453. Слово в неделю 28 по пятдесятнице

Have me renounced. (Luke 14:18). This was the response of all those invited to the supper! What insensitivity! If a poor person invited unknown people to his meal, such a refusal would not be surprising. The Lord of the house, the Father of the family, calls those who have already been called, calls his children, calls them to the great supper. What reason is holding you back, rebellious slaves? “The village bought ..; I bought oxen” (Luke 14:18–19) they answer. But or have you forgotten whose gift this is, whose blessing - “seek first the kingdom of God,” this great supper, and “all things,” meaning much more than your village and your oxen, “will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33). Moreover, he no longer says: “seek,” saving us from this labor; but “come, for the whole essence is already ready” (Luke 14:17). "Come"; but one answers - “girding the wife” (Luke 14:20); This wife, who was given as a helper on the way to this supper, is now becoming an idol, who takes her husband’s heart away from God, who has already made you an adulterer, forcing you to change the goodness of God. This is the fallen Eve, who gives the innocent Adam food forbidden as a dowry - and brings a curse, gives birth to illness, and leaves a legacy of death. Leave her! Vain beliefs: the will is already in captivity, the heart is in chains. He answers the messenger of God with the first: “have me renounced.” My God! our bitterness not only exceeds the measure of Your patience, but also every degree of our surprise. Will we agree to take up Your cross, to accept even one drop from the cup that You drank for us until we trembled, when Your very blessings do not captivate us? Shall we go with You to Calvary when we refused to go to You for supper? These are the bitter fruits of unbelief! A heart that does not have faith fears not only the difficulties in the feat of Jesus Christ, but also His very blessings and, like a criminal, suspects the Heavenly Father himself. Faith alone leads us to God. If we are true believers, then not only the “village”, “oxen”, “wife”, but the whole world, neither the angels, nor the present, nor the future will be able to separate us from God. Let us pay attention to this subject, open our hearts to accept it. You, perhaps, did not expect this, and some will consider it unnecessary to talk about faith to the faithful?.. But what if faith matures only in their mouths, but in deeds it is not even there, and has not yet arisen in the heart? God grant that experience deceives us - and then it will be unnecessary to talk about it. “Reprove the wise” (Proverbs 9:8), says Wisdom, then there will be no need to turn away from vices, to captivate with the beauty of virtues: “if the root is holy, so are the branches” (Rom. 11:16). “A good tree cannot produce evil fruit” (Matthew 7:18). Let us turn to that moment when the primordial enemy and murderer envied the happiness of innocence and seduced our ancestors. This is not a mistake of Wisdom, but a course of Her highest economy: it was determined in the eternal advice that man should receive the kingdom prepared from the creation of the world. In order to receive it, in order to possess and enjoy God Himself, our innocence was not enough: for this we needed merit. Not only the truth, but the very love of God demanded this. For through this she still wanted to deepen the sweetness of heavenly blessings; That good is not especially pleasant to us, which is acquired without difficulty. These merits, if left to everyone’s own strengths, when should they be accomplished? - In a state of innocence? But what feat should he define when he could not accomplish even so little - to abstain from forbidden food - when this creation made of dust and dust, admiring its own beauty, considered itself worthy of the glory and honor of God? Would he have agreed to voluntarily go from Eden to Golgotha? He would surely refuse to buy bliss in heaven at such a high price, while living on earth in paradise. By fall? But what feat, what sacrifice, whose life, whose death could satisfy the court of irritated truth? What kind of blood sacrifice could quench even a little of our Gehenna, not only buy the peace of the Lamb of God? The Fathers, the Eternal Son, left the radiance of glory for Himself to give us the right to bliss. “In the last days” (Heb. 1:2) He accomplishes this great work, letting them see “the things in heaven, the things on earth, and the things under the earth, how you loved ... the world” (Phil. 2:10; John 3:16) this. Finally, justice is satisfied, Adam's crime is washed away, our sins are forgotten... The Cherub, who expelled the forefathers from paradise, opens the gates of the kingdom of heaven. Instead of flaming weapons, it accepts the branch of the world. On the altar of the cross the letters shine eternally: “It is finished” (John 19:30). Thus, having accomplished this, what does our Intercessor require from us? – One consent to accept the greatest new benefit; This heartfelt acceptance of His merits with complete trust in them is our faith. This grace-filled faith in Adam’s innocence was a barrier: if the forefather had believed that “he would die if the day had cut him off from the tree” (Gen. 2:17), he would not have listened to the voice of the charmer; after the fall - the only consolation. If he had not believed that “the seed of the woman will erase the head of the serpent” (Gen. 3:15), then the depths of hell would have swallowed him alive with his dearest inheritance; The Holy One “all obeyed by faith” (Heb. 11:39). This very faith thundered in the mouths of the prophets, carried the preaching of the Apostles to the end of the universe, gilded the lips of the shepherds of the Church, conquered the whole world in confessors and martyrs, and finally reached our hearts. Now let's see if this so living faith is alive in us?.. And in order to find out this, reveal to us, the chosen vessel, the divine Paul, that faith in which there were ancient testimonies! “By faith,” he begins, “ye shall offer to God a greater sacrifice than Cain” (Heb. 11:4). Do we make a sacrifice?.. and what kind? David sings: “the sacrifice to God is a broken spirit” (Ps. 50:19). And the Lord Himself says: “I desire mercy” (Matthew 9:13). But how often our spirit in arrogance rises above heaven, in the coarse pleasures of the flesh it descends even to hell. How often do Lazarus die in ulcers, from hunger, from thirst before the gates of the rich. How often do we indifferently hear the groans of a sick person - everything except our hearts with their cries piercing: “man is not an imam” (John 5:7). “By faith... Sarah ... was born more than the age of age” (Heb. 11:11): our barren soul is not only more than the age of age, but also “in the favorable time, in the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2) does not bear the fruits of repentance and good deeds. “By faith... Abraham... offered his only begotten” (Heb. 11:17): we, leaving behind the “donkey” and the “lad” (Gen. 22:5) - the flesh and the wild mind, do we go up the mountain with him and bring Isaac - our own heart? Oh! not only for God, but for our own bliss, not only our hearts, but we are sorry to leave our donkey and oxen. “By faith Moses left Egypt” (Heb. 11:27). Instead of Moses, Christ leads us; instead of a pillar of fire, the righteous Sun has risen for us. And we, while condemning the murmuring of ancient Israel in the desert, ourselves have not yet moved from Egypt, we do not stop working for this adulterous and sinful world and the devil. “By faith,” he continued; but enough, student of heaven, student of earth! Close this mirror, in which we see very clearly what we are like. And is it possible to expect the fruits of faith when there are some of us who have hardly received even a grain of it? How can we look for it in our affairs when we often don’t give it space in our minds? There are quite a few in our age who themselves do not want to and teach others not to believe anything, which neither the carnal eye nor the foolish wisdom of the world can see. Pointless! Or they don’t know how much faith is needed in even visible and natural deeds! Would a farmer sow when he did not know that the earth would return a hundredfold? Who would sail the sea if he did not trust the ship and the helmsman? Who could be cured of an illness without having a power of attorney to a doctor? Who could learn any art if he did not believe the artist? And if you take away faith in these matters, what will come out of this beautiful world? - The desert of death, a coffin that would bury us alive! So, if earth, water, air, our neighbor demand faith from us for our own good, then why do we refuse God? You have neighbors, friends: without seeing their hearts, you believe them. Why do you deprive God of that pleasure that you do not deny to people who are like you in everything? What did He do to deserve such distrust? Write other statutes for eternal Wisdom, how She should deal with us, and how we can become blessed. Or don’t you care about the riches of God’s goodness and meekness and long-suffering? You heard in the Gospel read today His judgment about those who were called and denied: “I say to you,” he said, “that not a single man of those who were called will taste my supper” (Luke 14:24). Now marvel at His special love for us. We have repeatedly refused to go to supper with Him, and to this day He, in the voice of the Church, does not cease to call us: “Come.” Behold, the days of repentance are coming! He will strengthen His voice without hardening our hearts: let us cut off the boots of our feet, let us put aside sin, let us become holy in the place, receive the spirit of faith - this is the “wedding garment” (Matthew 22:11). Then let us begin this meal to taste the Lord’s Supper; Let us partake of the covenant blood and the Lamb of God. Having accepted this path of eternal life, let us hasten to that great supper, where there are blessings that “eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has breathed into the heart of man” (1 Cor. 2:9). Let us hasten, let us not delay, and for mutual assurance, let us say with our hearts and lips to each other: Amen. You might be interested in: