An Instruction for the Twelfth Sunday After Pentecost

Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? So He said to him… but if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments. (Mt 19:16-17)

We think little, brothers, about eternal life, and many, very many, do not think of it at all, being wholly immersed in the cares of this life, or carried away by love of pleasure and by greed. We do not take the trouble to reflect carefully on what eternal life is, on the fact that we were created precisely for eternal life. Eternal life, brothers, is a life which, beginning after the resurrection of the dead, will never end; this life will be in the heavens, there, where our Lord Jesus Christ ascended, where the Mother of God has been taken up, where the holy Apostles, prophets, martyrs, hierarchs, righteous ones, and all the saints are. Is it not unreasonable of us not to be concerned about how to attain, most surely, this life? Utterly unreasonable. In today’s Gospel a certain rich young man, coming up to Jesus Christ, asks Him: «Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?» — what good deeds must he do, to be counted worthy of eternal life? What good thing shall I do? The Savior, who has the words of eternal life, answers him: if you want to enter into eternal life, keep the commandments. Which ones? — asks the young man. The Master of life answers: do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, honor your father and mother, and love your neighbor as yourself. The young man says: all these things I have kept from my youth; what do I still lack? What, do you suppose, was still lacking to him? It seems he had fulfilled everything God requires.

Yes, brothers, our trouble is precisely this, that it often seems to us as though we have kept the whole law, so that we might be written down as righteous. But in fact, no. It seemed to the young man in the Gospel that he had kept all the commandments, but in fact it turned out otherwise. When the Lord said: if you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come, follow Me—the young man went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions; and it turned out that the young man had spoken falsely, in claiming to have kept all the commandments. Indeed, had he loved his neighbor as himself, he would not have amassed great possessions, and would not have held on to great possessions, while seeing daily, as he did, so many beggars: he would have given his possessions to the poor; he would have fed the hungry every day, clothed the half-naked, provided shelter for the destitute, would have striven, as far as possible, to serve suffering humanity with his wealth—and his amassed possessions would not have simply lain idle. But he did not do this: he heaped up riches and took no care for almsgiving, for love of neighbor; he was more devoted to gain than to God, and loved himself far more than his neighbor. Oh, this love of gain! What a powerful obstacle it presents to our true good! What an enemy it is—of God and of mankind! It is an idol which the rich man worships, which he loves with his whole soul, which he serves diligently; the rich man trusts in his riches, and not in God; the rich man is hardhearted, and looks with pleasure upon his gold and silver even as the poor are dying of hunger. And the richest people are often the stingiest, the most hardhearted of all. Still, let us not condemn the rich, who not infrequently do much good; let each of us instead turn to himself, and reproach himself for love of pleasure, love of gain, hardheartedness. For we too have a great many poor people of every kind around us—I mean the truly poor—while we ourselves are steeped in love of pleasure and gluttony, in luxury, in amusements, as though there were no eternal life, as though this earthly life were given us only to eat and drink, to live in luxury and make merry, and to disregard the divine ordinances. When shall we take it to heart that this present life is only a path to another life, an eternal one; that this present life, properly speaking, is not life at all, but, as it were, a seed, a beginning of life, which, through our carelessness and negligence, may wither and become instead the beginning, the seed, of eternal death? When shall we lay aside the life of the flesh and live a spiritual life according to the commandments of the Gospel? Do we not know that the Apostle commands us to crucify our sinful, passion-ridden flesh, with its passions and lusts (Gal 5:24)? How long, this love of pleasure; how long, this love of gain; how long, this noisy merrymaking, in this vale of tears? How long will self-love go on drying up in us the love of God and neighbor? Are there not enough calamities already, for our sinful life? Does not the smoke that everywhere still rises even yet fail to teach us that everything on earth is subject to decay and destruction—does it not yet bring to our minds that eternal fire, in which it will no longer be houses, or forests, or land that burn, but unrepentant sinners—burning without end? And the smoke of their torment, it is written, rises up forever and ever (Apok 14:11).

Brothers! If we wish to enter into eternal life, let us keep the commandments without delay. God’s commandments are not burdensome (1Jn 5:3). His yoke is easy, and His burden is light (Mt 11:30). Amen.