Sermons 25–28

[On despising care for earthly things, and on the promise of the kingdom.] You have heard today with what gentle exhortation the Lord consoled the small and earthly beginnings of the Gospel flock. “Do not fear,” he says, “little flock, for it has pleased your Father to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32). He takes away anxious hopes, removes doubtful outcomes, and drives away and shuts out all fear, when at the very beginning he promises a kingdom to the newborn. “For it has pleased your Father to give you the kingdom.” Who, certain of a kingdom, secure of lordship, sighs over food, over clothing, over plebeian wealth and the cheapness of a slave's plot of turf? He is very envious of himself who, raised to the highest things, casts himself down to lowly things and lowers himself to want. But it is fitting to know who this Father is, or what sort he is, or what kingdom he promises his children. Who this Father is you know daily, even as you confess it, when you cry: “Our Father, who are in heaven” (Matt 6:9). What sort he is, you have seen in the very greatness of his works: from nothing he made heaven, he made the earth firm out of liquid, he set the mountains in the balance, he shut the seas within their lawful bounds by the sole authority of his command. But if you want to know the nature of the kingdom he promises the little ones, he himself discloses it, saying: “Let the little children come to me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 19:14). To be in heaven is a wonder; to live in heaven belongs to majesty. Now what it is worth to reign in heaven, mortal understanding cannot estimate; and yet, O man, what you cannot estimate you have received, as the Apostle says: “What eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Cor 2:9). And what you doubt that you deserve, you are now compelled to confess that you have and possess. What, then, has he who possesses heaven to do with earth? What has he to do with human things who has already obtained divine things? Unless perhaps groans please, labors are chosen, dangers loved, the worst death delights, and evils inflicted are more welcome than goods bestowed. But let us see what counsel so great a Father gives those who are to reign. “Sell what you possess and give alms.” If you believe that you will live, that you will reign, that you are already rich above, then let your goods go before you to where you will be, where you will move, where you will reign; count wretched riches as mercy; turn human things into divine. And so that no one might lack transport to carry what you send away, the poor man has been pressed into service: the poor carry our burdens, and carry them willingly, because they are not weighed down by such a load but lifted up. “Sell what you possess and give alms; make for yourselves purses that do not grow old, a treasure in heaven that does not fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.” “Make for yourselves purses that do not grow old.” You see that this Father wants to enrich his children, not strip them. “Make for yourselves purses that do not grow old.” In a new way, indeed in a heavenly way, whoever hears him acquires by selling, stores up by paying out, gains while he loses. How he wants money to endure, purses to be made perpetual, the stores of riches to remain, who says, “Make for yourselves purses that do not grow old”! See, he who had begun to urge contempt now teaches avarice: “Make for yourselves purses that do not grow old.” And he who rebuked those who store up treasures in time commands that purses without end be sought, to the very kindling of greed. O Christ, where does love for your own draw you? To win over the avaricious man, you make him hear what he desires, not what he ought: you command purses; you want eternal treasures prepared that do not fail; so that the avaricious man, while he runs his accustomed course after gain, may either take hold of virtue or be taken hold of by virtue. Truly you are a Father, who deal so with your little ones of every kind. For we too sometimes, when our little children ask for harmful things, give them wholesome things under the appearance of harmful ones, deceiving their foolishness without being foolish in our affection. You said: “Make for yourselves purses that do not grow old, treasures in heaven that do not fail.” Why is a purse prepared? What need of locks there, where innocence itself is the guard? What need of a seal there, where there is no suspicion of fraud? If even in heaven there is need of purses, the care is not lost but changed. Lord, you saw that the avaricious have all their faith in treasures, all their hope in purses; and so you want purses that cannot rot prepared in heaven, so that he who does not follow you to heaven may at least follow his purses. Avaricious man, make yourself purses, and make them at God's command, because the divine majesty nods assent to your wishes. But make yourself purses by paying out, because whatever the poor man receives, the heavenly Father takes. And where does he store it? In heaven. And lest perhaps you grieve that you have lost even the interest, you will receive a hundredfold at heavenly interest whatever you send into heaven with the poor man carrying it. The world's interest is one for a hundred; God takes one and gives a hundred; and yet not everyone is willing to have a contract with God. Perhaps they are anxious about security? Why? Is not a man bound to a man by the obligation of a little piece of paper? God gives security in so many great volumes, and is the debtor not held? But you say: Granted he owes, who will compel him to repay? He himself, because he cannot lie to anyone: he is himself both the enforcer and the debtor. He will not be hard in repaying who is lavish in giving. Trust God, O man, with what God has given you; he wants to repay greater things when the giver wants to be a debtor.

[On the faithful steward.] The hearing of many has perceived that what the Lord is read to have answered Peter's question today was said figuratively to the apostles themselves, only to teachers and to those who preside over churches. Peter asks: “Lord, are you telling this parable to us, or to everyone?” The Lord answered him: “Who do you think is the faithful and prudent steward, whom the master has set over his household to give them their measure of wheat in due time? Blessed is that servant whom the master, when he comes, finds so doing. Truly I say to you, he will set him over all that he possesses. But if that servant says in his heart, ‘My master is delaying his coming,’ and begins to beat the menservants and maidservants, and to eat and drink and get drunk, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know, and will cut him in two and put his portion with the unfaithful” (Luke 12:41–46). This comparison binds the leaders of the Church first of all, but this figure exempts no human being, no mortal at all; while speaking to the steward, it answered everyone, though only one asked. If there is anyone who has received nothing from God, he will not fear the examination of his stewardship or the office of a steward. O man, if you have received the very thing you give, how will you deny that you have received what you have? The dispenser of the Church will render account and give reasons for the heavenly stores, for the divine granaries. And the greater the trust he takes on, the greater the debt he does not doubt he will repay, as the Lord says: “From him to whom more has been entrusted, more will be required” (Luke 12:48). And elsewhere: “The mighty will be mightily tormented” (Wis 6:6). The higher a man has climbed, the higher he will fall when he slips. What is higher than heaven? Whoever sins in heavenly things falls from heaven; whoever offends in the very eyes of the one who rules runs headlong into despair; and whoever commits a crime with the judge himself as witness lacks excuse. Or what defense does he hope for whom the testimony of the examiner accuses? So the devil, when he was an angel, and in heaven, and always moved most bright and shining before God, while he tempted God's ears, while he grew proud in God's sight, slipped to the earth, was cast down to hell, changed from angel into devil; and he who was a minister of pardon became a leader of punishments. This is why the Apostle warns a man of our order not to fall into pride and the snare of the devil. The steward of the divine word, then, and dispenser of heavenly teaching, who stands continually before the Lord, moves always among the altars, never withdraws from God's eyes, who receives the causes of sins and the sorrows of the people, offers and presents prayers, receives, brings back, and restores what has been obtained, wholly substituted from man into angel, cannot sin except in the very face of God among the holy of holies, so as to take on himself a crime from the place from which he was accustomed to bring back pardon for others. So Nadab and Abihu, priests, sons of Aaron the priest, when they presumed to defile the altar with strange fire, were consumed by the fire of the altar itself, so that those who had made a sin out of propitiation took punishment from the sacrifice (Lev 10:1–2): a sin that drunkenness had stirred up in them; for the smell of wine had driven out the smell of incense, and the fire of drunkenness had provoked the flame of the altar. Hence, because, estranged by wine, they had carried strange fire, they are at once brought back extinguished by divine fire. Drunkenness in another is a crime, in a priest a sacrilege, because another kills his soul with wine, the priest extinguishes the spirit of holiness, as the Apostle says: “Do not extinguish the Spirit” (1 Thess 5:19). Rightly, among the other things that today's reading rebukes in the bad steward, it condemns the madness of wine, saying: “But if that servant says, ‘My master is delaying his coming,’ and begins to beat the menservants and maidservants, and to eat and drink and get drunk.” He said aptly: “eat and drink and get drunk,” and “beat.” Drunkenness is the mother of slaughter, the parent of quarrels, the begetter of fury, the shameful teacher of insolence: whoever has it does not have himself; whoever has it is not a man; whoever has it does not commit sin, but is himself sin. Drunkenness is a coaxing demon, a sweet poison, a voluntary madness, an invited enemy, an enticement against honor and an injury to modesty: let no Christian know it, let a priest not touch it even by hearing, so that he who is a pattern of virtues may not be made and found from it an example of vices. But since enough has been said to us and to churchmen, let us inquire into the Apostle's saying, to show how the Savior's answer holds everyone, since there is no one who is found a stranger to God's stewardship: “There is no authority except from God” (Rom 13:1). If all authority is from God, a king too has obtained from God the royal dignity of stewardship. So a general, so a soldier, so governors of provinces, so of cities: all these will render account, if in anything they have exceeded the measure of the authority entrusted to them; whether the king has kept justice, held to equity, moderated his power, not omitted mercy; whether he has so held the balance of his weight that the scale of his power inclined to neither side; whether he has had care of all, provided for the peace of the citizens, so moderated taxation that neither the soldier lacked enough nor the taxpayer was worn out. And the general will give account to God, whether he gave his followers an example of courage, whether he was watchful on guard, untiring in maneuvers, whether he sought the peace of all by his own labor. The soldier too will render account, whether he obeyed orders, extorted from no one, earned the pay he received by most just labor. The judge also will face the supreme judge for his judgment. And you who are master of your house, I want you to believe yourself a steward appointed rather than a master, so that you may show your wife a simple love and prudently pour into her the teaching you have learned in church: for the Apostle commanded her to be silent in church and to learn at home with you teaching, saying: “Let women be silent in the churches; but if they want to learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home” (1 Cor 14:34–35). Give your children a sober affection and anxious care, and bring them up faithfully in the discipline of the Lord. Give your slaves the food and clothing owed them, forgive their faults, temper your threats, command discipline, and hold as brothers by heavenly birth those whom you possess as subjects by worldly servitude. You slaves too owe your master good faith in the very servitude you bear, because whoever does not render due obedience to a master of the flesh with a devoted and pure heart is liable to God, who sees hearts, before he is to a man, to God who made you equal by grace whom your condition had made unequal by the cheapness of slavery. What shall I say of the rich man? The more he has, the more he owes. [Something is missing here.] … then at once he gives back, at once he hands over to another; and if he will not give it back, let him entrust it to each in parts. And you, poor man, do not think the stewardship of poverty entrusted to you a small one, if you bear it patiently, if you are not ungrateful, if even in your very need you are sober and frugal; if you thank the one who gives and do not heap blasphemous insults on the one who does not give; if you ask only as much as mercy gives, not as much as importunate greed drives you to. Surely you too, poor man, who ask willingly, give willingly to those who ask. But perhaps you say: I have nothing. Let there be the will to give, and the means of bestowing will not be lacking: set out your chair for the newcomer, set out your table, your lampstand, your lamp; surely set out gladly from what you have received. So Elijah (1 Kgs 17), so Elisha (2 Kgs 4), when they turned aside to the empty and needy dwellings of widows, abundantly supplied what the widows lacked. The Lord added, to confirm this comparison: “That servant who knew his master's will and did not prepare himself or act according to his will will receive many blows; but the one who did not know and did what deserved blows will receive few.” He who sins knowingly rightly pays the heavier penalties of conscience; but he too who sins through the faults of ignorance will not escape the blows of ignorance: as it is not lawful to despise God, so it is not lawful not to know him.

[On removing scandal.] In readiness for war the soldiers' watches are always assigned, so that snares may have no room and tricks no opening. A sudden enemy is most destructive: he either forestalls the unaware, or surprises the incautious, or overwhelms the sleeping. This is why Christ our King before the ages, through the whole night of the world, warned his soldiers, with the turns of the watches ordered in advance, against the subtlest guile of the devil, that is, the old enemy, against the hidden onslaughts of the vices, against the rushing snares of crimes, against the stumbling blocks that arise for us from various causes, against the temptations of the present life, against the burning battle lines of worldly afflictions, warning thus: “Watch and pray, so that you may not enter into temptation” (Matt 26:41). And setting out how watch was to be kept, he added: “And if he comes in the second watch, and if he comes in the third watch and finds them so, blessed are those servants whom he finds watching when he comes” (Luke 12:38, 37). And plainly blessed, because those who watch and anticipate the enemies' tricks will glory in their Lord's coming. Today, however, the Lord roused and armed the very watches of our leaders against scandals, saying to the disciples: “It is impossible that scandals should not come” (Luke 17:1). That is, it is impossible that enemies should not come. And first, brothers, we ought to know what these scandals are. There are different kinds of scandals. The first are those that the devil's deceit brings forth. The second are those that human cunning begets. The third are those that our own suspicious and incautious nature bears from within us. From the devil are those that deceive by appearance, that hold out good things while bringing in evil: like that word to Adam, when he took away human things from us while promising divine things (Gen 3). And that word through Peter: “This shall not be for you, Lord” (Matt 16:22). He strives to empty the triumph of the cross while he pretends to burn with excessive love. For when the Lord spoke of the glory of his passion, he answered through Peter: “This shall not be for you, Lord.” How sweet the serpent's poison! He made the soldier deny his King's victory before the servant himself denied his Lord. So the Lord sends the servant behind himself and sends the scandal back to its author, saying to Peter, “Get behind me,” and to the devil, “Satan, you are a scandal to me” (Matt 16:23). And truly Peter goes behind the Lord, because, to follow him to heaven, he mounted the cross head downward. But there is also the scandal of the same kind that he made for the Jews. For the stone that was broad for setting firm the footsteps he furrowed into a total offence and roughened it, and turned the rock of the whole foundation into a scandal, so that it might be ruin for the wretched. “Behold,” it says, “I lay in Zion a stone of offence and a rock of scandal” (Isa 8:14). This is why the Psalmist begs with anxious supplication: “Keep me from the snare that they have set for me, and from the scandals of those who work iniquity” (Ps 141:9). And since he had leaped over the offence and conquered the scandal, he glories thus: “On the rock you have exalted me and led me, for you have become my hope” (Ps 61:2–3). We have spoken of the first kind of scandal; let us speak also of the second, which we said comes from human cunning. Balaam the soothsayer put a scandal before the people of Israel (Num 31; Rev 2:14), when he met the warriors not with men in iron but with girls made up with every allurement, so as to turn arms into luxury, change triumph into infamy, summon the avengers of guilt into guilt, and in short profane all holiness with shamefulness. Hence Moses marked him with such a sentence when he punished him: “Kill Balaam the soothsayer,” he says, “because he sent a scandal before the sons of Israel.” Jeroboam contrived a scandal (1 Kgs 12), who set up golden cows for the people as gods by a wretched fiction, so that they might not seek the living God, the true temple, the divine law, the lawful kings, the ancestral rites: so the people was enslaved to error. One also causes scandal, according to the Apostle (1 Cor 8), when someone eats what has been sacrificed to idols as though it could do no harm, and thinks that by such a deed senseless stones and wooden gods, which can neither sanctify nor pollute anything, ought to be despised. But what he thinks an example of faith becomes for the ignorant an occasion of error, because it provokes the unknowing not to contempt but to worship, and makes those whom the knowing man consumes for the sake of derision appear to the uninformed as a banquet of religion. So the Apostle rightly concludes and discloses: “And the weak brother, for whom Christ died, will perish by your knowledge” (1 Cor 8:11). The third kind of scandal is that which is bred in us by our own senses, when we are deceived by the eyes, misled by hearing, captured by smell, and corrupted by taste. So Eve was wounded by taste and by sight of the forbidden and deadly food: “And the woman saw,” it says, “that the tree was good for eating, and