A Talk for the Third Sunday After Pentecost

The lamp of the body is the eye: if therefore your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is evil, your whole body will be full of darkness (Mt 6:22-23).

The words of the Lord are a true lamp for us on the path of life; so too are the words of today’s Gospel—only we must ponder them more carefully. Let us ponder them. The lamp of the body is the eye, says the Lord—that is, the eye is a lamp for the body; why is it not said: the eyes, but the eye? Because here the Lord means not the bodily eyes, but the spiritual eye, or our heart, which governs the bodily eyes as well, and which, with two eyes, sees objects not doubled but singly. So then, by the eye is meant the heart, in which conscience is implanted, or the inner law that shows what is good and what is evil; and that is why it is said: the eye, and not the eyes; and by the body is meant our whole inner life—our thoughts, desires, intentions, all the deeds we do in the course of our earthly life. This, then, is the meaning of the Savior’s words: the heart, or the conscience, is a lamp for a man on the path of his life, in all his thoughts, desires, intentions, words, in all his deeds. Further, the Lord says: so then, if your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light — that is, if your heart, your conscience, is sound, pure, then all your thoughts, your desires, your deeds, your intentions, your undertakings will be full of light, upright, pure; but if your eye, your conscience, is evil, your whole body will be full of darkness — that is, all your thoughts, desires, intentions, undertakings, your whole life, all your deeds, will be dark, unrighteous, cunning. So then, if the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness? If your heart, your conscience, which was given you by the Lord in place of a lamp, has itself, through your own negligence, become darkness, then what will your whole life be, all your deeds? Is it not so in life? Do we not see constant examples of this? Let us take an example from life. Let us take a man of simple heart, of upright conscience, with a straightforward outlook on life, the outlook of the Gospel, and a man of cunning heart, or cunning conscience, attached to the world, to the flesh. All the deeds of the first are marked by justice, zeal, straightforwardness of character, goodwill toward his neighbor. On the deeds of the second lies the mark of unrighteousness, deceit, hypocrisy, cunning, guile, wrongs done to another.

The first is content with very little, and is not consumed with a thirst for much—he does not desire, for example, a lavish table, many fine and costly garments, a thirst for riches, a wide and richly furnished dwelling, and the rest; he has his daily bread and a simple broth, he has a few changes of clean and decent clothing, he has some steady, though perhaps not rich, income or wage, or money earned by his own labors—by honest trade, by industry, by handiwork; a healthy dwelling, though not spacious, without rich furniture: he is content, and thanks God; he desires no more, for he considers it superfluous; if he finds himself with some small surplus, he would rather share it with a needy neighbor than spend it on some whim of his own.

But look now at the life of another man, of cunning heart and crooked, cunning conscience. He is content with nothing: to him no table is a table, no clothing is clothing, no dwelling a dwelling, no furniture furniture, and even with a full cup he wants it fuller still; his own is not enough for him, he must seize what belongs to another, even at his neighbor’s expense; this food is not good enough for him, he must have better; or his daily bread and broth are not enough, he must have wine, though he has no need of it at all—and not just a little of it, that would be no great harm, but he must have much, to get himself drunk; this garment is no good, it has gone out of fashion, he must have better; this dwelling is not spacious or comfortable enough, he must have something wider; this furniture is no good, he must have new; this income, this wage, this profit is too little, he must have more—and he is scarcely ever content with anything: everything about him seems good, he has plenty of everything—the man is fed and overfed, dressed lavishly and to his every whim, and has a great surplus besides—and still he is discontented; while another, with his own means of living, even smaller means, has enough for himself and can still share with his needy neighbors food and clothing, while this man has too little even for himself, and nothing at all for others. Why is this? Because his heart is cunning, darkened, unreasoning, insatiable, passionate. And why is it so? — Because he does not know the commandments of the Lord, or does not wish to know them, is not guided by the light of Christ’s Gospel. Because he does the will of his own blind, passionate flesh and his own imaginings.

No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon (Mt 6:24). What two masters are meant here, whom it is impossible to serve at one and the same time? The one is the Lord God; the other is riches, or our own sin-loving flesh, in which the devil is at work, striving to chain it to the world. It is evident that it is impossible to work for God and for the sin-loving flesh at the same time—precisely because God demands of us holiness, an unswerving and exact fulfillment of His will, while the flesh unceasingly incites us to sin—to gluttony, drunkenness, fornication, envy, enmity, extortion and love of money, to sloth, and the rest. How can service to God and to the flesh be reconciled? Evidently, it cannot; the word of God says directly that those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts (Gal 5:24)—and by no means serve the much-sinning flesh, do not please it. Make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts (Rom 13:14), says the holy Apostle Paul. And it is always so, that whoever pleases his own flesh is careless of pleasing God, of the salvation of his own soul, of his own correction, of a virtuous life; he does not correct his heart, does not strive in spirit toward the fatherland on high, but is, as it were, wholly chained to the earth, to earthly enjoyments. Whoever loves his own much-sinning flesh does not love God; to him God’s commandments seem burdensome; he does not love his neighbor: he will not care for his salvation, because he does not care for his own; he will not help him in his need, because he loves himself too much, and would rather satisfy his own whims than give of his own substance for his neighbor’s need. Therefore I say to you, the Lord continues, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? (Mt 6:25). An untimely, unreasonable, excessively intense care for food, drink, and clothing does very, very great harm to a Christian life: this is precisely what the Lord called, just before, the service of mammon. This wrongheaded care of ours for food, drink, and clothing turns our whole life, so to speak, upside down: instead of caring, first and foremost, for the soul, for its cleansing, correction, and sanctification, for our salvation in general, we labor every day to please our greedy belly, and to think of what to wear, while the soul—this immortal being, created in the image and likeness of God, and perishing alive in its sins—we leave neglected, uncorrected, or even—every day we add sin to sin, we feed and overfeed the body while we let the soul go hungry; we adorn the body, and disfigure the soul; we give life to the body, and kill the soul. Therefore the Lord, exposing this folly of ours, says: is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? (Mt 6:25). If the soul, evidently, is more than food, then why do you leave the soul uncared for, while caring for what is worthless, like food and drink: for food is for the belly, and the belly for food; but God will destroy both it and them (1Cor 6:13). Or again: is not the body more than clothing? And if the Lord has given you the greater, that is, the body, will He not care to give the lesser, will He not take care to cover it, and will He not give you the means to cover its nakedness, as He covered the nakedness of Eve and Adam?

Are you not caring for what is empty, while neglecting the one thing most necessary, the one thing needful?

Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; and your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much better than they? (Mt 6:26). The Lord points us, of little faith, to the birds, in order to show the unsleeping, unceasing Providence of the heavenly Father over all earthly creatures—a Providence which, from the beginning of the world to this day, has never ceased and does not cease to preserve and feed every creature, and especially man, the crown of all creatures, made in the image and likeness of God—and so that, by the example of the birds, always fed, though they neither sow nor reap grain, we might be persuaded to rely with certainty upon the Providence of God. Of course, these words of the Lord do not teach us to sit idle with folded hands and simply hope in God, but teach us to occupy ourselves in blessed labors, and, even in our labors, to hope in the blessing of God, in success in our undertakings, in the gift of all that is needful. Further, the Lord says: which of you, by worrying, can add one cubit to his stature? (Mt 6:27). Does not everything depend on God? And if our body, in all its functions—in its nourishment and in its growth—depends on God, as the work of His hands, of His wisdom, goodness, and omnipotence, then is not our food, too, in His hands? Does He not Himself grant the food for our growth and strength? Why, then, do we consider our food, as it were, foreign to His Providence? Oh, truly His Providence feeds not only us, but every worm, every insect! And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I say to you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? (Mt 6:28-30).

By the words: why do you worry about clothing — the Lord teaches us to have no attachment to clothing, just as He said before that we should have no attachment to food and drink. It is not possible to have no care at all for clothing: we must take care that our clothing be decent, clean; those whose task it is must occupy themselves with spinning, weaving, sewing. The Most Pure Virgin Mary Herself wove and sewed with Her own most pure hands, as the Savior’s tunic, woven by Her virgin hands, shows. But an unceasing preoccupation with fine dress, which turns our heads, is wholly contrary to the spirit of the Gospel: it makes us vain, petty, and gives rise, in many, to unchastity and pride. If fine clothing were as necessary to us as its flower is to some plant, then our heavenly Father would not have failed to array us a thousand times more beautifully than the roses and the lilies, or the peacocks; but it is known that our clothing is a temporary covering, or a temporary bandage on a wound—for clothing came into being as a consequence of sin, when people came to know their own nakedness; and is it worth adorning the bandages on a wound? Ought we not rather to care how the wound might be healed the sooner—that is, how we might the sooner be cleansed of sin? Is it reasonable to sew costly bandages for these sinful wounds, and to take pride in these bandages, as though in something praiseworthy? Does this not increase, all the more, the stench of sin? Let us remember that in baptism all of us received a garment of incorruption, a garment of the righteousness of Christ. Let us take care, then, for this garment of righteousness; let us keep this garment; let it be our adornment. If we keep it, then in the age to come the Lord will clothe us with a garment of glory, will clothe us with eternal light, as He Himself is clothed with light as with a garment.

So then, let me close this talk with the very words of the Savior: do not be anxious and do not say: what are we to eat? or what are we to drink? or what are we to dress in? because the pagans seek all this, and because your Heavenly Father knows that you have need of all this (Mt 6:31-32). Do you hear? By the Lord’s own word—all who care about what to eat and what to drink, or what to wear, and do not think about the works of God, about keeping His commandments, are pagans, not Christians. Seek then, first of all, God’s Kingdom and His righteousness, and all this will be added to you (Mt 6:33). Every master, every lord, feeds, gives drink, and clothes his servants; how much more, then, will the Lord God feed and clothe us, if we are His servants? If He feeds and clothes those who do not serve Him, who do not know Him, how much more will He not forget those who serve Him? Amen.