have its bread and our soul not have its own. For our soul too, in a kind of poverty in this world, needs its bread, as the flesh needs its own. He who needs no bread is God. So only the bread itself needs no bread. For he is the bread of our soul, who needs no other bread but, sufficient to himself, also nourishes us. Plainly, then, there is a heavenly bread by which our soul is fed. But how does one come to it, so as to be filled by it, when now we scarcely gather its crumbs, so as not to perish in this famished desert? How, then, does one come to the fullness of this bread, of which the Lord says, "Whoever eats this bread will not hunger, and whoever drinks the drink that I give will not thirst for ever," promising a kind of fullness and satisfaction without surfeit? How, then, may we come to this fullness of bread, placed as we are far from it in this hunger? We need counsel. If we neglect that counsel, we knock in vain for that bread. Or rather, the counsel I am going to give, or rather to recall (for I will not speak on my own authority what I have learned along with you): this counsel, then, which I am going to tell you, whoever despises it, I do not say knocks in vain; whoever despises it does not knock at all. For to follow and act on this counsel is to knock. For what do you think, my brothers? That God has, in a bodily way, some hard door which he shuts against men, and that is why he told us, "Knock," so that we might come and beat on the door until our knocking reaches the ears of the master of the house sitting in some hidden room, and he orders it opened to us, saying, "Who is this knocking? Who is wearying my ears? Give him what he wants and let him go away"? It is not so. And yet there is something like it. Certainly when you knock at someone's door, you do it with your hands. There is something to do with your hands when you knock at the Lord's door. Act with your hands, then; knock with your hands. If you do not do this, I do not say you knock in vain; I say you do not knock. That is why you will not merit, why you will not receive: because you do not knock. "How," someone says, "do you want me to knock? See, I ask every day." You do well. For this too has been said: "Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you." All three have been said: ask, seek, knock. You ask by praying, you seek by inquiring, you knock by giving. So let your hand not be idle. The apostle, when he was urging the people to give alms, said: "I give counsel in this; for this benefits you, who began a year ago not only to understand but also to will it." And Daniel said to King Nebuchadnezzar: "Accept my counsel, O king, and redeem your sins by almsgiving."

If, then, it is counsel we receive when we are commanded or admonished to give something of what we have to the needy, let us not be proud when we give. For if it is counsel you have received, it benefits you more than the one to whom you gave. Let us not, then, exalt ourselves over our works, as if pleased with ourselves for conferring benefits on those to whom we give. Whoever wants to receive counsel wants to receive what benefits himself; and whoever gives counsel is advising. If he advises, he benefits the one he advises. A poor man receives from you as a suppliant; since it is not fitting for you to give proudly, how much less fitting is it for him to receive proudly! He receives humbly; he receives with thanks. But you, know and remember not only what you give but also what you receive. For suppose this poor man were to take the liberty of answering you, if he sensed that you were proud toward him, and said to you: "Why are you proud? Why are you lifted up because you gave me something? What did you give me? Bread. If you had put this bread away in your house and neglected it, it would have gone moldy, from mold to rot, from rot to earth; earth would have returned to earth. And you stretched out your hand to give, toward my hand stretched out to receive. Remember what your hand was made from, and what you put into mine: earth, from earth, into earth. Then what do I do with your bread? I eat it; I quiet the pangs of hunger: I receive a kindness; I am not ungrateful. Yet consider what the Lord, the Saviour himself, has reminded you of: that whatever enters the mouth goes into the belly and is cast out into the drain. And again what the apostle Paul has told you: Food is for the belly and the belly for food; but God will destroy both it and them. Bread, then, as I said, is earth, from earth, into earth, so that earth may be propped up and earth refreshed. You think about what you gave; you do not think about what you are going to receive. See to it, then, that I do not do more for you by receiving than you do for me by giving. For if there were no one to receive from you, you would not give out earth, and you would not receive heaven. I knock at your door, and you hear me; you order something to be handed to me to sustain my hunger and relieve the distress it brings me. You have done well. Do not listen to me when I knock, if you dare. If you are not going to ask for anything, despise the one who asks you. Despise me, if you ask nothing of him who made both me and you. But if you are going to ask for that very thing you are giving me, then in hearing me you ensure that you will be heard. Give thanks to him who lets you buy so precious a thing at so cheap a price. You give what perishes in time; you receive what remains for ever. You give what, had you not given it, you would have thrown away after a little while; you receive what you will enjoy for ever. You give what sustains human hunger; you receive what makes you a companion of the angels. You give what keeps a man from hunger for a little while, until he suffers it again; you receive what will keep you from ever suffering hunger and thirst. When, then, you see what you give and what you receive, refuse to give, if you dare. Let us see who suffers the greater loss: I, to whom you do not give earth, or you, who will not come to him who made heaven and earth."

If, then, we receive counsel, let us act for our own sake; and let no one say that he is doing the poor man a service. For he does more for himself than for the poor man. If we think truly, my brothers, and are wise according to the words of our Lord (for if we are wise otherwise, we perish); if we live not by our own counsel but by his, then we truly live. If we have something to give to the poor and do not give it, we leave it behind here; or perhaps we lose it here while we are still alive. For how many have suddenly lost all the goods they were storing up most diligently! In one attack of the enemy all the treasures of the rich perished. No one said to the enemy, "I am keeping it for my children." You see it, surely, if there is any faith in them. For we must speak of those who suffered this as Christians; there is no mention of those who do not know God. They lost in this life what they held to be great, and they hoped for no other life: darkness without, darkness within; poverty in the strongbox, greater want in the conscience. Of these, then, as I said, there is no need to speak at all, but rather of those in whom there is some Christian faith. I said "some," not strong, not full; for if it had been strong and full, they would not have spurned the Lord's counsel. Yet surely, dearly beloved, when they saw their houses empty, or perhaps were not even allowed to see the emptiness of their houses, when they were led away from them as captives, and flames followed as they departed: when they saw themselves left empty, how they regretted not having listened to the Lord's counsel! For what did our Lord Jesus Christ, brothers, say to that rich man who asked his counsel about laying hold of eternal life? What did he say to him? Did he say, "Lose what you have"? Even if he had said this, "Lose temporal things," he would have said it so that you might acquire eternal things. Yet he did not say to him, "Lose what you have." For he saw that he was a lover of his possessions. He did not say, "Lose"; he said, "Move to where you will not lose." Do you love your treasures? Do you love your money? Do you love your riches? Do you love your estates? Whatever you love, you have on earth. There you have what you love, where you may lose it and perish. I give you counsel: move to heaven. If you keep it here, you will lose what you have, and you will perish with what you lose. But if you keep it there, you have not lost it; you follow it where you sent it. I give counsel, then, etc. Why did we despise a father's warning, only to feel the enemy invading? [Many, then, regret it. For a certain man (as is truly said to have happened), not rich, yet, though of slender means, rich in the abundance of love, when he had sold a solidus, as people do, ordered a hundred folles from the price of the solidus to be given to the poor. It was done. Then that ancient enemy, that is, the devil, so that he might regret his good work and undo by grumbling what he had done rightly by obeying, sent a thief, who took away all the rest, from which a little had been given to the poor. The devil was waiting for the voice of one blaspheming; he found the voice of one praising. He was waiting for wavering; he found firmness. The enemy did indeed want him to regret, and he did regret. But see what he regretted: "Wretched me," he said, "who did not give it all! For what I have lost is what I did not give. I did not put it where no thief comes."] If, then, this is counsel, etc.

We wish to exhort your Love, as far as the Lord grants, to give alms, which in holy and faithful men are usually the companions of fasting, so that what is taken from the one who has may be added to the one who has not; so that what you withhold from your flesh, to your own gain, you may set aside in heaven. For there you have your barn; there you have your keeper. For where people put what they love on earth so as to keep it most safely, they hire the most secure places for themselves and take what pains they can to keep it where thieves cannot get at it. And yet, for all their wishing and keeping, when can that be achieved on earth? Perhaps the keeper himself will be the thief. The Lord Jesus Christ, seeing what people want and what they try to do when they keep their goods on earth, gave counsel: keep it in heaven; entrust it to me. He who commanded you to give, then, did not want you to lose, but to move. Let your goods go before you, who are to follow them. As for what you do not send ahead to the place where you will be for a long time, you do not know who may possess after you what you have kept. Lift up from here, then, what you love, lest by loving it here you cling to it, and by clinging lose it and perish. Your Lord himself is the keeper of you and of what is yours. If a close friend of yours gave you, in your ignorance, advice about storing grain, telling you to move it from lower to higher places where you could keep it better, would you not take his advice? Your Lord gives you this advice: he wants neither you nor your goods to be spoiled. Put it here, if you do not want to lose it. Do you want to know what is going on? I know that no one can give better advice about this building than the one who made it. You say, "Where shall I store it?" He answers, "In heaven"; for so he says: "Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where no thief digs through and no moth corrupts; for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." Take this counsel, now that you are offered the choice of so great a barn, where no notice of seizure has been posted against you, so that you may possess it for ever.

Perhaps you will ask how you can lift your goods up there. Do not fret and look in your thoughts for ladders or machinery. Do what citizens living abroad usually do: arrange a transfer. Many do this, and when they find reliable agents they hand over their money readily. Your Lord Christ has made the arrangement: rich above, poor here. He hungers here; he asks you for a transfer; he will repay fairly. Why, then, do you hesitate? Why do you put off giving? Is he not reliable enough to repay? Give to the poor; you will not lose it; do not be afraid: you give to him when you give to one of his least ones. Hear the gospel. When those placed on the right were amazed, after certain needs had been listed, and said, "When did we see you in these?" the Lord answers, "When you did it to one of my least ones, you did it to me." I, he says, received when the poor man received: in him I was hungry; in him I was filled. Give with confidence: it is the Lord who receives, the Lord who asks. You would have nothing to give him if you had not first received it from him. If you lent at interest to men, you would weigh them down; but here there is no one to be weighed down by interest. "If you want to be a moneylender," God says to you, "lend to me; give to me: I will repay with interest." Now lift yourself up; give your avarice room to grow. For perhaps one solidus you will receive, not ten, not a hundred, not a thousand, not earth, but heaven. If you gave a pound of bronze and received a pound of silver, or a pound of silver and received a pound of gold, you would rejoice at your good fortune. What you give will indeed be changed: not into gold, not into silver; it will become eternal life for you. It will be changed, because you will be changed. He who gave will become an angel; what he gave will become an angel's seat. There is no remedy that frees from death except almsgiving. It is hard for anyone to lead this life without sins. Give out, then, my brothers; distribute your goods: make for yourselves purses that do not grow old, a treasure that remains in heaven. Hear the psalm: "Though man walks in an image, yet he is troubled in vain; he heaps up treasure and does not know for whom he gathers it." Give, and it will be given to you.