Word for the Week of the Publican and the Pharisee

“I am not, like other men, a predator, an unrighteous woman, an adulterer, or like this publican” (Luke 18:11). If you believe the Pharisee, then he was a very decent man, even one that you will not soon find. According to him, he abhorred many vices, which many do not disdain, did not like untruth, did not like to appropriate the property of others, and did not like the works of the flesh. Moreover, he not only did not indulge the lusts of the flesh, but also tried to mortify it. “I fast,” he says, “twice on Saturday,” that is, twice a week, which the law did not require. Not only did he not take someone else’s property by force or deception, but he gave his own for the benefit of the church. “I give tithes,” he says, “as much as I can get” (Luke 18:12). Is this not enough, how often can you find this: did you donate a tenth of your property to the Lord? Despite all this, the Pharisee was humiliated at God's court before the publican. Despite all this, the unrequited, humble publican is acquitted, and the Pharisee is condemned. “This man is justified in his house more than this” (Luke 18:14). Why is this? Why was the Pharisee condemned? For proudly judging others. “I am not like other people, I am not like this publican,” he said. He not only exalted himself before others, but slandered the publican, reproached the publican with pride. Let us learn, brethren, not to judge others; let us learn all the more, all the more attentively, since from this day St. the church begins to prepare us for spiritual and physical abstinence and, beginning the preparation, brings to our attention the Pharisee - a strict judge of the affairs of others. Whereas the cry of the depraved inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah reached the throne of heaven, calling for vengeance on them: has vengeance been sent at once by the Lord? No. The Lord, merciful and just, says: “I will come down... and I will see that even if it is according to their cry that comes to Me, it will be done, even if not, I understand” (Gen. 18:21). Heart-knowing Lord! Don’t you know that the land, burdened with the sins of Sodom, does not raise its cry to the throne of righteousness in vain? Brethren! He knows everything, not only what has been done, but also what people will do, or what people are capable of doing. But - He shows us that no eye is able to notice His excessive severity in His judgments, but it can always, always must see that His judgment is animated by all the condescension of righteous love. You see how His condemnation is preceded by a careful examination of the cases, how His sentence is slowed down by strict verification of the case with the law, how you can see the desire not to aggravate, but to alleviate the fate of the guilty. This is how our Lord treats us sinners! We should do the same in relation to others. This is what a person does with a good, pure, holy conscience. If they call him to testify about the misdeeds of another, he will speak only with reluctance and regret about the sin of another: he will speak only about what he is asked about, he will show only what he knows, what he probably saw, or probably heard; Not only will he not allow frustration, exaggeration, anger to reach his soul and his words, but he will suffer internally for the other, he will be tormented by the desire that the accused not be accused. And you, my brother, what do you do, dispelling gossip and slander? You talk about your neighbor when no one asks you, you blame him when no one calls you on it; you tell what you don’t know, you tell it with proud self-confidence, while this confidence is the fruit of sheer frivolity; Most often you say what never happened, you only say what you heard but did not see; and you speak with caustic anger. What a terrible injustice! If you have already taken upon yourself, my brother, the task of judging the conscience of another, you should think about the legal proceedings of the court. What are you doing? Without listening to either witnesses or the parties - defending and accusing, without research, without confrontation, without having any other evidence other than news and rumors, you judge so boldly, condemn so decisively. Come to your senses. You say: “I was told this and that, I didn’t make anything up.” So be it! But are the faces whose words you repeat worthy of faith? Can you, with your hand on your heart, say: “They didn’t add anything, they weren’t deceived, they weren’t deceived, they weren’t occupied with any passion when they said this and that”? Can you testify to all this before the Lord? No! How can you, pathetic person, undertake to be the judge of another when you are unable to prove anything against him? But let me ask you, my brother, who gave you the right to be a judge over another? The Lord Jesus directly forbids you to judge your neighbor: “Judge not, lest ye be judged” (Matthew 7:1). The Apostle of Christ gave the commandment to leave human affairs to the future judgment of Christ: “Ye judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come” (1 Cor. 4:5). Where did you get the right to judge another? Which prophet gave you this right? There is one lawgiver and judge - the Lord God, our creator and provider; Its us all; To them was given a law for all; He also has the right to judge everyone. So, you arrogate to yourself the right of God, you steal the honor of God. How daring! How brazen this is! Your neighbor is not your defendant, he is your brother; as a brother, you are obliged to love him, protect him, spare him, and not be sarcastic with ridicule and abuse. In a fraternal society, one brother learns good things from another. We can, we must, study the lives of others for our own edification: but this does not mean condemning others. Look at your brother's soul as if it were a living book; read and study this book. But remember that the author of this book is the Most High, whose every thought, every deed is an object of reverent praise and amazement for a host of angels. Be afraid to despise what God keeps. As for your brother’s deeds and life, repeat in your soul more often: The judge of him, as of me, is the Lord. “Who are you, a judge of a foreign slave? His Lord stands or falls...Who art thou, the judge of thy brother? Let us all stand before the judgment seat of Christ” (Rom. 14:4, 10). Over whom are you given the right of trial? Above yourself. “Test yourselves, if you are in faith, tempt yourself” (2 Cor. 13:5). This is a subject about which you can and must judge with all attention, with all rigor. Here you can, if you wish, pour out both caustic ridicule and harsh reproaches. How much food for your wit! Another thing is the judge’s boss, mentor, parents. The title itself obliges them to consider and appreciate the actions of those under their command. But even those need to watch themselves, so as not to allow anything more than their rank allows. Otherwise: “Let everyone tempt his own work” (Gal.6:4). Each of us must give an account for ourselves to God, and what a strict, what a complete account! We need to get ready for the report. Well? Have you checked yourself? Have you looked into the depths of your soul? Have you examined and discussed yourself according to the strict truth? You will have to show all the secret movements of your heart - anger, envy, desire for someone else's, and lust - everything dark and dirty. Do you know all your secrets? Oh my God! What are we doing? We are strangers to ourselves, and strangers are the subject of our tireless judgment. Your soul is blind, and poor, and covered with wounds. And we are doing other people's business! Oh my God! let me see my sins and not condemn my brother. How can we be judges of our neighbor? Our soul can be known to us: but how can we know what is in the soul of our brother? We judge others by appearance, and we are grossly mistaken. The Pharisee judged and condemned the publican according to his rank, but it turned out that the publican’s heartfelt humility outweighed all the Pharisee’s posts. Zacchaeus was the elder of the tax collectors, and the people murmured against the Lord, as if he were a sinner against a sinful man; and Zacchaeus turned out to be so great in spirit that he attracted grace not only to himself, but to his whole house. The closest and saddest example of human error is presented to you, Christian, by the judgment of the Jews and Greeks about the cross of your Savior. Wasn’t the Jew tempted by this cross, wasn’t the pagan mocking him, while in the cross “God’s power and God’s wisdom?” (1 Cor. 1:24). Do people judge intentions by appearance? But sin, as soon as it came into being, came up with ways to cover itself with the most beautiful clothes. That is why it happens that they think they see a bright angel, but in reality it is a dark Satan. Do they judge the depth of the soul by the surface? What frivolity! Who is the message from man who is in man, even the spirit of man living in him? It happens that a person himself does not know everything that has prepared him for this and not another determination. The grace of God moves the heart, not always being expressed to the heart, much less to people. It is very possible that while you despise what you see in a person, in the depths of his soul invisible to you it has a different meaning. The same thing in one situation can be excusable or commendable, in another it can be criminal or barely excusable; the same thing can have voluntary and involuntary motives, and pure and impure intentions. How can one take upon oneself to judge and condemn another without knowing the other? You condemn your brother for an offense, while the brother’s case, perhaps, is the result of only a misunderstanding, or offends only decency, but not the law, or, if there is an offense, it is already covered with humble repentance, like the offenses of a publican. A robber followed the Savior to the crucifixion. But an hour later this robber was a confessor of Christ, and was sent by the Lord to heaven. What if the sinner I despise repeats in the depths of his repentant soul the prayer of the prudent thief? How grave my sin will be! Where does the passion to slander and condemn another come from? What makes us say bad things about others? When the tongue is covered with bile: this is a sign that the stomach is upset. When the tongue speaks badly, it is true that the soul is upset. What? Pride, pride, brothers! It is pleasant for pride to consider oneself above others; It’s nice for vanity to think that others are becoming lower than us, it’s nice for vanity to think like that, it’s nice to talk like that about others. That is why they are happy to expose the mistakes of others. By humiliating others, they elevate themselves. You see how the disease of the soul is revealed in the tongue. And what a disease! The most dangerous disease, a disease so disgusting to the Lord, is pride. You say: “I do not consider myself better than others: but I would not like to be reproached for the same thing.” And you think you were justified? Not at all. Whoever cares about not appearing bad, and not about not being bad, is not about not allowing injustice to come to the soul either before God or before one’s neighbor: isn’t it bad self-love that lives in him? You do not consider yourself better than others: but you certainly do not consider yourself worse than others; and what is this if not pride? Take a closer look at yourself. You love the skill of finding everything good in yourself and everything bad in others, excusing your misdeeds and not sparing anything in others. In the eye of another you can see even a knot; but you can’t smell even a log in yours. What is this if not pride? Our pride can be deceitful. She does not pay a caustic glance to people who have committed a great crime; on the contrary, I am ready to regret them; oh, how unhappy he is, she says. Why this kindness? Because they do not want to be compared with obviously bad people, because compassion for the plight of people is recognized as a sign of a good soul. But there is no mercy for ordinary weaknesses. Pride sometimes appears with the blue face of envy. And then a new torment for the happy neighbor. The merits of a neighbor cast a shadow on the honor of another, his good glory is a burden to another, his bright qualities reveal with their light the dark spots of others. And - frustration excites the bile, anger boils in the soul, like in hell, they are ready to tear a happy neighbor to pieces. How, why, why is he so happy? He is not at all what he seems, he is not at all what people see him as. И – начнут описывать! God forbid you ever get into this damned language. He will attribute to you intentions that you never had, he will cover your actions with such disgusting paint that you will feel sick. This is low, satanically low, but such is the work of evil envy! Not many people feel better when vanity forces them to judge and second-guess others. And this happens, and very often. Vanity wants to show off with something, it wants to be pleasant in conversation, to amuse society with witticisms, to entertain others with oneself. But how to do this? Make jokes at yourself, at your own expense? This would not mean adding to one's brilliance. Other subjects somehow lack poignancy, or more precisely, meaning. As soon as he speaks, they see that he is boring and vulgar. And so the neighbor became a victim of passion. And my God, where does the mind come from that is not enough for other things! And if three or four witticisms happen; then, farewell to my brother's good name. As soon as the first stone is thrown at him, a hail of caustic ridicule and the most caustic and evil reproaches will fall. Forgive me, my listener, if I call this fun demonic. Muddy, black, dirty is the source from which the passion to judge others comes. But search as much as you want, you won’t find anything better. That is why the apostle said: “the tongue... of slander is full of poison, and is a storehouse of unrighteousness” (James 3:6–8). Brethren! Let us be attentive to ourselves, to our sins. Then let us not judge others; - then there won’t be enough time for that, and there won’t be enough desire. Then it turns out that you need a lot of strength to bear your burden; then we will learn to better appreciate others. And - what is above all: the Lord gives grace to the humble - he will also give it to us sinners. Amen. You might be interested in: