136. Слово в неделю первуюнадесять по Пятдесятнице, и в день коронования Благочестивейшаго Государя Императора Николая Павловича

(Said August 22; printed in Christ. Reading, 1838 and in collections of 1844 and 1848) Is it not appropriate for you to have mercy on your minion, just as I had mercy on you? (Matthew 18:33). The Gospel reading of this Sunday appoints the subject of this word as the doctrine of the forgiveness of those who sin. This will not be untimely for the special present celebration of Our Most Pious Sovereign, Our Emperor, crowned and sacredly anointed by God. By the way, holy teaching meets a worthy example, and edifying reflections are facilitated by pleasant memories of loyal love. How many people are there in the vast empire of Our Most Pious Emperor who were in debt to His justice, sometimes very grave, but whose fate can be depicted by this Gospel line: “The Lord has had mercy on that servant, forgive him, and forgive him the debt!” (Matthew 18:27) How many, therefore, are there whom He can teach by the strong example of His own mercy to have mercy on those who sin: “Is it not fitting for you also to have mercy on your minion, just as I also had mercy on you?” Is it possible now not to remember that the First-born Son of our Most Pious Sovereign, 579, entering with age into the immediate inheritance of the Parental virtues, showed one of the earliest movements of hereditary goodness in compassionate attention to the fate of debtors of justice, and in petitioning the Most August Parent for its relief, which is only possible for mercy without insulting justice; and that the mercy of the Tsar responded with joy to the mercy of the Son of the Tsar? And so let us return to the Gospel, and from there we will take the motivation and the way to transfer into our homes and into our hearts the virtue that shines so brightly before us on the throne. In order to combine the doctrine of forgiveness for sinners with the incentive to fulfill it, our Divine Teacher offers it in an amazing parable. The king demands an account from his subjects, who had in their hands a lot of wealth that belonged to him. They bring one who owes him ten thousand talents, that is, a debt that is unpayable for a subject, and who, according to the laws of the kingdom, must be sold with his wife and children. The unfortunate man, not knowing what to do, asks for a deferment of payment. But the Tsar takes pity and completely forgives the debt. A majestic spectacle of mercy! The debtor has no means of justification; the law condemns him; the king has all the power to carry out the condemnation; the guilty person does not consider it possible to ask that the debt be forgiven, but perhaps only postponed: and suddenly - the debt is forgiven. This is so beautiful that if the Lord, without continuing his speech, said, as he once did in another parable: “Go, and do likewise” (Luke 10:37), the unpetrified heart would have to immediately answer: let’s go, let’s do it. But the Lord did not deign to stop, showing how beautiful virtue is; He foresaw that not everyone would be captivated by her beauty; and recognized the need to show the ugly opposite. The parable continues. The forgiven debtor meets his debtor, one of his minions, subjects of the same king. The debt is unimportant: only a hundred pennies. However, the forgiven creditor exacts from his debtor more strictly than the Tsar the creditor: “eat him under pressure.” He hears the same prayer that he himself brought to the king: “Have patience with me, and I will repay you everything” (Matthew 18:28–29): but he does not remember the past, is not touched by the present, and throws his debtor into prison. What gratuitous cruelty! He himself is forgiven, but he doesn’t want to forgive. He himself asked for a deferment of the impossible payment: but he does not want to defer the possible one. If the previous part of the parable strongly encourages one to forgive, then this second part reflects even more strongly the very idea of ​​not forgiving. The third part of the parable shows the consequences of cruelty inflicted by a forgiven, unforgiving person. The king learns of his actions; takes back his generous forgiveness; and betrays him to the torturers, “until he repays all his debt” (Matthew 18:34) - unpaid. One cannot help but feel the power of this parable. You just need to find out its correct application. What the allegorical face of the Lender King means, the Lord Himself interpreted at the conclusion of the parable: “So will my heavenly Father do to you” (Matthew 18:35). And so the Lender King is the Heavenly Father. Through this the meaning of all parts of the parable is determined. What did the Heavenly Father give us as a loan? - Oh, so many! More than a thousand talents! He gave us being and life, body and soul, mind, heart and feelings; He gave the earth under our feet, the beautiful tent of heaven above our heads; gave the sun to our vision and life, air to our breath; He gave animals into our power, and various products of the earth for our needs and pleasures, for food, for clothing, for housing, for exercising our activities to produce something useful and pleasant. Will anyone say that it is too proud to think that the earth, the sun, and the sky are for us; I answer to this: if you think about this proudly, I advise you to put aside your pride and think about it humbly and gratefully before the benefactor God, and not think that a thought abused by pride therefore ceases to be true. Would you also say that it is not you alone who use the earth, the sun and the sky, and not only all men, but also countless other creatures of God; I answer: what about that? It is all the more wonderful, all the more immense the wealth of God, that although countless beings use it, you also use it in such a way that it is completely prepared for you and adapted to your needs. Find a way to do without the earth, the sun and the sky - and then do not consider yourself a debtor to God for them: and if you cannot do this, then recognize that every ray of the sun that illuminates or warms you, every drop of air that you take with your breath is your new loan from the treasures of God - a loan that is always continued, renewed every minute, and, consequently, always unpaid. But are we borrowing from the Creator from the same treasures of creation? How generously the All-Good Provider also gives us from the treasures of His providence - the minute-by-minute preservation of our strengths and abilities, help and assistance in all good things, means and benefits for a well-ordered and prosperous life, kind and loving parents, prudent educators, a righteous and beneficent King, public safety, success in our endeavors, invisibly arranged deliverance from troubles, when it is obvious that “human salvation is in vain” ( Ps.LIX. 13). What can be said about the most important and even more invaluable lending of God from the treasures of grace? The Lord gave us sinners, darkened and lost, the light of faith, the hope of salvation; with the death of His Only Begotten Son He paid for our redemption from eternal death, to which we betrayed ourselves through sin; as a pledge, as a firstfruits, as a parting word for eternal and blessed life, He gave us His Holy Spirit, the baptism of regeneration, the incorruptible food of the body and blood of Christ. Oh, if only we were eternal debtors to God because God’s benefits to us are countless and eternal! But that's not all. There are new debts of ours to God, which painfully burden us and deeply humiliate us - debts that arise and increase from the fact that we use what is loaned to us for evil, and do not repay what is possible on our part to the Great Lender, or, on His instructions, to our minions. Do we always faithfully give God glory, gratitude, prayer, love for our neighbor, compassion for the needy, and all possible help for the poor? Do we carefully use the talents loaned to us - is the time always for useful activities, or at least innocent, is the mind always for the truth, is the heart always for movements towards goodness, is the feelings always for feats of moderation, abstinence and purity? Can we boast that we satisfy our duty in these respects? - “It’s true for you, Lord, but it’s a disgrace to us” (Dan.9:7)! After this, brethren, pacified, as I think, we will turn our gaze to what the parable of the Lord estimates at the unimportant price of “a hundred pennies” - to the debts of our neighbors to us, to their sins against us, to the injustices or insults we suffer from them. How small, how insignificant are all debts of this kind, when we mean our own debts to the Almighty! Someone carelessly touched our honor: we may not notice this at all if we are busy with a justly caring thought about how often we fail to give due honor and glory to the great and all-good God. Someone is unjust against us: it is not difficult to endure and forgive if we reason that God, before whom we are so often and so gravely wrong, allowed this. For someone who does not forget that only through infinite mercy he was not cast into eternal prison, it is difficult to forget himself to the point of persecuting his neighbor to the point of imprisonment and imprisonment unnecessarily, for offended self-interest or pride. But if, to our shame, Christians, we forget ourselves, and do not show mercy to those who have received mercy, and do not forgive those who have been forgiven: then let us hasten to remind ourselves that the King of Heaven sees; that the closest slander to us, from which we cannot hide, our conscience, testifies and will testify against us before Him; that the day will finally come when the Long-suffering One will “make the paths of His wrath” (Ps. 77:50), that is, justice; that the reproach of the heavenly Judge, which we hear in advance, and which we can still turn into an instrument of correction and salvation, will then pass through our soul without healing, as a weapon of judgment and punishment: “Is it not fitting for you to have mercy on your minion, as I also had mercy on you?” To conclude this word, it is necessary to fully listen to the conclusion of the Lord’s parable: “So will My heavenly Father also do to you, if you do not let each of your brothers let their sins go from your hearts” (Matthew 18:35). “From your hearts”: this is the spirit of the teaching about forgiveness for those who sin, and the resolution of misunderstandings that may arise. Forgive from the heart: not only outwardly, and not hypocritically. Forgive from the heart: and everything is done, even if later external actions are required from you, expressing, apparently, not forgiveness, but retribution. A debtor who is not poor, but wicked, can be thrown into prison in the spirit of pardon, as if into a hospital to cure him of the ulcer of wickedness. The king or judge also does not violate the commandment of forgiveness for sinners when they determine the punishment of the guilty, not taking revenge on him, but correcting him, and protecting the innocent from his crimes. So the good mother cries and takes the rod to the stubborn child: without a doubt, at this time she is not taking revenge, but loving wisely. Forgive the sinner from the heart, with love; meanwhile, if you can and must, correct him with prudence and also with love. Amen. In Christ. Reading: Magnanimous Nicholas. You might be interested in: