Sermon of Archpriest Alexander Abramov in week 15 after Pentecost from the book “whosoever will may come. Conversations on Sundays and feast the gospel reading,” published in the publishing house “Nike”.
Photo: spbda.ru
- Our Christian step needs to be determined, but not stupid
- We exchanged for business in relationship with God
- A stake through the body of our envy
- What to be afraid of Christian
- For every call of the Lord we must answer: “Yes, I’m ready”
And one of them, a lawyer, tempting Him, asked, saying, Teacher! what is the greatest commandment in the law? Jesus replied: love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind: this is the first and great commandment; the second is like it: love your neighbor as yourself; on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. When the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them: what think ye of Christ? Whose son is He? Say To Him: David. Said to them: how then doth David in spirit call Him Lord, saying, the Lord said to my Lord: sit at my right hand until I make Your enemies the footstool of Thy feet? So, if David calls Him Lord, how is He his son? And no one was able to answer Him a word, nor from that day on no one dared to ask Him.
MF. 22: 35-46
Archpriest Alexander Abramov
The lawyer, tempting Christ, ask the Teacher! what is the greatest commandment in the law? Why a legalist, a Pharisee asked about the commandments? Because they were known to all the people of Israel from small to large, from the educated to the simple.
Matthew artless explains it: the lawyer tempts the Savior. The essence of the temptation? The lawyer knows all of the Scriptures, and he is quite satisfied that, as it seems, knows. And he doesn’t want to know what place in all this Grand plan of the universe belongs to Jesus — the Man Who stands before him and Who was talking to him. Man has become famous among the people by miracles, unusual, strange — and certainly not such easy as It seemed to many of the students.
The Savior responds to the Pharisee: love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind: this is the first and great commandment; the second is like it: love your neighbor as yourself; on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. And what else should I add? What more the lawyer might have heard from Christ?
Jesus replies strictly according to the law, on the one hand. On the other hand, the commandment of love of neighbor is a commandment of the new, imbued with a completely different doctrine. This commandment is later, according to the word of the Apostle Paul, like leaven will perekusit the whole world[1]. For the fulfillment of this commandment, many abandon their freedom, and others from life at all — will go to prison and to death.
And then the Savior Himself refers to the Pharisees with a question: “what do you think about Christ? Whose son is He?” Christ literally means “Anointed one, Messiah.” And so Christ asks, what do you think the Pharisees about the Messiah. And they respond to him, as was taught in the law that the Messiah is of course David’s son.
It is very easy to give answers to textbook questions and talk writing.
It is very difficult to think about new that’s in your eyes occurs and to accept it. Especially if it’s new all changes in the system of your existence, demanding that this existence has changed. New is not in the side from foot to foot shifting, but here and now changes you.
Savior retorted the words of the Pharisees, saying, “And how so? How is He David’s son?” — leads the 109th Psalm, one of the most complicated for interpretation, which says: the Lord Said to my Lord: sit at my right hand Mene, Dandie put Your enemies a footstool for Your feet. By thinking of many of the Holy fathers, the word of David about how to incarnate the Son of God the Christ, about the conversation of God the Father and God the Son. “And clearly, the Savior continues his thought — if David calls Christ Lord, how is He his son?”
And that’s what happens. Set very delicate balance. The scribes and the Pharisees, people of the hardness of ancient Israel, the people residing in the letter, not ready to protest to Christ, speaking of the spirit. Still do not blaspheme and do not beat It. Accumulate rejection, rejection, but so far — balance. And Matthew tells us about it: no one was able to answer Him a word. But more: and from that day on no one dared to ask Him.
Set silence before the storm that is about to burst. Now is the time when the Spirit without any effort, explicit, and clearly shows how He is above the deadness of the everyday, blinkered, unthinking dogmatism.
[1] a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump (Gal. 5: 9).