467. Слово на день памяти Преподобного и Богоносного Отца нашего Сергия Игумена, Радонежского Чудотворца

(Said in the Holy Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius, September 25) Blessed are you who are hungry now: for you will be satisfied. (Luke 6:21). An extraordinary Teacher appears, an extraordinary crowd of listeners gathers, an extraordinary teaching is taught: isn’t this enough for many to desire even to hear and understand five words from this teaching? Jesus Christ is an extraordinary Teacher for those who knew Him less, “for He taught them as having authority, and not as scribes and Pharisees” (Matthew 7:29), but for us, who know Him better, the only, Divine Teacher, “in Him are all the treasures of wisdom and understanding hidden” (Col. 2:3), “coming out” with the Apostles, as Evangelist Luke narrates, “one hundred in the same place were also His disciples, and a multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem, and the seaside region of Thirsk and Sidon, who came to listen to Him” (Luke 6:17-18). Note: not only the Jews and Jerusalemites left the city, the temple, the priests, the scribes, the Pharisees, and came to an empty place to listen to the Son of Tekhton, about whom they do not know, “having not learned this book” (John 7:15); but also the inhabitants of the coastal country of Tire and Sidon, this mixture of Samaritans and pagans, people, as the Prophet describes them, “sitting in darkness,” arose from their darkness and came to where the “light” appeared (Matthew 4:16), shining “in a revelation of the tongue” (Luke 2:32). And what does this Light reveal? What teaching does this Teacher teach? He teaches the science of bliss, the dignity and necessity of which can be understood by the last of the ignorant, and in which the foremost sages of the world have always made very little progress. Is it possible that someone in the school of such a Teacher would not care about such a teaching? Are there any who are not happy? It is not difficult to notice because if everyone carefully listened to the teaching of such a perfect Teacher as Jesus Christ, there would be no reason why everyone would not understand him sufficiently; having understood, without a doubt, everyone would willingly accept it; having accepted, he would have fulfilled it; having fulfilled it, he would have gained the fruit of teaching and deed, that is, bliss; and consequently there would be no ill-fated people, no dissatisfied people. They are between us; Therefore, there is someone who can begin to learn from Jesus Christ the science of bliss. A perfect disciple of the perfect Teacher and His image for us, your disciples! And besides “the people of Your disciples,” there will be “many many people,” near and far, “coming” from cities and villages to see, manifested by deeds, your success in the science of bliss; to observe your traces, and learn from you the ways of bliss; to touch you, and from the abundant “power” of bliss in you to partake of the “healing” (Luke 6:19) of the distressed souls and sick bodies. But you will not open your mouth today to teach us. Intercede for us before the Teacher, so that He, as He once fed five thousand with five loaves received from the hands of the disciples, so now with His own five words, through unworthy slave lips, He may give living food to this great multitude of people hungry for bliss. “Blessed are you who are hungry now: for you will be satisfied.” Who are these who are hungry now, who will be filled, and so filled that they are at the same time blessed? “For we see and know many who are hungry now, who will still hunger and, having been satisfied by the nature of hunger, will not yet be blessed. The beggar hungers until the charitable hand gives him food. He is in misery as long as he is hungry, but he is not blessed even when he is satisfied. It doesn’t take much reasoning to be convinced that future spiritual bliss cannot be the fruit and reward of this involuntary bodily hunger, unless some free disposition is added that gives it strength and dignity. The fasting person is hungry: and it is clear that this hungering will be followed by some secret, more or less blissful satiation, when in this way “those who are hungry now” willingly remain hungry in the morning and beyond, and when, instead of those who eat food strengthening their body for a short time, those who fast by fasting fatten, in the words of the Prophet, “their bones” (Is. 58:11) forever. But let not those who love fasting, which I honor together with them, be tempted; let them not be tempted when I say that fasting does not constitute the whole of hunger, to which Jesus Christ promises eternally blissful satiation, but only a part of it, and sometimes does not belong to it at all. For do we not see among those who are fasting people who are in the hunger of fasting, and are hungry to continue this hunger, but, of course, are still far from true satiation, when they either feed themselves with vanity, “for they darken their faces,” as the Knower of the Heart denounces them, “so that they may be seen as men who fast” (Matthew 6:16); or “they devour the houses of widows” (Matthew 23:14); or even people are consumed by suspicion, and slander, and anger, and envy, and malice. More than one body can hunger. There is a hunger for the soul, and there may be food for it that more or less satisfies. The will longs for the fulfillment or pacification of desires; the mind thirsts for knowledge. There are so many of these kinds of people who are “hungry now,” who are not satisfied and are not blessed. For many, spiritual peace and the taste of will are similar (since it gives direction) to bodily peace and the taste of luxury. First, he hungers and thirsts so much that he seeks to