The Calling of the Apostles
A Sermon on the Second Sunday after Pentecost
And He said to them: Come after Me, and I will make you fishers of men. And they at once left their nets and followed Him (Mt 4:19-20)
Today, beloved brothers, the Gospel was read at the Liturgy about the Lord’s calling to the apostolic office the blood brothers Peter and Andrew, and also the blood brothers James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were likewise fishermen. It then tells of Jesus Christ’s journeying through the region of Galilee, His preaching of the Gospel of the kingdom, and His healing of every disease and every infirmity among the people.
Through the calling of Peter and Andrew, James and John, the Lord laid in His Church the beginning of the apostolic calling—a calling high, heavenly, evangelical, even higher—the office of Christ: for the apostles and the clergy continue the work of Jesus Christ the Savior Himself, that is, the work of saving people, the work of reconciling them with God. Let us now, then, converse together for our common benefit about why Jesus Christ called simple and unlearned people, the poor, to apostleship.
Why, then, did the Lord call to the apostolic calling not the noble and the powerful, or the rich of this world, not the wise and the intelligent, or the learned, but people of low estate, unlearned and poor? The holy Apostle Paul, who was called to apostleship from among the persecutors of the Church of God and from among the learned, explains the reason why the Lord called simple people to the apostolic calling.
God chose the things that are foolish in the world to put the wise to shame, and God chose the things that are weak in the world to put the strong to shame; and God chose the things that are lowborn in the world and the despised things and the things that are nothing, to bring to nothing the things that amount to something, so that no flesh should boast before God[1]. The Apostle Paul himself says of himself, called as he was from among the wise of the world, that God sent him too to preach the gospel not in the wisdom of speech, but in simplicity, so that the cross of Christ might not be made void[2], that is, the power of the merits of the cross of Christ our Savior, which even without our vain wisdom are able to save those who believe.
So this is why the Lord called the apostles from among simple people: that is, so that it would be evident to everyone that the Christian faith, and the salvation it bestows on people, and its miraculous spread over the earth, is the power of God, and not the work of human wisdom and human strength. This was the first reason.
The second reason is this: since the Lord came into the world in our flesh to heal our nature, which had fallen through the pride and deceit of the enemy and through the intemperance of the belly, then, wishing to give all mankind a lesson in simplicity, humility, and moderation in everything—even in the very choosing of the future physicians and fishers of mankind—He chose them from among simple and poor people, who confined themselves only to what was necessary and in no way dreamed highly of themselves. For the same reason He Himself, as the Physician of ailing mankind, was born of a poor Virgin and in a poor cave, had a poor man for His reputed father, and lived in poverty, having nowhere to lay His head. This was the second reason.
The third reason why the Lord chose the apostles from the simple and poor estate, and not from the noble and the rich, is this: as you all know from your own experience, wealth binds human hearts to itself, tears them away from God, and gives occasion for many sins.
The Lord Himself says: You cannot serve God and wealth; it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God[3]. The holy apostle John the Theologian says: Whoever loves the world, in him there is no love of the Father, that is, love for God, our heavenly Father, for all that is in the world is the craving of the flesh, the craving of the eyes, and the pride of life[4]. How, then, could apostles chosen from people who were rich and loved riches have led people to God and kindled in human hearts a burning love for Him, while not themselves having love for Him in their own hearts? That is why these apostles were chosen from poor people: that is, so that, for the love of God, they might more easily break their bond with the world and with sin and cleave to God with all their heart.
The fourth reason why the apostles were chosen from poor and simple people is this: so that they might more easily receive into their hearts the riches of the grace of God, which is poured out abundantly into humble and simple hearts, hearts hungering and thirsting for the justification of God—and does not fit in the hearts of the proud and haughty who trust in their own imagined righteousness. Had they not cast off narrow self-love and earthly acquisitions, or imagined earthly wisdom, they could not have had love for God and for all mankind; and without love they could not have been capable of the apostolic ministry, which demanded a burning love for the mankind being saved by God the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit: they had to enter into the spirit of Christ’s love and be bearers and distributors of this spirit to others: the spirit of righteousness and holiness, the spirit of meekness and humility, of guilelessness and patience, of temperance and incorruption.
The hearts of the apostles received in abundance the grace of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, and with this grace they filled the whole world, and it has reached down to our own days and will be poured out on those who are worthy until the end of the age.
Note from the Gospel appointed for today how the fishermen Peter and Andrew, James and John hastily and irrevocably left their homes and their scanty property and followed Jesus Christ; how simply and how honorably they acted! If they had been rich, – they would not have left their homes and property so readily. A certain rich young man once came up to Jesus Christ to ask counsel for attaining eternal life, but, when he heard that he must distribute his estate to the poor, he went away sorrowful from Jesus Christ. But in the apostles, the decisive renunciation of earthly and corruptible goods was, by the grace of God, the cause of their ardent love for God and their neighbor, and for their lofty calling and their work; it was their spiritual wealth, their strength, their glory, their adornment and their light. Who will separate us from the love of God, says the Apostle Paul:affliction, or hardship, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or the sword? Nothing:neither death, nor life, nor Angels, nor Principalities, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing[5].
And how they loved their neighbors! Not as we do; – indeed, not even in our dreams have we ever seen ourselves loving anyone as the apostles loved: they were ready at every hour to lay down their souls for others; and for that the devout loved them in return so much that they were ready to pluck out their own eyes and give them to them[6]. The apostles possessed nothing, and yet had possession of everything – they were like beggars, and yet they enriched many by the grace of God. Silver and gold I do not have, – says the Apostle Peter to the man lame from birth, –but what I have, I give to you: in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise and walk; and the lame man rose and began to walk and leap[7]. That is the kind of power they had: they healed every kind of disease, raised the dead, cast out demons, and trod on the serpent, and on the scorpion, and on all the power of the foe[8], that is, the demonic power, without any harm to themselves; and they were able to console every sorrowful person with the very consolation with which they themselves were consoled by God. Is this not power? And what was their glory? While still in mortal flesh, or outside the flesh, they were caught up to the third heaven and heard ineffable words[9]! While still in the flesh they were considered gods come down from heaven, and people wanted to honor them with sacrifices and incense offerings! All the people of Jerusalem magnified them[10], says the holy Evangelist Luke in the Acts of the Apostles of the apostles and the first Christians.
The fifth reason why the Lord called simple people to the apostolate is the following: since the apostles were to instruct people on earth in a heavenly manner of life, dispassionate, blameless, holy, in expectation of the future blessed life, which will never grow old through all eternity, they themselves had to show everyone on earth an example of dispassion and holiness, of non-possessiveness and of a heavenly life on earth, so that they might all the more easily instruct the faithful by the example of their life and their dispassion. When God, who chose me from my mother’s womb, was pleased to reveal His Son in me, I did not confer with flesh and blood[11], that is, I cast off every worldly attachment.
The sixth reason: the holy apostles, as preachers of spiritual freedom in Christ, had themselves to be clothed in spiritual freedom through complete non-attachment to everything temporal; but one who is attached to what is earthly cannot be spiritually free: he is a slave of his own whims. The apostles, however, by the will of God and by their own free choice, were free from every earthly attachment; they taught the new life in Christ, and they themselves, before all others, were a new creation. The apostles were warriors of Christ, whose battle was to be not only with men, or with their passions and lawlessness, but also with the kingdom of Satan, with the principalities and powers and world-rulers of the darkness of this age, with the spirits of wickedness under heaven[12]. And what must the warriors of Christ be like? They must be spiritually invulnerable to all the forces of the enemy, and they could be invulnerable only if they had no attachment to anything earthly, not even to their own life: for the enemy ordinarily wounds through fleshly and worldly attachments; if these attachments are not in us, then we are invulnerable, by the grace of God. Such, too, were the apostles and all the holy martyrs, hierarchs, monastic saints, unmercenaries, all the saints. They were strong through their non-attachment, through the mortification of the flesh with its passions and lusts. For no one, having become a soldier, binds himself to worldly dealings, so that he may be pleasing to his commander[13].
The hellish malice of the torturers and the terrible torments to which they subjected the confessors of the name of Christ were powerless to break their courage and endurance: they stood above every fear and every torment. That is what their non-attachment to the flesh and to the world meant!
Finally, the seventh reason is this: God rests in simple hearts, but in crafty hearts He has no place.
Let us also, to the best of our strength, imitate the dispassion of the apostles, so as to serve God with a pure heart and to advance ever more and more in love for God and for our neighbor, encouraging one another to good works[14]. Amen.