pleasing to the eyes to look at, and beautiful to contemplate” (Gen 3:6). Rightly, then, the Lord added that the senses themselves cause scandal, saying: “If your eye or your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it from you: it is better for you to come to life without an eye and a hand than to enter Gehenna with your whole body” (Matt 5:29–30; Mark 9:43–47). And although the Lord commanded us in this way to cut away falls and vices, not limbs, yet if Eve, the mother of the human race, had done so, she would have done better to come to life without an eye and a hand than to send her whole lamentable posterity into death. We must take care, then, brothers, not to cause scandal to others, nor ourselves to suffer it when another causes it. Scandal is what offends the senses, disturbs the mind, confuses the purity of understanding. Scandal is what made a devil out of an angel, a traitor out of an apostle, what brought sin into the world, what led man to death. Hear the Lord saying: “Woe to the world because of scandals” (Matt 18:7). Scandal tempts the saints, wearies the cautious, throws down the incautious, confuses everything, disturbs everyone; and although in the present passage the Lord speaks of the scandal of his passion, and the words point to Judas, through whom came the very scandal of scandals, yet he warned, so that no one might come to this, saying: “It is impossible that scandals should not come; but woe to him through whom they come. It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea, than that he should cause one of these little ones to stumble” (Luke 17:1–2). Why not a stone, but a millstone? Because a millstone, while it grinds the wheat, pours out the flour, and separates the bran from the fine meal, supplies bread to those who labor devotedly. Rightly, then, for one who chooses to be a minister of scandal rather than of peace, a millstone is tied to his neck, so that what should have drawn him to life may drag him to death: for he turned the senses given for life into a scandal of death, persuading others to see, hear, perceive, and taste otherwise than was in Christ, than was in saving knowledge. Hence he so got around the cornerstone (Isa 28:16), the stone of help (1 Sam 7:12), the stone cut out without hands (Dan 2:45), which is Christ, and dragged it into a scandal for the little ones, that he made not the bread of life but the bread of tears and of grief, as the prophet testifies, saying: “You who eat the bread of grief” (Ps 127:2). Rightly, then, as he said elsewhere, “let a donkey's millstone be tied around his neck” (Matt 18:6), and let him take his punishment from where he took his sense, and be made equal to senseless beasts of burden, he who would not be compared to men who are wise in things above.

[On the call of Matthew, the rich tax collector; on Christ eating with tax collectors; and on his choosing poor apostles.] That poverty is akin to the virtues, both earthly and heavenly discipline prove. The athlete comes naked to the wrestling; the sailor fights the waves naked; the soldier stands in the battle line only when unencumbered; whoever strives for philosophy first despises everything in material things. Poverty, then, is akin to the virtues; and if poverty is so held to be the parent and companion of the virtues, it is fitting to understand why Christ so chose the poor for the office of virtue. Peter and Andrew, James and John, brotherhood paired, or rather poverty doubled, are chosen as princes of the apostles: poor in wealth, lowly in place, mean in trade, obscure in life, common in labor, bound to night watches, enslaved to the waves, denied honors, given over to insults, with only a net for protection, seeking food and clothing by catching fish alone. But as mean as their worldly appearance seemed, so precious were the souls God's gaze then saw in them. They were poor in wealth, but rich in innocence; lowly in place, but lofty in holiness; mean in trade, but precious in simplicity; obscure in life, but shining in the merit of life; common in labor, but singular in purpose; bound to night watches, but already called to heavenly victories; enslaved to the waves, but not sunk by the waves; denied honors, but rather enriched with honors, not denied them; given over to insults, but not abandoned to insults; catchers of fish, but already appointed fishers of men. “Come,” he says, “and I will make you fishers of men” (Matt 4:19), so that by casting the food of life, by the hook of the heavenly word, they might lift souls from the whirlpool of death to everlasting light. Catchers of fish become fishers of men; they pass from labor to labor, because labor that is practiced does not know how to grow weary. Everything that comes from habit does not tire. Virtue perseveres by exercise. This is why Christ wished to exercise his apostles in human labors, so as to make them untiring in divine ones: God wished their strength to remain and to supply virtue from exercise. And since fruit comes from labor, he wished them not to lose their labors but to change them; he who afterward gave them the endurance of virtue first granted them the practice of labor. This is how they so conquered kingdoms, nations, prisons, chains, tortures, deaths, and raging men in every land. We have said that in the apostles poverty, the friend of virtues and dear to God, was chosen. What shall we say about Christ's choosing for the apostolate Matthew, rich from the tax office, wealthy from interest, loaded with the gains of the world? Today Matthew began about himself in this way: “And as Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office; and he said to him: ‘Follow me’” (Matt 9:9). Matthew the tax collector raises for us by his gains no small question, and sets before us by his business a great piece of business. But someone says: What question? What business? God took up the poor, but he does not reject the rich. He takes up one who has, and draws to himself those who have not. Abraham was rich (Luke 16), Job rich, David rich. And who is more blessed than Abraham? Who braver than Job? Who holier than David? For Abraham, after earthly sorrows, gathers devout souls flying back to heaven into the bosom of his consolation. And Job, amid the very engines of riches, both himself conquered the devil and left us an example of conquering him. Abraham so possessed riches that he often despised them when offered and trampled them when granted (Gen 14), and so loved to possess riches as not to be possessed by riches, to have them as material for generosity, not as fuel for greed. But to this it is answered that the saints' riches were innocent, since they were given by God, not shamefully acquired; granted for the use of life, not for the usury of death. But riches so published Matthew the tax collector as a master of greed, so baked him in the furnace of avarice, so bound him with the chains of bonds, so pressed him with the weights of purses, that he could not be raised to innocence, rise to justice, advance to virtue. So his sitting was a sinking down, not a sitting. Why Christ called such a man to himself, why he chose him for divine things, unless it is examined more deeply, makes a very deep question, and not only a question but also a scandal, as the attitude of the bystanders at that time made plain. For how would human weakness not be troubled when it saw that with Christ money was so powerful as to give faith to a cheat, grace to a hireling, the office of generosity to a master of greed, the mastery of holiness to a teacher of usury, the heavenly secret to a tax collector of the world? It burned those who saw it that usury, which lays waste the earth, was being lifted to heaven, and that the Godhead was summoning one whom men detest. That those who saw it then felt this way, Matthew himself discloses, who, being about to tell the truth about himself, could not keep silent about this. “And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and reclined with him and his disciples. And the Pharisees, seeing this, said to his disciples: ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?’” And the Pharisees said this so that it might be a great evil, which could displease even the wicked: and if it was wrong for tax collectors to share with Christ even in food, what was it to join a tax collector to divine things? Brothers, the interpreter's ingenuity would labor over this question, if the Lord himself, to whom the question is put, did not take away everything that is questionable. Let us go back, then, over the order of the reading: let us hear why Christ came to Matthew. “As Jesus passed on,” it says. It did not say, “when he stood there”; Jesus passed on and passed by from there, so that Matthew would not remain there; Jesus passed from there, so that Matthew would not stay there in that way. “He saw a man.” It did not say, “he saw Matthew,” because in Matthew he had set free the man; that is, men whom money possessed cannot serve God while they serve money. “You cannot,” he says, “serve God and mammon” (Matt 6:24). “Come, follow me.” He did not say, “Bring to me,” because he was seeking Matthew, not Matthew's purses. “Come, follow me.” That is: lay down your weights, break your chains, loosen your snares. Follow me. Seek yourself, lose usury, so that you may be able to find yourself. But let us now hear what he answered the Pharisees: “Those who are well,” he says, “have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” See why Christ had come to Matthew: to heal the wounds of avarice, to cure the pus of usury. “Go,” he says, “and learn what this means: I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.” He desired mercy, so that Matthew might spend in acts of mercy what he had taken by misery, and might redeem his punishment from the same source from which he had acquired his guilt. “I came not to call the righteous but sinners.” Saying this, he did not reject the righteous but shut out the unrighteous who falsely claimed to be righteous. Christ, then, in coming to sinners, wished to blot out sins, not to remain with sinners. To give generosity to a miser is to give life to a dead man. So Christ's calling Matthew is not a matter of money but wholly a matter of virtue. In the end Matthew at once became poor on earth so as to be counted rich in heaven.