In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
People who have known me for a long time, along with my sisters and brother, will admit that I was a geezer long before my time. Because I have been a geezer for such a long time, I have a sort of nostalgic wish that on a day like today, when the readings are as they are, it would be possible to speak about the Scriptures as they used to speak in the old days. That means to pay attention to all the really good things that are in them – even for an hour or two perhaps. However, this is North America, the twenty-first century, so I cannot behave like that. That is good for you, because I would probably put you to sleep in the process.
Nevertheless, I will try to say as briefly as I can what, I think, the Scripture reading has to give to us today. When I was young and I would hear the Gospel that was read today, I used to think : “How could that rich man ignore Lazarus who was sitting there right under his nose every day ?” Dives was being taken out on his litter (it was not like driving in a Cadillac nowadays, or some other big car where you can have tinted windows, turn up the radio so you cannot hear or see anything, and pull some curtains). In those days, they were being carried around on a sort of stretcher with a chair on it. It would be hard to ignore people who are sitting right in front of your nose. There would have been no radio – only the noise of the streets and the sellers all around. How could the rich man ignore Lazarus ?
Since I am grown up, I have come to understand that the fact is that human beings are quite capable of ignoring all sorts of things that are right under their nose (just as I find that I do as I have grown up). It is interesting what we learn as we grow up, and the perspective that comes in life as we grow up. It was easy for a rich man like Dives to ignore others. It is interesting how like him we can be : interested in ourselves, afraid of what is out there, afraid of what is around us, but mostly, self-preoccupied. I am sure that this rich man, Dives, was such a self-preoccupied person. How would he be so different from anyone else, anyway ? When we become very rich, and everyone is bowing and scraping to us, and everyone is doing this and that for us, we begin to think that the world revolves around us. In a sort of way, many do not pass beyond adolescence in that respect, and they think that everyone owes them something.
Everything about the readings today that the Lord has given us describes what sort of life a Christian is supposed to live. A Christian life is open. It is selfless. It is open-handed. As I was taught many years ago, it is open-armed in the way that Christ is open-armed to us, and has been open-armed to us always. This was so especially when He was crucified on the Cross, with His open arms embracing us who were killing Him at the same time. It is true. That was His attitude from the Cross when He said : “‘Forgive them’” from the Cross. His hands were voluntarily nailed to the Cross. He was not forced. He was voluntarily crucified for our sake. He has been open-handed with us at all times. We go crying to Him for everything. He is giving us everything.
Then we have the nerve to say : “I did it myself. I’ve got my career. I’ve got my house. I’ve got my everything”. We forget that Christ is the source of everything. That is how we so easily, so quickly, turn in on ourselves. Yet in His open-handedness, He is always giving to us, always meeting our needs, binding up our wounds, comforting our sorrows, mending all our wounds, tending our “boo-boos”, spiritual and physical.
Sometimes, I suppose, we are grateful. However, we are not nearly grateful enough. Truly, if we were living our Christian life every minute of every day, then we would be filled with a sense of gratitude for God’s love, for His provision for us, and for our ability to be able to co-operate with Him. Freely He gives to us. Freely we receive. It is for us freely to give, and to be ready to give everything : not just money, but ourselves, and everything that we are. We cannot have this sort of mentality, this sort of readiness, unless our hearts are somehow prepared, unless we are renewing and refreshing our love in and for and with Jesus Christ every day.
Here in the seminary, where studies are very demanding, I remember (sometimes too well) that the demand is so intense that it is easy sometimes to let go to the side those moments of daily, regular prayer, Scripture reading, and so forth. We can say to ourselves, for instance : “Well, I am going to hear the Scriptures in Matins anyway ; I will just skip reading the Scripture reading today”. However, the problem is that if I skip looking at the Scripture reading today before I come to the Temple, then my heart is not prepared to receive whatever the Lord wishes to give today. If I have not said at least some sort of basic good-morning prayers to the Lord when I get up, my heart is not prepared to receive what is about to happen in the chapel and in the services. Even if this basic prayer is only the most minimal, it opens the door of the heart just a little, and prepares the heart to receive what the Lord is going to give. If I read the Scriptures ahead of time, then the Lord will speak to me and tell me what I need to hear in order to survive today. That is the whole point.
The heart has to be warmed up slightly at least, in the morning. It has to be opened up and readied to be in communion with the Lord in such a way that I might hear Him say to me what I have to hear today in order to be more who I am supposed to be. This prayer, together with all the study that is going on in this seminary, is a whole life experience. Our life here is not merely an intellectual exercise and the passing of examinations. Even less is it concerned with regurgitating information provided by professors, and returning to them what we think they want to see and hear from us. There is nothing that we are learning here (even in all its technicalities and refinements of meaning) that is not applicable to everyday life sooner or later. It is applicable here in our discussions with each other, and also when we leave here, and when we are going to be confronted by various sorts of persons who want to know what does Jesus Christ mean and Who is Jesus Christ to them. Our hearts must be prepared and ready.
Metropolitan Leonty, of blessed memory, was a man different from the rich man today. He had fallen asleep in the Lord before I ever came to these parts. Some people remember him from their youth. Amongst us there are people whom I know who have known him for a much longer time : Father Sergei Glagolev, Father John Nehrebetsky, Father Vladimir Berzonsky and others. Just this week, Father Sergei was reminiscing about being with Metropolitan Leonty in the Bowery. It is so long since I have been in that part of New York that I do not know what it is like anymore. People are telling me that it is becoming rather “yuppy”. I remember that it used to have Hell’s Angels and all sorts of alcoholics everywhere in those days. Metropolitan Leonty went out on foot very often when he was living at the cathedral, there in the Bowery. Sometimes Father Sergei Glagolev would go walking with him. (I am quite sure that Father Sergei will forgive me for telling this story, as he tells it quite freely himself.) Metropolitan Leonty, as he was going along, had a purse with him, and to anyone who was asking for money, he was giving – not lots, but he was giving. At one point he said to Father Sergei : “So, you do not approve of what I am doing, do you ?” Father Sergei knew that he was caught, and said : “Vladyka, you know that I think that they are just going to drink”. Metropolitan Leonty said, to paraphrase : “Yes, I know you think that. It is entirely possible. However, the point is, that I am not responsible for what that person will or will not do. If he asks, I have to give. I cannot condemn him or judge him according to what he might or might not possibly do. If I am giving openly like this, and freely like this, then maybe there is some hope that he will use it in the right way”.
What is interesting about this is that I heard precisely the same sort of story from Archbishop Gregory about his uncle. Therefore, we have before us this attitude about non-judgemental giving – simply giving openly and freely to whoever asks, as our Saviour says in many places. There is life going with this giving. There is love, and me going with this giving. There is my prayer, at least “Lord have mercy”, going with this giving to the person who has been asking and is receiving. By the act of giving, by this act of open-handed love in sharing with this person just a little bit, comes an opportunity for the person. People are always free to receive in the right spirit or to abuse and to betray. It is their business and their concern.
Everyday life, as we experience it here in this seminary, is similar. This seminary is not merely some sort of ivory tower. We experience real life in this community, and it always has been this way. Here and everywhere, we Christians give ourselves openly and with love to each other. We serve each other in Christ, like Christ, and with Christ. Sometimes temptations grab another person, and the person who has been receiving this love and this trust and this openness so freely can betray that trust. We get a stab in the back, a stab in the heart, a stab in a few places. When that happens (and it does happen all through life), how do I respond ? How must I respond in Christ ?
I cannot retaliate, because Christ never retaliated. I have to be very careful about being bitter and bearing anger, because both of those are deadly poisons for the soul, for the heart. I have to do what Christ did, and does. He said from the Cross : “‘Forgive them’”. I have to learn in His love to forgive the person who betrays and stabs me, as the Lord forgave Judas. The Lord forgave the Apostle Peter for his betrayals. The Lord forgave the Apostle Paul for his over-rambunctious, over-zealous persecuting of Christians, and He turned him completely about.
The Lord’s forgiving love does wonders. I have to be careful not to take onto myself the responsibility that is not mine for how someone else misuses the gift of love towards me. If someone misuses the gift of love towards me, and betrays my love and my openness and my sincerity – that is that person’s responsibility to answer before Christ. It is that person’s responsibility, period. My responsibility is to make sure that my heart stays clean and pure towards that person. I, in Christ, have to be able to pray for that person, as Archimandrite Sophrony and Saint Silouan say. I have to say at least “Lord have mercy” repeatedly for that person. In doing this, I am offering that person to Christ in the hope that that person may yet see the error, turn about, and repent.
Everything in the Christian life involves giving. Even if we all make mistakes, still we must give ourselves in Christ, with Christ, openly, lovingly, and unreservedly. This offering must be with no strings attached (unlike the American teabag). There must be no conditions – only the love freely given of Jesus Christ which we share. In sharing, let us glorify Him, together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.