31. Слово в день обретения мощей Преподобного Сергия

(Spoken in his Lavra, July 5th; printed in the collections of 1822, 1835, 1844 and 1884) Having walked in clothing, and in goat skins, in deprivation, in sorrow, in embitterment, of which the whole world is not worthy, wandering in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens, and in the abysses of the earth. Hebrews 11:37–38. What kind of people are these whom the Apostle describes with such incongruous features? He values ​​them more than the whole world: “the whole world is not worthy of them”; but at the same time it shows that they were abandoned as if they were worth nothing, because they had neither decent clothing, nor food, nor safety, nor housing: “they walked in sheepskins, and in goatskins, deprived, sorrowful, embittered, wandering in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens, and in the abysses of the earth.” Perhaps the world will not recognize, or will not want to recognize, these voluntary exiles of the world: but it should not be difficult for you to recognize them, inhabitants of the sacred desert! These are our predecessors, although perhaps most of us are so far behind them that we insult them by calling ourselves their followers. If you need to point out faces: such was Elijah the Thesbite, whom, as is noticeable, the Apostle especially had before his eyes when he painted his image of the great wanderers of the world; - Elijah, who closed and opened the sky, brought down rain and fire, called upon famine and fertility, and he himself barely found food, sometimes through a desert crow, sometimes through a wretched widow; with a word he destroyed the living, with a breath he raised the dead, but he himself fled into the desert “for the sake of his soul,” that is, because of the danger of life, and, tired of the persecution of enemies, “asked for his soul to die” (1 Kings 19: 3, 4). Such was John the Baptist, who “would never grow up among those born of women” (Matthew 11:11), according to the testimony of the Truth itself, but who lived in the wild desert, wore rough clothes, ate locusts, and ended his career in prison and the sword. Such were after Paul of Thebes, Anthony the Great, Macarius of Egypt, Ephraim of Syria and many others, who from the darkness of the deserts, like stars, shone with spiritual light and illuminated the universe. But why, for eyewitnesses of the case itself, should we collect many extraneous witnesses? Such is this wondrous man who came here into the deserted and impenetrable desert; he lived here for a long time in every deprivation, alone with one God; then, when there were people who, having learned his value, preferred the desert to the world, and gave themselves over to him in obedience and control, he was the first in labor and exploits, and the last in tranquility, wore clothes that others rejected; ate rotten bread; instead of expelling the disobedient, he expelled himself from them; and what finally? – According to the Prophet, “its eternal deserts were created; the foundations of his eternal generations were made, and he was called the builder of fences” (Is. 58:12). Not only the weak and strong of the land came to his desert to ask for his blessings, advice, miraculous healings and victories against the prevailing enemies, but also the Queen of heaven, accompanied by the neighbors of the King of the reigning, descended into his holy solitude to establish in his desert the blessing of heaven, which later the hostile forces of the world, with all their visible power, tried in vain to destroy. Who throws jewelry? – Why are people, “of whom the whole world is not worthy,” who, despite their high inner dignity, should be precious to the world itself for many beneficial actions for it, why are they, in such apparent neglect, scattered “across deserts and mountains, through caves and gorges of the earth”? The world, without giving them a price, rejected them; or did they, having learned his price, not want to belong to him? The pride of the world does not allow him to admit that he is abandoned as unworthy: and therefore he tries to assure those who gullibly listen to him that he himself, as incapable of anything, rejects those who abandon him; or that they, leaving him voluntarily, leave him recklessly. But truth and experience say, despite him, that it is not so much that he rejects them as that they abandon him; and that he is unreasonable and unjust because he rejects them, and not they because they move away from him. They think to reproach us when they say that some of the ancient pious desert dwellers were brought to this way of life by fear of persecution. But what were the persecutors rebelling against? - Against piety. Why did the persecuted flee into the desert? - To preserve piety. Who deserves reproach here? A warrior who, seeing himself alone in the enemy camp, knew how to leave safely and preserve the banner entrusted to him unharmed, is there really a dishonorable fugitive? Isn't he in some way a winner? If the world wants to humiliate us by calling us followers of such fugitives: then let him look around, whether he is not thereby placing himself in the dignity of being a follower of the persecutors? Is it fair to hate those who always wish you well? And is the world really fair when it hates people who, leaving him for the rest of their lives, are at the same time condemned for the rest of their lives to wish him true good in unceasing prayers? Isn’t it completely unreasonable to reject those who not only wish us well, but can actually deliver to us what they want? But isn’t this exactly what the world does when it rejects those who, through deeds of piety and pure prayers, avert the thunder of an irritated sky from it, and bring down powerful and effective blessings on it? If he does not comprehend the secrets of spiritual blessings, let us point him to visible and sensory blessings. Look, the wild desert is turning into a flourishing, age-old abode; the deserted desert gives birth to a populous village; the desert monastery stands unshakably against the aspirations of the enemies who have already overthrown the capital, becomes the shield of an already wounded kingdom and the treasury of its salvation; and all this - from one desert dweller! After this, let us let the world judge this kind of people, even if only by temporary benefits. If he still rejects them: he rejects his benefit. If he still considers them useless, he does not know his own benefits. How unjustly the world acts in humiliating and rejecting these people: just as in vain does it flatter itself that despair of his favor forces them to withdraw from him. In vain would Pharaoh boast that he had driven the Israelites into the wilderness; although truly “the Egyptians needed people with care to uproot them from the land” (Ex. 12:33). It was not despair, but hope that brought the Israelites out of Egypt; they took advantage of their exile as a means of their deliverance, and for their flight they sang a song of victory to God. Those who truly renounce the world, if they experience its displeasure, take advantage of this as a favorable opportunity to move away from it the more easily; and often, without experiencing any visible hostility from him, they leave him not at all because he rejects them, but because the desert calls them, and its quiet, sometimes even sad, voice is a hundred times more desirable for them than the noisy joys of the world. Who drove out of the world this wonderful youth, who left him before he had a chance to recognize him? “The youth grew strong, and grew strong in spirit, and was in the wilderness” (Luke 1:80). Did the world even know this Bartholomew before the desert made him famous? and could he have rejected him before he himself rejected the world? The world recognized Sergius, who had already left the world, by his exploits and miracles; and not so much rejected him as attracted him: but even then, when he was drawn into a state that, although in the world, was not of the world, and not for the world, obedience itself, 178 so sacredly preserved by Sergius in all other cases, could not lead him to part with the sweet desert. What secret force drew these people from the world, and forced them, leaving everything pleasant in it, to wander through the deserts in deprivation, in sorrow, in embitterment? Let us learn this secret from the Apostle, who portrayed these people incomprehensible to the world. This mystery is faith. “By faith,” he says, “having conquered kingdoms, having done righteousness,” and further: “I have gone to the world,” wandering in the deserts; and again concludes: “all these obeyed by faith” (Heb. 11:33–39). Faith presented to them that they are “strangers and strangers on earth” (Heb. 11:13), a thought that even unbelievers know, but even when they hear 179 they miss their ears, or, better said, past their hearts, and therefore, although every day they see people like themselves dying, they live in such carelessness about the future, with such attachment to earthly things, how could they live here forever! – Faith inspired her faithful followers with a deep sense of the corruption of the world and the brevity of life, and as a result of this, a fiery desire for the heavenly fatherland; taught them to “stand before the invisible” God “as if seeing Him” (Heb. 11:27), to look “to Jesus, the author of our faith and finisher, Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, neglecting the shame, but sits at the right hand of the Throne of God” (Heb. 12:2); pointed out to them the “recompense” (Heb. 11:26) that was prepared for them. With these feelings unrelated to the world, with these lofty views, the beauties of the world faded for them, sensual sweets became sad, earthly treasures turned into knowledge, the world appeared to them as a desert, and the desert as a paradise - and they ran. They fled like the Israelites from Egypt, like Lot from Sodom, like the captives from Babylon. They fled from the world, where community with worldly people, and creation, distorted by vanity and abuse, constantly scattered their thoughts, enslaved their desires, and disturbed their soul and conscience. They ran into the desert, where, since they were more distant from creatures, they could feel God closer; renounced earthly marriage, so that instead, all the more freely, they could prepare themselves for the one heavenly “marriage of the Lamb” (Rev. 19:7); clothed themselves in dark clothing, so that the desire for decoration had no other object than “the fine linen of justification of the saints” (Rev. 19:8); condemned themselves to hunger and thirst, so that sensual satiation would not dull the hunger and taste for the spiritual “supper” (Rev. 19:9) of the Kingdom of God; they retired, so to speak, to the very border of the visible and invisible world, and, in accordance with their destination to the invisible, voluntarily and in good time transferred both thought and heart there; and if they are forced to leave their mortal body here, then at least they try, by fasting, vigil and other deeds, to purify and refine it so that it does not so much “burden the soul” (Wis. 9:15), as the soul lightens it and revitalizes it, so that, as much as possible, it will less hinder them from imitating the life of the disembodied and receiving the grace-filled visits of the Holy Spirit. Here, brothers and co-inhabitants of the desert, is a brief but true drawing of the path by which our true predecessors withdrew from the world, and not by chance wandered through the deserts, but truly wandered “to the city that has foundations, whose maker and maker is God” (Heb. 11:10). Now is not the time to go into details about this, and it is not necessary, perhaps, for those who themselves are actively following this path. But so that we, through negligence or the deception of the spirit of error, do not stray from the true path into the footsteps of those who wander “in the unpassable, and not in the path” (Ps. 106:40), we need to diligently peer into the traces of our predecessors and check our procession. We really need to test ourselves, is it really because we moved away from the world because we wanted to please the only God, and not because the world was not favorable to us? In the very distance from the world, have we not taken with us, like Rachel from the house of Laban, the gods who are served in the world - the idols of pride, greed and carnality? Or, in the desert itself, like the Israelites, didn’t they merge new idols for themselves, instead of those they left in Egypt? Do we feel closer to God internally, since externally we have become further from the world? Having renounced advantages and possessions in the world, are we not tempted by the desire for advantages and eldership among our fellow men? Are we not turning life, intended exclusively for spiritual exploits, into mere tranquility of the flesh? Blessed is the peaceful son of the desert, for whom, during such a trial, “his heart does not despise”: he “will have boldness towards God” (1 John 3:21). It is also good for those to whom, in the consciousness of certain stumbles and falls, a repentant thought and a contrite heart promise the hope of forgiveness and consolation. Woe to the sower of temptations, who, having brought the world and its filth with him into the very desert, violates its spiritual shrine! A threefold judgment will fall on his head: the judgment of sin, the judgment of broken vows, and the judgment of poisonous temptation. Something must also be said for well-meaning visitors to the sacred desert. When we, following the Apostle, say about the desert dwellers that faith drew them away from the world: do not think that we no longer leave faith and hope of salvation to you who remain in the world. No! “Faith” “is the victory that overcomes” and overcomes “the world” (1 John 5:4). You can live in the world, but not be “of the world” (John 15:19). Jesus Christ did not command everyone what he advised a certain young man: “If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and have treasure in heaven, and come after Me” (Matthew 19:21), that is, to follow Christ, not only leave the iniquities and passions of the world, but also dissolve everyone’s union with those living in the world. On the contrary, He preached to everyone repentance, faith in the Gospel and the hope of the Kingdom of Heaven. He Himself lived both in the world and in the desert: He taught in the world, but withdrew into the desert to pray. “What I say to you, I say to everyone” (Mark 13:37). Just as no one can be saved by merely being outwardly in the desert, so no one can be destroyed by outward living in the world. An empty desert when there is no internal desert in the outer; for the inner desert there is, although not so free, a place in the world, if someone takes the trouble to find it. “Whenever you pray, go into your closet,” that is, into the secluded church of your soul, “and having shut your doors,” that is, keeping your thoughts and feelings from scattering, “pray to your Father who is in secret” (Matt. 6:6). – “Do not love the world, neither those who are in the world” (1 John 2:15). Make your heart a desert, in which there are no riches, no beauties of the world, no unclean carnal desires, no passionate thoughts. Here is a common sacred desert for both desert dwellers and those living in the world, into which our beloved Lord Jesus Christ “comes” and “makes his abode” (John 14:23), with His Consubstantial Father and the Holy Spirit, to our true blessedness, to the glory of His Trisagion name. Amen. In collection 1822 and 1835: humiliates... In collection 1822 and 1835: and not so much rejected him as attracted him - even attracted him into a state that, although in the world, was not of the world, and not for the world - attracted him with sacred bonds; but with all that, obedience itself... In collection 1822 these words do not exist. You might be interested in: