A Discourse for the 25th Sunday After Pentecost, on the Merciful Samaritan

In today’s Gospel reading (Lk 10:25-37) our Savior God resolves a question of the utmost importance for all of us: what must we do to inherit eternal life? This question was put to the Lord by a certain Jewish lawyer, who said: «what shall I do to inherit eternal life?» The Lord pointed him to the law given to the Jews by God through Moses: «what is written in the law? What is your reading of it? So he answered and said: you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself. And He said to him: you have answered rightly; do this and you will live» — that is, forever. «But he, wanting to justify himself» — that is, considering himself, like the other Pharisees, righteous, as one who had fulfilled the law as he himself understood it, one-sidedly, wrongly — «said to Jesus: and who is my neighbor?» — supposing that only a fellow Jew ought to be counted as a neighbor, and not every person. By the parable of the man wounded by robbers, and of the merciful Samaritan, who took the most heartfelt and active part in helping him, the Lord showed that every person, whoever he may be, even if he be our enemy, ought to be counted as our neighbor, especially when he is in need of help. So then, it follows that, to obtain eternal life, the diligent fulfillment of two chief commandments is needed—to love God with all one’s heart, and one’s neighbor as oneself. But since the whole law consists in these two commandments, it is necessary to explain them, so that we may know well what love of neighbor consists in. So then, with God’s help, let us proceed to the explanation. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind—that is, with your whole being, give yourself over to God with all your strength; devote your whole self to Him, without any reservation; do not divide yourself between God and the world; do not live partly for God and His law and partly for the world, for the passion-ridden flesh, for sin and the devil, but devote your whole self to God, be wholly God’s, wholly holy, in the whole of your life. «As He who called you» (God) «is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct» (1Pet 1:15), says the holy Apostle Peter.

Let us explain this commandment with examples. Suppose you are praying to God. If you love God with all your heart, then you will always pray to Him with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, all your mind; you will never be distracted, lazy, careless, or cold in prayer; you will not, during prayer, give any room in your heart to worldly cares and concerns—you will set aside every worldly concern, will cast every anxiety upon the Lord, for He cares for you, as the Apostle says. Strive to understand your prayer, the service of God, fully, in all its depth. If you love God with all your soul, you will repent sincerely to God for your own sins, will bring Him deep repentance every day, for you sin much every day. You will repent—that is, will condemn yourself for your sins with all your heart, all your strength, all your mind; will expose yourself with all merciless strictness, with all sincerity—will bring to God a full confession, a sacrifice of the complete burnt offering of your sins, so that not a single sin remains unrepented, unmourned. In this way, to love God with all your heart means to love, with all your heart and all your strength, His righteousness, His law, and to hate, with all your heart, every unrighteousness, every sin: to fulfill righteousness with all your heart and all your strength, to do good, and, with all your heart and all your strength, to turn away from evil—that is, from every sin—giving no room in your heart to any sin, not for one minute, not for a single instant—that is, not consenting to it, not sympathizing with it, not making peace with it, but continually, eternally warring with sin, fighting against it, and thus being a brave and victorious soldier of Christ our God. Or let us take another example: suppose you are persecuted for piety, for righteousness, for virtue; if you love God, you will not depart, even for a moment, from piety, from righteousness, from virtue, even though this devotion to righteousness should bring with it the loss of some advantage; for righteousness itself, or faithfulness to God and His righteousness, is itself the greatest advantage for us, and God can reward faithfulness to His righteousness a hundredfold, both in this age and in the age to come. An example of this is the righteous Joseph, son of the Old Testament patriarch Jacob, and many righteous people in the New Testament. So then, to love God with all your heart means to contend for God, for His righteousness, with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, all your mind. So did the holy Fathers and the holy martyrs contend for God, for His righteousness, especially in their struggle against heresies and schisms. This is zeal for God. To love God with all your heart also means to strive, with all your strength, to draw all people toward God, toward love for Him, toward His praise, toward His eternal kingdom, so that all may know Him, love Him, glorify Him. This too is zeal for God.

Having explained, to the best of my ability, the first commandment, let us now explain the second: love your neighbor as yourself. What does it mean to love one’s neighbor—that is, every person—as oneself? It means to honor another as you wish to be honored yourself, to consider no one a stranger, but your own—your own brother, your own member, and a fellow Christian as a member of Christ too; to count his good, his salvation, as your own good, your own salvation; to rejoice at his well-being as at your own, to sorrow at his misfortune as at your own; to strive for his deliverance from trouble, misfortune, poverty, or sin, just as I would strive for my own deliverance. «Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep», says the Apostle (Rom 12:15). «We who are strong ought to bear with the weaknesses of the weak, and not to please ourselves; let each of us please his neighbor for his good, leading to edification» (Rom 15:1-2). «Pray for one another, that you may be healed» (Jac 5:16). To love one’s neighbor as oneself means to respect him as yourself—if, of course, he is worthy of it—not to think of him unworthily, basely, without cause on his own part, to bear him no ill will; not to envy him, but always to wish him well, to make allowance for his shortcomings and weaknesses, to cover his sins with love, just as we wish others to make allowance for our own shortcomings. «Bear with one another in love», says the Apostle (Eph 4:2); «not rendering evil for evil, or insult for insult» (1Pet 3-9). «Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you» (Mt 5:44). «If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him drink», says the Old Testament Scripture (Prov 25:21). To love one’s neighbor as oneself means to pray for the living and the departed, for relatives and non-relatives, for acquaintances and strangers, for friends and enemies—all the same as for oneself—and to wish them as much good, as much salvation of soul, as one wishes oneself. The Holy Church teaches us this too, in her daily prayers. To love one’s neighbor as oneself further means to love everyone without partiality, regardless of whether he is poor or rich, handsome or not, old or young, noble or humble, healthy or sick, useful to us or not, a friend or an enemy—because all alike are God’s, all are made in the image of God, all are children of God, members of Christ (if they are Orthodox Christians), all are our own members: for we are all «one body, one spirit» (Eph 4:4), and to all of us there is one Head, Christ our God. Let us, then, understand and strive to keep the two chief commandments of the law of God, and we will inherit, by the grace of Christ our God, eternal life. Amen.