A stake through the body of our envy

12 Aug – 11 the week after Pentecost. On reading tonight in the gospel churches, Archpriest Alexander Abramov in his book “whosoever will may come. Conversations on Sundays and feast the gospel reading,” published in the publishing house “Nike”.

Photo: mon-varvara.gallery.ru

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Therefore is the Kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants; when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, which owed him ten thousand talents; but as he had nothing to pay, his sovereign commanded to sell him and his wife, and children, and all that he had, and to pay; the servant therefore fell down, and worshipped him, saying, Lord! have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. The Emperor, being moved with compassion over the slave, released him, and forgave him the debt.

But the same servant went out and found one of his fellowservants, which owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him by the throat, saying, pay me what you must. So his fellow servant fell down at his feet, and besought him, saying: have patience with me, and I will give it to you. But he would not: but went and cast him into prison, till he should pay the debt.

When his fellow servants saw what happened, very sorry, and came and told unto their Lord all that was done. Then his Lord called him and saith, o thou wicked servant! all that debt I forgave you because you begged me; should not you to have mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you? And in his anger, the Emperor delivered him to the torturers until he should pay him the entire debt. So also My heavenly Father do also unto you, if you forgive not each one of you from the heart of his brother their trespasses.

MF. 18: 23-35

One man owed his master an untold amount. The debtor asked the lender to forgive this massive debt. And the debt was forgiven without any conditions. A forgiven debtor, in turn, finds its borrowers who owed him much less and begins to torture in order to summon a small amount. And then all the rest, seeing that there’s something wrong, go to the sovereign and say: “Sir, there’s something wrong!” And one who had very much returned to this issue. And takes off. And gives the debtor to the tormentors. In the gospel there is the figure — perhaps because he did not return the debt, there is nothing to give; and the fate of the debtor, which he himself had made, is in question.

In another place of the gospel we heard about the need to give last shirt. And it is absolutely clear that the way we live and where we live, we can’t do that. We are absolutely neither the last nor the penultimate, any shirts to give away. This gospel wishes left for us to do some unthinkable ideal, very distant in time and most likely unattainable in our earthly life. And beyond it will be not necessary.

And here, in the account of the debtor, contains for us a simple and clear recommendation: do not fight for their own. But here, people are outraged in the spirit: how not to fight for her, because in all fairness it belongs to me! But in all fairness we deserve to put us in the most impartial court that exists in the world — the judgment of God. And this judgment of God, judging in all fairness, one reading out the list of our deeds is not a day, not two, not ten, not a decade.

A conversation about justice is very thin. Justice towards those who have caused us harm, will inevitably lead to the implementation of justice against those who caused the evil we are. If we want to be fair to those who have wronged us, we must be ready to accept the justice of God in relation to himself. But is not justice, but mercy, we ask for himself from God.

The Scripture says: the Court Bo without mercy, not who created humankind in your mercy (Jas. 2: 13).

We many times faced with the injustices: we have something to take away, deprive of something belonging to us by right. Close friends become bitter enemies because of some of the flats… But on the eve of the coffin, sure, it becomes clear that it’s not worth anything. I am sure that all to give, unleashing such a situation is a sign of strength, not weakness. Because you remain with the grace of God, which will fill all, and will give more.

We do not believe, till it comes to us in practice. However, I know a lot of people who have in life is God’s, and receive, when, instead of vague and hopeless fight, they forgive his debtor.

The debtor in fact can be anything, not necessarily money. Just as if we are talking about money, we sometimes try to behave like a Christian suffer and wait. And the wrongs done to us can’t forgive and all the time it exacted from the debtor. Sometimes it lasts for years: people in families not speaking to each other, remember the smallest details of the offense, even voluptuous for them to remember. And do not forgive, and thereby acquire mountain of evil that accumulate and offended themselves buried under its weight.

And you can forgive. To forgive from the heart — that is, to forget. Not with vocational and ecclesiastical hypocrisy to say: “God will forgive, and I forgive you,” and to forget the offense, as God tears the handwriting of sins confessed by us. Let the wrong person in front of me a thousand times, even I can’t it does influence, even if he sin will not understand. God is with him.

This is most important: God is with him. May the Lord governs his life, the Lord makes the decisions. I do not presume to judge him, I am not going to comment on it.

And if God asks me: “is There something between you and him?” — I answer: “No. I have no complaints about him”.

And if the person does so, then the Lord forgives him. And when opened his own, sometimes terrible, the vices, the Lord has mercy and gives him a new chance just for the fact that he is not tortured those who owed him.

This is much easier than to give a hypothetical shirt, especially when you know what you have in the wardrobe of another five thousand. And it’s like a stake through the body of one of the most evil of our sins — envy and narcissism.

Any person at any time can get away from the temptations of the imaginary selfish justice, to abandon attempts to recover his. Bearing in mind that justice is not a one-way street, and the Kingdom of heaven — the Kingdom of justice, because in that case we could not hope to achieve it, our own debt is too huge, but also the Kingdom of grace.

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