459. Слово на память иже во Святых Отца нашего Алексия, Митрополита и всея России Чудотворца

(Said in the Chudov Monastery on February 12). Whoever destroys one of these little commandments and teaches this to men, he will be called in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does and teaches, he will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:19). If it is necessary, according to the word of the Wise One, that “the memory of the righteous ago” should be “with praise” (Prov. 10:7), it is not difficult for us to repay this debt to the righteous, whose memory we now solemnly commemorate. It is enough to take one good flower from the tree of life, and a crown will be formed on the head of the righteous by itself; it is enough to utter one living word taken from the lips of the Word, who created everything and adorned everything, in order to crown the worthy with praise servant of this very Word. “Whoever creates and teaches, this one will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” Having placed this measure of greatness against the spirit and deeds of Alexius, who does not immediately see how he completely fills this sacred measure with spiritual age? How soon are we convinced to admit that He is “great” - great with such greatness, with which nothing on earth is equal, because He is “great ... in the kingdom of heaven,” and heavenly things are undoubtedly higher than earthly things: is there any other height to which earthly praise could lift Him? A flowering tree does not need flowers to be brought to it to decorate it; According to the beneficence of the all-good Creator of the created nature, it waits for someone to decorate themselves with its natural flowers, or to enjoy their fragrance, or to be nourished by its fruits. Likewise, the righteous man, planted “in the house of the Lord,” by the hand of grace, “in the courts of our God,” flourishing (Ps. 91:14) with substantial praise, that is, perfections, virtues and miracles, has no need for us to bring him verbal praise; but, according to the love of God that lives in him, he desires and expects that we ourselves should be adorned and nourished with his essential praises, that is, so that, in His image, for our own life, “as great as is true, as great as honest, as great as righteous, as great as is most pure, as great as loving, as great as good praise, if there is any virtue, and if there is any praise, we will consider this” ( Phil.4:8). Let us take the color of the Gospel, with which we thought to decorate the righteous. Let us set for ourselves the measure of small and great things given by Jesus Christ, so that it can show what is missing, or what we need to achieve “to become a perfect man, according to the measure of the age of the fulfillment of Christ” (Eph. 4:13). “Whoever destroys these little commandments and teaches men this way, he will be called in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches, he will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” “To destroy the small commandment - to create, to teach” - what extraordinary measures of great and small! So, is he great who sees thousands of people like himself below him and can bow and exalt them, overthrow and restore, overthrow and exalt? Is he great who carries an entire region or state on his shoulders, and can hold, direct, even increase their strength? Is he great who has tested his skill and strength in battles and proven his superiority in victories? Is he great, - there are also those who ask about this, - is he great who knows how to turn the excesses and shortcomings of others into the composition of his abundance so that people who, for shame, would allow him with them in a dispute about greatness, are forced to turn to him in order to obtain means to preserve the splendor of this greatness? “You talk!” (Matthew 27:11; Mark 15:2; Luke 23:3; John 18:37) they will tell me; you almost called them great already. But no! What is righteous or unrighteous, called great on earth, does not correspond to the measure of the greatness of heaven, which is completely different. Let us also ask: is he small who has neither great treasure, nor great power, nor great art, nor great name on earth, who is humiliated before others by the degree of rank, and by poverty, and by the lack of education respected in society, who is almost lower than the earth itself, into which he goes deep to extract from it nutritional power, or treasures, more for others than for himself? No again! And this little one of earth does not correspond to the measure of what is called little in the kingdom of heaven. Well? Are great and small lands really equal? “Really, is there great inequality between them before Him Who measures the immeasurable heavens by a span?” We will not say, however, just as the Lord did not say that there was no difference between them; and between the small earthly measures of the great and the small there are correct differences established by Him Who “arranged everything by measure, number and weight” (Wis. 11:21), only the heavenly ones do not follow earthly measures. David with the flock of Bethlehem was small compared to the rest of the little sons of his people Jesse; at the same time, the same David is already greater than his brothers before God and before His Prophet Samuel. David on the throne in Jerusalem is great both before God and together before men. Nebuchadnezzar, no doubt, considered himself very great when he called himself the creator of Babylon the Great; but at the same moment it was revealed that he was no higher than the dumb. The son of Zechariah, living in the desert, dressing in animal skin, eating wild food, probably seemed like a wild man to many of those who “wear soft clothes and live in houses” (Matthew 11:8): and who would have thought that there was a kind of greatness in which he outgrew all those born of women before him? But there is also a kind of greatness in which he did not reach the least in the kingdom of heaven. What, finally, can such various measures of great and small serve us? So that he who imagines himself to be more than others should try himself on them, and should not despise the little ones of the earth, should not rise up before them with arrogant thoughts, should prudently think about the time when the varied greatness of the earth, like the varied image of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, will crumble into dust, and, perhaps, will leave him too small against the measure of heaven - so that he will try himself to them. and the smallest of the earth, and did not envy the great, did not lose heart, did not care about how to rise on earth, but lest he be “called in the kingdom of heaven.” He who does not understand, or who is careless, can say that it is enough for him if he is named in the kingdom of heaven. Saint Chrysostom answers this: “Whenever you hear less in the kingdom of heaven, you understand nothing else except Gehenna and torment; the kingdom, for it is not the pleasure of telling the news only, but also the time of resurrection, and its terrible coming.” And further he says: “You will be the one who is rejected, the last, but the last one will fall into Gehenna in every possible way then,” that is, during the general resurrection and the opening of the kingdom of God. And truly, as the same teacher of the Church argues, if the one who says to his brother: you are a freak, is condemned to Gehenna, can there be less condemnation for the one who “ruins... the commandment,... and teaches this to men”? So, “opinion,” or the smallest “in the kingdom of heaven,” is not only a meager measure, but a terrible one, a measure not only of those who are belittled and humiliated, but of those who are condemned and perishing. And who falls to such a low standard? “Whoever destroys the unity of these little commandments.” A terrible sentence, which, like a sharp scythe, cuts off our easy hopes of achieving the kingdom of heaven! Who among us can boast that he does not violate a single, even small, commandment? Who does not hope, however, that many small sins will not drag him into Gehenna? Where is this hope now? Anyone who violates one of the small commandments is “condemned ... in the kingdom of heaven”; and the one in the kingdom of heaven is nothing other than the son of Gehenna. Let us refrain from despair and with calm reflection let us delve into the saying of the Savior. What should be understood in His words under the indicative title: “these commandments?” Of course, such commandments were in the eyes or in the thoughts of those who heard them when He pronounced His judgment on the small and great, in relation to the kingdom of God. What were the commandments? Without a doubt, those with which the Lord explained and exalted at that time the spirit of the commandments of Moses. The commandments of Moses forbade murder, adultery, perjury, and insult: the Lord forbade anger, and an adulterous look, and a just oath without need, and resistance to the offender, commanding instead to love one’s enemies. And He called these commandments “small” because the actions they prohibit seem only minor sins, or do not seem such at all to people who roughly adhere only to the written word, that is, the sensual concept of the law, and do not know how to read the subtle law of the spirit on the tablets of the heart, avoid obvious, in the eyes of the world itself, contemptuous vices and iniquities, but consider internal impurities, vile in the eyes of God, to be nothing. Thus, it is revealed that the violator of the small commandments is one who, although he does not kill, is secretly evil; does not commit adultery, but does not mortify lusts; does not bridle the tongue; has no patience and love for enemies; in other words, who does not have a pure heart and a right spirit. For such a thing, what good conscience will not come to the verdict of the judgment of Christ, and will not admit that “the Lord is righteous, he brings wrath?” (Ps. 7:12) When we hear that He condemns even one of the small commandments that is not fulfilled, almost in the same way as for all the great ones: let us not take away the hope of salvation from ourselves through small sins. If what is said is true that “whoever humbles a small one will fall little by little” (Sir. 19:1): then even if small sins were not strictly condemned in themselves, they would destroy us, bringing little by little to great ones; and therefore, one should not complain about the severity of the court, but by this very severity arouse oneself to the necessary caution against falls that are considered small. Before sin deceives you by the fact that it seems small: strike it and repel it from yourself with the formidable judgment of Christ: “Whoever destroys one of these little commandments, the last one, the rejected one, “will be called in the kingdom of heaven.” However, the severity of this judgment in its full force is directed not just at the small sins we have committed, but at the sins we have spread. “If anyone destroys these little commandments and teaches men this, he will be called in the kingdom of heaven.” So, we, who have been appointed to teach man the commandments of God, are threatened here more than others by the Lord with His judgment; and at the same time, as He elevates this service to heavenly greatness, He degrades any unfaithful walk in this service even to Gehenna. “Thou art righteous, Lord, and Thy judges rule” (Ps. 119:137)! How will we be justified if we lead those to whom You send us to give the understanding of salvation into fatal errors? And “if you see iniquity, Lord, Lord, who will stand?” ( Ps.129:3 ) Have mercy on us who are humbled; remove from us every corrupt word, every deed that could seduce one from these little ones who believe in Thee! But you, who are not called by the special calling of God to teach men, do not think that the Lord’s judgment on those who teach man to violate the commandments will no longer affect you! No! And a measure of shameful humiliation and excommunication from the kingdom of heaven will also pass through you, if you do not strive, using the means given by God, to restore yourself to salvation, so that, if not in the word of teaching, then in the deed of example 954, “your light may be shined before men, so that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). If a parent before his children, a master before his household, a master before his slaves, a boss before his subordinates, even whoever is before his neighbors, “ruins the unity of the commandments,” he not only destroys it, but also “teaches people to do so.” Children naturally imitate the affairs of their parents, households or slaves are sometimes almost involuntarily entangled in the disorderly affairs of the house-master or master; to the lower ones, the deeds that were seen among the higher ones cease to seem low; if the one who destroys the commandment, apparently, has only witnesses, and not followers, - and then he either violates the purity of their thoughts with the spectacle of sin, or also leads them into the sin of condemnation, and thus, inconspicuously, “teaches to destroy these small commandments.” Remember, Christian, that the sin that you commit in the eyes of your neighbor not only humiliates you before this neighbor, but also before the entire kingdom of God, as a distributor of sin: “Whoever destroys one of these little commandments ... he will be called in the kingdom of heaven.” Hitherto, for the most part, we spoke about the little ones, in relation to the kingdom of heaven, as if they were little ones; and perhaps not in vain because in every respect there are more small ones than great ones. Shall we dare to speak further about the great ones in the kingdom of God? But they do not require our little word; and this word does not want to be difficult for the listener; and the Great One of the Kingdom of God who is near us preaches about this greatness more than any word. Let us just say for the consolation of the little ones that from the smallest to the greatest in the kingdom of heaven is not as far as it is in the earthly kingdom. He who yesterday was diminished by small or even great sins and was cast down even to Gehenna, today can repent and produce fruits worthy of repentance; - “and whoever will do it” is already following the great ones in the kingdom of heaven. If, by the example of his correction, he motivates others to correct their lives, then he has not only “created”, but also “taught; and whoever he does and teaches, this great one will be called the kingdom of heaven,” in which, finally, may the most merciful King and our Lord vouchsafe all of us, small and great, to magnify and glorify His One forever. Amen. You might be interested in: