Поучение 1-е в неделю мытаря и фарисея. Характер мытаря и фарисея

Beloved brothers! In the Gospel we read today, we heard the parable of our Lord Jesus Christ about the publican and the Pharisee. For what reason did the Lord tell this parable? He said it to people who are deceived and deceived by conceit, rely and trust in their own righteousness, in their good deeds, look out of their conceit and self-deception at other people, humiliate them, that is, think lowly of them, despise, condemn, slander both secretly, in their souls, and openly, before people. For what reason did the Holy Church order the reading of this Gospel before entering the field of Great Lent? – In order to protect us from conceit and humiliation of our neighbors, in which the feeling of repentance cannot be assimilated into the heart. If fasting is not adorned with the fruit of repentance, then the fasting feat will remain in vain. This is not enough: it will harm us, increasing our conceit and self-confidence. This is the property of all bodily exploits and visible good deeds. If, when we perform them, we think of making a sacrifice to God, and not of paying off our unpayable debt, then good deeds and exploits are performed in us by the parents of soul-destroying pride. “Two men went into the church to pray,” this is how the Lord began His parable, “one is a Pharisee, and the other is a publican.” (Luke 18:9-14) After this, the Lord, the Knower of the Heart, told what thoughts expressed the secret heartfelt of each of those who prayed, what thoughts each of those who prayed depicted their relationship to God. The Pharisee was satisfied with himself, recognized himself as worthy of God, pleasing to God. "God! “I give You praise,” he said within himself,” that is, he spoke with his thoughts with invisible self-view. Why does the Pharisee praise God? Is it not because of the immense greatness of God, which brings surprise and bewilderment to all rational creation? Is it not because of the incomprehensible and ineffable mercy of God, which allows an insignificant creature, man, to converse with God? Is it not because of the countless blessings of God poured out on humanity? No! “I give you praise,” says the Pharisee, “for I am not like other men.” The Pharisee, in his blindness, praises God for his state of self-righteousness and self-delusion. A daring and crafty form of boasting! Praise be to God, unworthy of God! Praise be to God, filled with slander against God! It was not God who gave the Pharisee the dispensation that he boasts of; it was made up of the acceptance and assimilation of false concepts. The father of false concepts that kill the soul with eternal death is the fallen archangel (John 8:44). It was under whose influence the mood of the Pharisee was formed. Self-delusion is always connected with what the Holy Fathers call “demonic delusion”: it consists of accepting lies as truth, being carried away by lies. Gloomy is the Pharisee's view of humanity from his self-delusion! “I am not, like other men,” he said, “predators, unrighteous, adulterers, or like this publican.” Where did he receive such knowledge that he expresses with such certainty and confidence? How could he know with accuracy and detail the activities and conscience of all people in order to lay a grave and comprehensive accusation on them? How could he know the activity and conscience of the publican who entered the church with him, who did not have any conversation with him, who did not tell him anything about himself? It is obvious that the sentence was made hastily, and was made not because the other people and the publican were such as the Pharisee showed them to be, but because the illness of self-delusion and self-righteousness presented them to the Pharisee as such. Next, the Pharisee calculates his virtues: “I fast twice on Saturday, I give tithes of everything, as much as I can get.” The Pharisee looked at his deeds as sacrifices, as merits before God: this view is common to all Pharisees. For them, God proclaims in vain both in the Old and New Testaments: “I want mercy, not sacrifice” (Matt. IX, 13, Hos. VI, 6). The Lord more than once pointed out to them this expression of the will of God in the Holy Scriptures. He told them that they would never have fallen into condemnation of the innocent if they had understood this expression of the will of God (Matthew 12:7): because mercy not only does not condemn the innocent, but also looks at the guilty with compassion; She, if possible, condescends to them, as weak and sick members, and takes care not of executions, but of healing. The bitter, blind Pharisees, stubbornly rejecting mercy, want, as it were, to rape the Divine and offer Him sacrifices that He does not accept. They demand the same behavior from other people; not seeing him, they are tempted and condemned. It is common for Pharisees to be tempted by those in whom they do not see pharisaism; It is common for them to be tempted by those who, abhorring self-love and man-pleasing, try to please God in the simplicity and mystery of their hearts; They tend to see sin and malice where they do not exist; They tend to condemn, hate and persecute the true servants of God. Who were they tempted by, whom did they condemn, in whom did they see sin, whom did they persecute with frantic malice? Having examined the narrative of the Gospel, we will be convinced that they were constantly subjected to persecution and hatred either by repentant sinners who were reconciled with God and made righteous through repentance, or by disciples and followers of God incarnate, but most of all by the incarnate, all-perfect God Himself. The Pharisees had a wrong concept about the Law of God. By studying the Law only in letter, and not experimentally, by not fulfilling the Law, they acquired not the humility into which a person is brought by the true knowledge of God, but unusual pomposity and arrogance. They attached much greater importance to ritual and educational decrees than they should have been given, and they ignored the commandments of God, which constitute the essence of the Law. Having distorted the meaning of the Law in accordance with their false mind and depraved heart, they, while serving and pleasing only self-love, mistakenly presented themselves and others as serving and pleasing God. They sought to serve and please God by fulfilling their will and their understandings, recognizing them as probably good and true, which is unnatural for fallen human nature, and not by carefully researching and fulfilling the will of God. With this way of activity, a person almost constantly does evil, recognizing it as good, and when he does good, he makes it out of himself, which is why he attributes it to himself, as the Pharisee attributed it. At the same time, good itself becomes the cause of evil, introducing conceit into a person, planting, feeding and increasing in him the most destructive of passions - pride. Living according to the commandments of the Gospel leads to completely different consequences. Having set the fulfillment of the will of God as the goal of life, he tries to learn in detail and accurately this all-holy will through the most careful study of the Holy Scriptures, especially the New Testament, through reading the Scriptures of the Fathers, through conversation and consultation with successful Christians, through the fulfillment of the Gospel commandments and outward behavior, both mind and heart. “The law of freedom,” said the Monk Mark the Ascetic, “is read with true understanding, by doing the commandments, of course, and is fulfilled by the bounties of Christ” 10. When a Christian begins to live according to the good, pleasing and perfect will of God (Rom. XII: 2) or according to the commandments of the New Testament, then the fall and weakness of human nature are suddenly revealed to him 11 . Weakness does not allow him to fulfill God’s commandments purely and holy, as God demands, and his fall resists, often with the greatest bitterness, the fulfillment of God’s commandments. It wants and demands that the fallen will and the fallen mind of man be fulfilled. The aspirations of this will and the ideas of this mind are clothed in all types of the most sublime truth and virtue. Knowledge of the internal struggle, exposure and discovery of the sin living inside, knowledge of its violent power over good wills and aspirations gives the Christian a correct concept of himself and of humanity. He sees the fall of humanity in himself, he sees from his own experiences the impossibility of emerging from this fall through his own efforts alone; he acquires true humility, begins to bring to God the warmest prayer for help and intercession from a contrite heart, to which God always listens. “Teach me to do your will!” (Ps. 142:10) “Teach me by your justification!” (Ps. 119:12) “Do not hide your commandments from Me!” (Ps. 119:19) “Strengthen me in all your words!” (Ps. 119:28) “Leave the way of unrighteousness from Me, and have mercy on me with your law!” (Ps. 118, 29) Having learned from experience that God’s commandments are fulfilled only with the abundant assistance of God’s grace, constantly asking for this assistance through prayer, a Christian cannot help but attribute all his good deeds to God’s grace. At the same time, he cannot help but recognize himself as a sinner. On the one hand, he learned through experience his own fall and inability to fulfill the will of God by his own strength alone; on the other hand, even in the very fulfillment of God’s commandments with the help of grace, he sees constant errors introduced by weakness and human fall. This can be seen with all clarity from the reviews of the Holy Apostle Paul about himself. In one of the letters he says: “I labored more than all (the apostles): not I, but the grace of God which is with me” (1 Cor. XV, 10), and in another: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am first” (1 Tim. I, 15). Such is God-loving righteousness! It is produced in a person by the Divine grace that has overshadowed him, and pleases God with the deeds of God-given truth. A godly righteous man never ceases to admit that he is a sinner! Not only because of their obvious sins, but also because of their natural truth, which is in a sad fall, mixed with evil, defiled by sinful admixture. Blessed is he who is righteous by the righteousness of God; his hope is centered in Christ, the source of his righteousness. Unhappy is the one who is satisfied with his own human righteousness: he does not need Christ, who announced about Himself: “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Matthew IX, 13). The Venerable Pimen the Great said: “For me, a person who sins and repents is more pleasant than someone who does not sin and does not repent: the first, recognizing himself as a sinner, has a good thought, and the second, recognizing himself as righteous, has a false thought” 12. An internalized false thought makes all living based on it obscene. This was proven by experience: obvious sinners, publicans and harlots believed in Christ, but the Pharisees rejected Him. Conceit and pride essentially consist of rejecting God and worshiping oneself. They are subtle, difficult to understand and difficult to reject idolatry. The Pharisees, in appearance, were the closest and most faithful servants and zealots of true worship of God, but in essence they were completely alienated from God, becoming His enemies, the children of Satan (John VIII, 44). When the promised Messiah, whom suffering humanity had been waiting for for several millennia, appeared among them with indisputable evidence of His Divinity, they did not accept Him. Recognizing Him, they were given over to a shameful execution and became deicides (Matthew XXVII, 42). The Gospel does not mention anything about the sinfulness or righteousness of the publican, but only sets up as an example to imitate the image of his prayer, which consisted solely of the awareness of his sinfulness and the most humble petition from God for mercy. The reason for this presentation is obvious. All people, without exception, are sinners before God, everyone needs forgiveness and mercy for salvation, and God, according to His unlimited perfection, forgives all sins, both small and large, with equal convenience. According to the perfection of God, all men are equal before Him in regard to righteousness, by which they can only differ among themselves (Rom. IV, 1-6). Recognizing oneself as righteous is nothing more than not seeing one’s sins, as self-delusion. And therefore, all people, without exception, when they come to the church of God to present themselves to the face of God, or intend to do this in the solitude of their cells, must prepare themselves with the consciousness of their sinfulness, and only from this consciousness offer prayers to God. Otherwise, our prayers will not be accepted 13. “The publican stood from afar,” the Gospel narrates, “not wanting to lift up his eyes to heaven: but he besieged his heart, saying: God, be merciful to me a sinner.” The Gospel teaches us in these words that when praying, the position of the body must correspond to the humble disposition of the soul. In the church, one should choose a place not in front, not visible, but modest, which would not provide reasons for entertainment. We should not allow our eyes freedom: let them be constantly directed towards the earth, so that the mind and heart can be directed unhindered towards God. The publican looked bent over: so vividly did he feel the burden of his sins. And anyone who vividly feels this burden that oppresses the soul will involuntarily take on the appearance of one bent and mourning, as Saint David said: “I suffered and became weary to the end, walking mourning all day long: for my body was filled with reproach, and there was no healing in my flesh” (Ps. 37:7,8). It is impossible not to notice that the chosen place in the church by the publican, in the depths of the church, is indicated by the Gospel in contrast to the place chosen by the Pharisee, who, of course, stood in front to serve as an edification to the gathered people and to attract their attention to himself for the benefit of his own people. This is how vanity usually justifies and covers up its actions. The position adopted by the tax collector’s body in accordance with his heartfelt thoughts is set in contrast to the position that the Pharisee gave to his body, also in accordance with the spiritual movement produced by the thoughts of pride. The publican, who recognized himself as a sinner, did not dare to raise his eyes to heaven; The Pharisee, who recognized himself as a righteous man, freely raised his arrogant eye to grief. The publican, due to the gravity of his sins that he felt, seemed burdened with a burden; The Pharisee’s body, emboldened, straightened, inspired by self-conceit and self-confidence, took on a look contrary to this. The publican's face was covered with sadness; The Pharisee's face shone with self-satisfaction. Sometimes the Pharisees stand in the very depths of the church, especially when they are high-ranking persons, then suddenly come out in front of the people in order to strike more powerfully with both the appearance of dignity and the previous appearance of humility. Their faces do not always express self-satisfaction; they take different forms, depending on need; but they are always composed. The Lord, the knower of the heart, concluded the parable with the following words: “I say to you: this one (the tax collector) below is justified more than he (the Pharisee): for everyone who exalts himself will humble himself, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” This means: the publican was justified as having resorted to justification given by God, and the Pharisee was condemned as having rejected the justification given by God and wanted to remain with his own fallen human truth. “Humble yourself” means to recognize your fall, your sinfulness, due to which man has become an outcast being, deprived of all dignity; “to be exalted” means to ascribe to oneself righteousness, even if it were to some extent, and other virtues. Our dignity, our righteousness, the price by which every person is valued and which is given for every person, is our Lord, Jesus Christ. The poison that completely poisons the activities of the Pharisees is that they “do all their work so that men may be seen” (Matthew 23:5). The basis of their activity is the search for human glory; the means to achieving the goal is hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is the character of the Pharisees. The Lord called hypocrisy their leaven (Luke XII: 1). All the activities of the Pharisees are saturated with hypocrisy; their every deed has hypocrisy in its soul. Hypocrisy, born from vanity, that is, from the search for human praise and glory, feeds vanity with its successes. When vanity reaches adulthood, then its action turns from impulses into constant striving; then from vanity a mad and blind passion is formed - pride. Pride is the death of the soul in a spiritual sense: a soul overwhelmed by pride is incapable of humility, repentance, mercy, or any spiritual thoughts and feelings that bring living knowledge of the Redeemer and assimilation to Him. In order to ward off the terrible poison imparted by the leaven of the Pharisees, we will, according to the commandment of the Gospel (Matt. VI, 1–6), to try to fulfill God’s commandments solely for God, hiding with all care this fulfillment from the corrupting eyes of men. Let us act on earth for God and for heaven, and not for men! We will also act for people, but not in order to extort praise from them, but in order to bring them true service and benefit, for which they often tear to pieces their benefactors, just as stupid and ferocious animals often tear to pieces those who look after them and feed them. This was what happened to the holy apostles and many other saints of God. Let us vigilantly watch ourselves, notice our shortcomings and errors! Let us pray to God to reveal to us our fall and sinfulness! The constant striving to fulfill God's will will little by little destroy self-satisfaction in us and clothe us in blissful poverty of spirit. Clothed with this holy, grace-filled garment, we will learn to stand before God in a godly manner, for which the humble publican is praised in the Gospel. By praying to God from the depth and sincerity of our heartfelt consciousness in sinfulness, we will probably receive forgiveness of sins and an abundance of true blessings, temporary and eternal: “for everyone who humbles himself will be exalted” by the all-powerful and all-good right hand of the Lord God, our Creator and Savior. Amen. On the spiritual law, ch. 32. Ave. Simeon the New Theologian, active and theological chapters, ch. 4. Dobrotol. Part I. Saint Isaac of Syria, Homily 55. You might be interested in: