An Instruction for the Twenty-Seventh Sunday: An Explanation of the Day’s Gospel—Jesus Teaching in the Synagogue on the Sabbath
Beloved brethren! It is comforting to hear that our Lord Jesus Christ on the Sabbath day, which had in the Old Testament Church that significance which the Sunday, or weekly, day has in the New Testament Church, occupied Himself with teaching the people (Lk 13:10–17). Now we, gathered here in this holy temple, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, eighteen centuries after His departure from the earth, engage in the same. With bodily eyes we do not see our Lord, but we look upon Him and see Him with the eyes of faith: we hear His teaching proclaimed by the holy Gospel; the events that accompanied His earthly sojourn, described with holy simplicity and extraordinary clarity by the Apostles, are vividly portrayed before us; they seem as if they are taking place before us. Through the holy mysteries we are placed in constant communion with the Lord; we can strengthen and develop this communion by constant reflection on Him, by activity directed according to His all-holy commandments, by constant prayerful relationship with Him and calling upon Him. Truly: our Lord Jesus Christ is in our midst. He is absent only for the one who rejects His presence. This is no work of an overheated imagination! This is no beguiling daydream! The Lord Himself said to His disciples: “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Mt 28:20). Whoever does not see the present Lord is not a disciple of Christ.
There is no benefit to seeing the Lord with bodily eyes when the mind is blinded, when faith – this power of spiritual vision – does not operate. On the contrary, when faith operates, then the heavens are opened, and the Son is seen at the right hand of the Father, being everywhere according to His Godhead and filling all things, indefinable. Nothing prevents us from acquiring faith! Let us acquire faith – and we will receive vision. Let us cease being content with weak literal knowledge of God; let us stretch out our weakened hands to the works of faith; let us acquire active, living faith – only to this faith does the Lord appear.
The bodily eyes are insensible and blind when the mind is blinded. Our Lord Jesus Christ during His sojourn on earth performed the most astonishing miracles to confirm His Godhead; these signs were so evident, tangible, that the Godhead of the God-Man incarnate was bound to become manifest and clear even to the most limited and most carnal people. But people looked with all their eyes and saw nothing. As if in amazement and perplexity, as if complaining about His contemporaries and grieving over them, the Evangelist says: “Though He had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in Him!” (Jn 12:37) Further the Evangelist reveals the cause of this blindness: darkening of the mind, hardening of the heart, arising from sinful life, which make the keenness and health of the sensual eyes useless for the knowledge of Truth (Jn 12:40; Jn 3:19–20).
The event recounted by the Gospel today is terrible. The Lord, after delivering instruction to the people, sealed His teaching with the healing of a woman who had been suffering under the burden of a severe and long-lasting infirmity. Those who did not understand the word could understand the miracle; those who did not know God from His “words of eternal life”, as Saint Peter recognized (Jn 6:68), could at least recognize a man pleasing to God by the sign that had taken place, as Nicodemus did (Jn 3:2) or as the healed blind man did (Jn 9:33). The sight was most pitiful, instructive, striking. The fallen angel, to whom humanity submitted and made itself partaker through the fall, bound a certain woman with a strange, extraordinarily tormenting infirmity. The woman became bent over, and in such a bowed position remained for eighteen years, having no ability to straighten her limbs, to give them any rest from the forced, unnatural position. The Lord said to this woman: “Woman, you are set free from your ailment. And He laid hands on her, and immediately she straightened up, and glorified God” (Lk 13:12–13).
At the time when the woman, having so easily shaken off from herself the burden weighing upon her, was glorifying God in rapture; at the time when the assembly of the people abandoned itself to the sensations of rightful joy at the evident action of Divine grace, clearly revealed by the deliverance of the sufferer from the distress that had oppressed and exhausted her, at this time the elder of the synagogue was filled with indignation. He does not see the miracle! He does not see the healing! He does not see the Redeemer and Saviour of men! He does not see the acting Holy Spirit! He does not even see a man pleasing to God: his mental eye is distorted by some incomprehensible and impenetrable infernal force! He saw in God’s action a violation of God’s Law. Captiously he found toil and labor in the effortless healing of the sufferer and directed against this healing, in his self-deception, God’s commandment, which commanded engaging in labors and works during six days of the week, forbidding engagement in them on the Sabbath day. The essence of the matter was that the elder of the synagogue was a Pharisee, at least in his soul’s disposition, and seeing, in his opinion, a man, a minister of God, corroborating his mighty word with a miracle, was inflamed with envy. The cause of envy was pride and vanity: the elder wished to have preeminence in the people’s opinion through his earthly righteousness. He obtains this preeminence without toil from the appeared Heavenly Righteousness; the elder, to preserve his incorrect preeminence, rises up against Heavenly Righteousness, strives to humble it, to slander it, to cover up the vileness of his behavior with a mask of righteousness, presents himself as a zealot of the law.
The Heart-knowing Lord convicted the Pharisee. He called his behavior hypocrisy. Hypocrisy, striving to satisfy its passions, wholly serving sin, desires to preserve before the eyes of men the mask of virtue. Among our passions, vanity occupies a very significant place, seeking to delight in human praise. It does not care whether this praise is just or unjust, whether the paths to obtaining it are correct or incorrect; obtaining praise by any means whatsoever – this is the whole purpose of the vain hypocrite. God is forgotten by him: the hypocrite is incapable of either faith or knowledge of God. “How can you believe” – the Lord said to the Jews, a significant and principal part of whom were infected with Pharisaism – “when you accept glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?” (Jn 5:44)
The elder of the Jewish synagogue, mentioned today in the Gospel, proved by experience the incapacity of the hypocrite to believe in Christ, to accept the Redeemer. This vain soul, thirsting for praises and human honor, considering itself worthy of them, could not bear that involuntary praises and the admiration of men were attracted by the miracle accomplished before all. This soul was inflamed with envy. To deny the miracle was impossible: it strives to humble it, to despise it, by bringing against God’s miracle an accusation of violation of God’s Law. The hypocrite resolutely enters into opposition to God, resolutely approaches blasphemy against the Holy Spirit and pronounces it. If the one who accomplished the miracle was a man of grace, then the Pharisee despised and blasphemed the grace of the Spirit. But if the one who accomplished the miracle was the God-Man, then the Pharisee enters into open opposition to God. It is impossible for man to accomplish a true miracle by himself alone: it is accomplished by the good pleasure and action of the all-holy God and therefore cannot possibly be contrary to the will of God and the Law of God. The accusation and despising of God’s sign by the Pharisee serves only to reveal his mental darkening and hardening of heart, produced by sinful life.
The daring, terrible action of the Pharisee, who dared to censure the action of the Saviour in the very presence of the Saviour, deserves special attention from us, must be wept over with hot and inconsolable tears. It must be wept over with such tears, because it arose from the common fall and rejection that is ours. We must direct special attention to it so that, weighing all its heaviness and fearing it as truly terrible and most distressing, we might avoid it. And now Christ acts; and now the Holy Spirit performs salvific signs in Christian mysteries! And now God has blasphemers, opponents, enemies among men.
Every kind of sinful life contains resistance and opposition to God; every kind of sinful life is a violation of God’s Law, is a rejection of God’s will. “Whoever commits sin is also committing lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness” – said the Apostle – (1 Jn 3:4). Hypocrisy is that kind of sinfulness which especially resists the knowledge of Christ and Christianity. The beginning of conversion to Christ consists in the knowledge of one’s sinfulness, one’s fall; from such a view of oneself, man recognizes the need for a Redeemer and approaches Christ through humility, faith, and repentance. But the hypocrite, suffering from passions not conspicuous enough to men – vanity, pride, covetousness, envy, deceitfulness, malice – covering them with hypocrisy and pretense, is incapable, as Satan is incapable, of acknowledging himself a sinner. And virtues and passions become from habit as if natural, so hypocrisy from habit becomes as if a natural quality. The one possessed by it no longer sees in hypocrisy the most soul-destroying vice – the deeds of hypocrisy he performs as if the deeds of righteousness. The soul of the hypocrite is struck with blindness: therefore the Lord called the Pharisees foolish and “blind” (Mt 23:16–26). The hypocrite is that unfortunate, in his own opinion, righteous man who is rejected by God: “I have not come” – said the Saviour – “to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Mt 9:13). Here the righteous ones are called the Pharisees not because they were truly righteous, but because they themselves considered themselves such, with meticulous precision fulfilling the ceremonial prescriptions of God’s Law while trampling on its essence, which consists in directing the mind, heart, all of human existence according to God’s will. The Lord granted men the virtue of repentance for their reconciliation with God; how could they accept this spiritual gift those who were completely satisfied with themselves and expected in the promised Messiah above all a conqueror, who was bound to crown their carnal, absurd, pride and malice-filled righteousness with abundant fleshly rewards? In their darkness and hardening the Pharisees even boasted of their incapacity to know and accept the Redeemer: “Did any of the authorities or of the Pharisees believe in him?” – they said (Jn 7:48). To this incapacity of theirs for true knowledge of God the Lord also pointed: “I tell you truly” – He said to them – “that the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you” (Mt 21:31). The manifest sinner, the sinner who has fallen into mortal sins, the sinner who has drawn to himself the contempt and abhorrence of men, is more capable of repentance than that supposed righteous man who in outward behavior is blameless, but in the secret of his soul is satisfied with himself. Pharisaism is a terrible affliction of the human spirit, similar to that affliction by which the fallen angel suffers, by which this angel guards for itself, as if a treasure, its fall. “Beware” – the Lord commanded His disciples – “of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy” (Lk 12:1). Hypocrisy is called leaven, because it, having crept into the soul, penetrates into all thoughts, into all feelings, into all deeds of a man, becomes his character, as if his very soul.
One who wishes to protect himself from hypocrisy must, first, according to the testament of the Lord, perform all good deeds in secret (Mt 6:1–6); then he must renounce the judging of his neighbor. The judging of one’s neighbor is a sign of hypocrisy, according to the all-holy indication of the Gospel (Mt 7:5). To not judge one’s neighbor, one must give up judgment about the neighbor, and therefore in the Gospel commandment forbidding the judging of one’s neighbor, judgment about him is first forbidden. “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned” (Lk 6:37). First men allow themselves judgment about the deeds of their neighbor, and then involuntarily fall into condemnation. If we do not sow the seed – the weeds will not grow; if we forbid ourselves unnecessary judgment about neighbors – there will be no condemnation. Some will ask here: what is the connection between judging one’s neighbor and hypocrisy? This connection is evident. The one who judges and despises his neighbor involuntarily presents himself as a righteous man, perhaps without speaking this aloud and even without understanding it. We are all sinners: any presenting of oneself as righteous, both direct and indirect, is hypocrisy.
When we gather for friendly conversation, often, if not always, a large part of this conversation consists of gossip about one’s neighbor, mockery of him, slander, despising, and blackening him. Sharp words flow like a river; laughter and guffawing sound as signs of approval; in this unfortunate time of self-forgetfulness and self-deception our souls acquire the properties of demons and are saturated with the poison of hypocrisy. The Holy Gospel pursues sin here too, seeking our salvation: “every careless word” – it threatens us – “that people speak, they will give an account of it on the day of judgment; for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned” (Mt 12:36–37). Let us, brethren, look closely at the beginnings of sins, let us guard ourselves from sinful beginnings: and we will avoid sinful development. Seeds of sin, as for example idle talk, at first glance are insignificant: imperceptibly they are sown in the field of the soul. But when these seeds send forth shoots, especially when the shoots grow strong and mature, then sin embraces the whole man, and the destruction of sin becomes extremely difficult.
“Whoever restrains his lips from gossip” – said a certain great holy father – “guards his heart from passions. Whoever guards his heart from passions, sees the Lord every hour. Whoever concentrates the sight of his mind within himself sees a spiritual dawn in himself.” What shall we see, brethren, in our soul’s chamber, when the divine light illuminates it? We shall see a countless multitude of our sins. That fall of our forefather, which Sacred Scripture will tell us of, we shall see and touch in ourselves; we shall see and touch in ourselves the necessity of a Redeemer. Having known the Redeemer in our Lord Jesus Christ, we confess Him; having known and confessed, we shall see Him and worship Him with that worship which is fitting and befitting God, our Creator and Saviour. Amen.
Troparion at the Hours of Holy Pascha
St. Isaac the Syrian. Homily 8
Venerable Peter of Damascus, book 1, p. 2