satisfy the necessary demands of the body, to quench hunger and thirst; then, needlessly, he invents various demands of taste, and again hungers and thirsts to satisfy these demands; finally, when both hunger and thirst have been satisfied by what is necessary, and taste has been dulled by what is superfluous, the sated one again hungers and thirsts, so to speak, for hunger and thirst itself, so that they will come and again bring him the opportunity to be satiated and satiated. So the human will, “hungry now,” but not as Jesus Christ teaches, since it certainly demands “satiation” “now,” from the present corruptible world, does not know satiety; from the natural and essential hunger, or desire for the good, it passes to arbitrary demands and various whims, and, satisfying them, always unsatisfactorily, it either damages the spiritual taste through satiety, or consumes the soul itself with an excess of hunger. What will finally happen to self-indulgents of all kinds, feeding passions, satisfying lusts, when this transitory world, from which they borrow the false satiation of wrong desires, passes away irrevocably - when it ends now and remains forever? When, therefore, will only the desires of the non-transitory soul remain, and their perishable food will disappear? What else could it be than what was predicted: “Woe to you now that you are filled, for you will hunger” (Luke 6:25). Continence of the mind is considered even less of a duty than continence of the will. The thirst for knowledge, without further consideration, is accepted not only as a natural and innocent, but even as a noble feeling. And just as sensual luxury gives some kind of respect to the mind-clouding wine, in comparison with the water that cleanses it; so it is not uncommon for the luxury of the mind to pass by the pure springs of Israel with disdain, and greedily accept from the hands of the fornicator of Babylon, the false wisdom of the world, the cup from which this “all tongues drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication” (Rev. 14:8). Our time has seen, and not to its bliss, it seems, it still sees those thirsty for so-called enlightenment, who from this cup drink the “wine of” first spiritual “fornication”, accept a teaching that brings into oblivion the sacred relationship of man to God, and introduces a mixture of truth with falsehood, evil with good, morality with passions, spiritual with the sensual, contrary to the pure law of an uncorrupted mind; then they drink “the wine of ... fornication,” even sensual, since impure feelings naturally arise from impure concepts, and corrupt teaching is accompanied by a depraved life; - and in which, finally, “this wine of ... fornication”, in the highest degree of rapture, turns into the wine of “rage”; because those who are overcome by false enlightenment, like drunks, do not like to be at peace, but with a dreamy thought of transformation, they want to subvert and destroy everything, and they cannot quench the healthy thirst for enlightenment, which from unnatural drinking has turned into another, even more frantic thirst - to be enlighteners, except with the tears and blood of people and nations. Lord, Teacher of bliss! How many people we already see who are “hungry now,” in whom we see neither signs of true satiation nor hope of bliss! But we still do not find those “hungry now” to whom You, faithful in Your promises, promised satiety and bliss. ABOUT! if only You Yourself showed them to us, so that we could recognize them easily and without error! In fact, brethren, the Lord Himself explains His word about “those who hunger now,” and directly points them out to us when there is nowhere to speak: “Blesseds are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, that they will be satisfied” (Matthew 5:6). Now you see the hungry and thirsty, to whom true satiation and bliss are promised: these are the hungry and thirsty not for food and drink, not for self-invented sensual, mental, mental pleasures, but “hungry and thirsty for righteousness.” Now, in the sayings of the Lord about those who are hungry, we can distinguish two main instructions in relation to blessedness. Firstly, the instruction about the means to bliss - this means is “truth”. Secondly, the instruction on the way to use this means for bliss - this method is “alcantation.” Here again, an explanation of what “truth” is may be required. This explanation can be found in the words with which the Evangelist describes blessed Zechariah and Elizabeth: “besta,” he says, “both are righteous before God.” But what does “righteous” mean? explains: “who walks in all the commandments and justifications of the Lord blameless” (Luke I, 6). So, under the name “truth” we must understand everything that is done according to the commandments of the Lord, in one word – virtue. Do you desire bliss? For this you need truth, or virtue. “You shall not bring” into the blessed city of God “all manner of evil, and create abominations and lies” (Rev. 21:27). Only those who fulfill God’s commandments can have eternal life: “Whoever does these things will live in them” (Gal. 3:12). This is how it should be in the truth of the Living God, for Whom it would not be fitting to allow into the communion of His own eternal life those who are disobedient and opposed to His will - His own, I say, His life, for “He alone” actually “has immortality” (1 Tim. 6:16), and all other beings have life and immortality only through the participation of His life and blessedness. This should be so by the nature of eternal life itself, for eternal life cannot be other than spiritual, since “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, but corruption inherits incorruption” (1 Cor. 15:50); and just as every life has its own food, the food of spiritual life again cannot be other than spiritual; – which one exactly? Find out this from Him who is the Leader and Image of spiritual life among people. “My purpose is,” He says, “that I may do the will of Him who sent Me, and complete His work” (John 4:34). Will you also ask about drinking? Learn about this from Him: “Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst; but the water that I will give him will be in him a fountain of water flowing into an everlasting belly” (John 4:14). The water, which He, therefore, actually gave to the Samaritan woman as promised, was the teaching of spirit and life. So, the teaching of truth is the drink of spiritual life; works of the spirit, the fulfillment of righteousness is the food of spiritual life; in this the soul finds spiritual saturation, and in spiritual saturation eternal bliss. However, by reasoning, without difficulty, as one should think, everyone will agree to recognize truth or virtue as the corresponding means for bliss. The greater difficulty seems to be how to use this remedy, and even whether it can be used. We hear the strict judgment of the Apostle, which is also the judgment of righteousness itself and the judgment of God: “Whoever... keeps the whole law, yet sins in one thing, he will be guilty of all” (James 2:10). Who does not sin more than “in one?” Who therefore is not guilty of all the commandments? Who has the truth? Who will find bliss with it? Let us agree that this difficulty is insurmountable for us: but let us agree in order to turn with greater attention to the instructions of the Divine Teacher of Bliss. Having shown us the truth as a means of bliss, He also shows us the way to use this means, the use of which seems so unreliable to us. He calls this method hunger: “the blessings of the hungry.” “Hungry” is the one who does not have food and who desires it. Deprivation of food and desire for food constitute hunger. Therefore, the hunger for truth is such a disposition of the human spirit in which it recognizes itself as deprived of truth, and feels that it does not have it; but at the same time he desires it as a hungry person desires food, without which he cannot live. This is the way to use the truth as a means of bliss, although at the same time it is true that we do not have the truth and are not able to have it. Just as the knowledge that we do not have food intensifies the feeling of hunger or the desire for food, so the consciousness that we do not have the truth intensifies the desire for truth. In the physical order, an intensified desire for food cannot bring food itself, since here the law of external necessity dominates over the desires themselves: but, in the spiritual order, an intensified desire for truth can attract the truth itself, since the law of free desires reigns here; because here it is not so much the famine that is looking for food that would nourish it, but rather the living food that is waiting for the famine that would accept it. Do you want to see how living spiritual food itself comes to the hungry? Do you want to hear how she calls them to herself in order to nourish them? Hear: “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me shall never thirst; and if you believe in Me, you shall never thirst” (John 6:35). And again: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven: if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever” (John 6:51). He who truly hungers for righteousness will find this bread to suit his taste, and will not refuse to taste it; This “bread” will “strengthen a person’s heart” (Ps. 103:15), and will fill it with the power of righteousness for which he hungered. For this wonderful bread is the One to whom the Prophets called the name: “The Lord is our righteousness” (Jer. 23:6), and Who in fact “gave us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification” and “deliverance” (1 Cor. 1:30). Hunger for this Bread, or the same thing in other words, come to Him, believe in Him, eat from Him: and you will be eternally satisfied, or otherwise, eternally blessed. If this is how you hunger, then “blessed are you who hunger now, that you will be satisfied,” or you will be satisfied forever. Lord, you feed the living creature of bread, our hungry being, who has no food of its own, secretly and inscrutably with Your Divine power, visibly with Your flesh and blood, but mentally with the word of Your righteousness, which is also the bread of life, according to what You said: “Man will not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4)! Behold, we dared to break this mental bread of our brethren: but You alone can bless and multiply the grains we have taken from Your inexhaustible table, and feed everyone according to his needs. Do this to all of us. If any of us hungers only for the flesh and the world and thinks to be satisfied with them: quench in us this coarse and insatiable hunger and awaken a pure and saving hunger for You alone and Your truth. If anyone imagines himself to be something and wants to be satisfied with his righteousness or virtue: understand to him that You did not come to seek the righteous and satisfy the saturated, that our imaginary satiation from our own deeds is only a dulling of the true taste of the spiritual, which must be healed by the hunger for You and Your righteousness. If anyone truly, and most of all, by faith, hungers for righteousness, and for You, our only truth, give him both the sweet satiation of hope, and also the healthy hunger of love: for, just as You are all sweetness, then “those who eat” You “will still hunger, and those who drink” You “will still thirst” (Sir. 24:23): “I will be satisfied” completely, “Your glory will always be revealed” (Ps. 16:15). Amen. You might be interested in: