The Two Roads

A Homily for the Twenty-Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

Today I wish to declare to our love the will of the Householder of heaven concerning those invited to the supper of the kingdom of heaven who declined to come to it under various plausible worldly pretexts. You have heard the parable of this supper in the Gospel just read. The future blessedness is called the supper; the One who prepared the great supper is the heavenly Father; the servant is the Only-begotten Son of God, who took on the form of a servant for the sake of our salvation, and who ceaselessly proclaims to us in the Gospel: Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand[1]. We Christians are those invited to the heavenly supper. At the supper all is already ready—that is, the kingdom of heaven has been prepared for the worthy from the foundation of the world.

The invited guests, as you heard, turn aside from the invitation under various earthly pretexts: for one, a piece of land stands in the way of going to the supper; for another, oxen at work; for a third, a marriage: all of them refuse the high honor of being in the kingdom of the heavenly Father, and are not ashamed of their refusal but, as if nothing had happened, as though no one had invited them to the eternal supper, calmly go on with their vanities. Let each of you, then, recognize himself here.

One of us is taken up with land, with what is earthly—with corruptible earthly wealth, for example—and gathers riches all his life long, wastes his whole life away in the cares of gathering ever more of this land, and has no time to attend to the salvation of his soul; and all the while his poor soul cries out to him every day: Take care of me; you have only me; I am dearer to you than the whole world, and if you destroy me, nothing will ransom me back: for what will a man give as a ransom for his soul[2]? What use is it to you if you acquire the whole world, if you become the richest man in all the world, and lose your soul or destroy it? Take care of my unending blessedness, purchased for me by the merits of the only-begotten Son of God; do not disdain so dear a price, given to the heavenly Father as a ransom for me; do not sell me to the devil for silver—into eternal bondage and to the eternal torment prepared for him. Thus cries the soul, but the passion for earthly things drowns out the voice of the soul, and the rich man sells it every day, trades away his bottomless soul for corruptible riches. He is preached to: Give up your attachment to riches; how long will you keep binding yourself without end with cares about dust; make yourself ready for the eternal supper of the Kingdom of Heaven; but he says: I have bought land, and I need to go and see it: I ask You, excuse me, and he looks, and looks at his land, at his earthly treasures. Truly, you have bought land: you speak the truth. But what do you need so much of this land for? For does it not weigh down your soul? For does it not turn it away from the Source of your life—from God? For your life does not depend on the abundance of your possessions, as Christ, your Life, said. Ah! You yourself will soon become earth, and then you will need no more land than just enough to cover you over and level you with this common mother of all. So go, then, to the supper of the Kingdom of Heaven while there is still time: there everything is ready for you. There awaits you a great supper, a great, never-ending consolation.

Another is kept from going to the supper of the kingdom of heaven by oxen: I have bought, he says, five pairs of oxen, and I am going to test them: I beg You, excuse me. What are these five pairs of oxen? They are our five senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. These are our working oxen, to which in this life we all have such a strong attachment, and with which we work so diligently for what is earthly. Is it not true that we are given over to sensuality? We have bought this fivefold team for ourselves from the Lord, and yet with it we labor with all our zeal not for the Lord, as we ought to do, but for the flesh, for the world that lies in evil, and for the devil: our sight and hearing we gratify with theaters, and circuses, and evening gatherings filled with worldly vanity, idleness, and empty chatter; taste and smell we pamper with tasty and fragrant dishes and drinks; touch we caress with soft beds, seats, and soft clothing. Every day we diligently work these five oxen; with greed we strive to taste every pleasure of the flesh – and we do taste it, and yet – alas, woe! How dearly our soul pays for this testing of sensual pleasures: she misses the time to gather for the heavenly supper, sinks into the mire of sensuality, and perishes. Ah! Let none of us say, brethren, give me leave to amuse my five senses; give me leave to try out every earthly pleasure; do not force me to give them up: they are so alluring. I will have my fill; then I will take thought for my soul. No, beloved brethren, time is precious: eternity is purchased with it: hasten, hasten to the heavenly supper, and abandon the attachment to sensual pleasures that draws our hearts away from God. Here you will delight yourselves, caring nothing for the salvation of your soul: there you will be in torment; here you will deny yourselves pleasures for the sake of the kingdom of heaven – there you will inherit eternal life. Woe to you who are sated now, for you will be hungry[3], says the Lord.

The third person whom a wife hinders from going to the supper of the heavenly kingdom says: I have married, – he says, – and therefore cannot come. But why does a wife hinder the salvation of the soul? Because he who has married is anxious about the things of the world, how he may please his wife[4], and not about the things of the Lord, not about pleasing the Lord above all. He who has married binds his own will to the will of his spouse: and what is that will like? Ah, experience tells us that the will of a spouse is often contrary both to the will of the husband and to the will of God: you may wish to please your beloved wife and, out of love for her, break the commandments of God; you may wish to drink with her to the bottom the cup of earthly vanity and refuse the supper of God; but no – if you are not willing to serve vanity together with her and destroy your soul, she will deprive you of her love: and quarrels and dissensions will follow. Ah! How many married men are truly compelled to say to the Lord, who invites us to His eternal kingdom: I have married, and therefore cannot come. I cannot come: because I must please my wife, her wishes and caprices, which have become a law for me. What, then – shall one not marry at all, some will say? No: no one says that: not all receive this word, but those to whom it is given; he who is able to receive it, let him receive it[5]. Please your wife, but not in what harms the salvation of your soul – but not in what is contrary to the will of God. As the head of your wife, know how to stand above her caprices and yourself direct her desires toward the heavenly world, not the earthly.

Choose, then, beloved brethren, what you will: either go to the supper of the heavenly kingdom, strive toward eternal blessedness by the narrow and grievous path of righteousness and of detachment from attachment to earthly things and pleasures – or, if you will occupy yourselves only with what is earthly, then without any doubt you will perish forever. Amen.