Sermon 80

SERMO 80

ON THE WORDS OF THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW 17:18-20
"Why were we not able to cast him out," and so forth.
ON PRAYER

The unbelief of the Apostles.

Our Lord Jesus Christ also reproved unbelief in His disciples, as we heard a little while ago when the Gospel was being read. For when they had said, "Why could we not cast it out?" He answered, "Because of your unbelief." If the Apostles were unbelieving, who is faithful? What do the lambs do if the rams waver? Yet the mercy of the Lord did not despise them as unbelievers; but He reproved, nourished, perfected, and crowned them. For they themselves, mindful of their weakness, as we read in one place in the Gospel, said to Him, "Lord, increase our faith." "Lord," they said, "increase our faith." The first benefit was knowledge, to know that they had less; the greater blessing, to know from where they asked. "Lord," they said, "increase our faith." See if they were not bringing their hearts as if to the source, and knocking that it might be opened to them from where they might be filled. He wanted to be knocked at, not to repel the knockers, but to exercise those desiring.

God, although He knows our needs, must still be prayed to.

For do you think, brothers, that God does not know what is necessary for you? He knows our desires beforehand, who knows our need. Finally, when He taught prayer and advised His disciples not to be wordy in prayer, He said: "Do not be wordy; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him." The Lord says something else already. What is it? Wishing that we should not speak much in prayer, He said to us: "Do not speak much when you pray; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him." If our Father knows what we need before we ask Him, why do we speak at all? What is the reason for prayer itself if our Father already knows what we need? Someone might say: "Do not ask me for long; for I know what you need." If you know, Lord, why should I ask at all? You do not want me to have a long petition; rather, you command that I should hardly have any. And what about that other place? He who says: "Do not be wordy in prayer," in another place says: "Ask, and it will be given to you." And lest you think it was only said in passing for you to ask, He added: "Seek, and you will find." And lest you consider this transitory, see what He added, see where He concluded: "Knock, and it will be opened to you." See what He added. He wanted you to ask, so that you may receive; to seek, so that you may find; to knock, so that you may enter. So how, if our Father already knows what is necessary for us, why do we ask? Why do we seek? Why do we knock? Why do we weary ourselves in asking, seeking, and knocking to instruct the one who knows? In another place, the Lord's words are: "One should always pray and not lose heart." If one should always pray, how does He say: "Do not be wordy"? How do I always pray if I finish quickly? You command me to finish quickly, yet you command to always pray and not lose heart: what is this? And to understand this: ask, seek, knock. For it is closed, not to reject you, but to exercise you. Therefore, brothers, we should encourage prayer, both for us and for you. For there is no other hope for us in the many evils of the present age, except to knock in prayer itself, and to believe and hold firmly in our hearts that your Father does not give you what He knows is not beneficial for you. For you know what you desire; He knows what is beneficial for you. Suppose I say you are under me and you are weak, as it is true: for all this life of ours is weakness; and a long life is nothing else but a long weakness: suppose, therefore, you are sick under a doctor. The recent wine, you delighted in it, you asked to drink it from the doctor. You are not forbidden to ask, lest it might not harm you and it would be beneficial for you to receive. Do not doubt to ask: ask, do not hesitate; but if you do not receive, do not be saddened. If this is under a human doctor of your flesh; how much more under God, the doctor, creator, and restorer of both your flesh and soul?

Praying to God to heal from vices.

Therefore, since the Lord in this chapter encouraged prayer, where he said: Because of your unbelief, you could not cast out this demon; for he concluded his exhortation to prayer thus: This kind is not cast out, except by fasting and praying. If a man prays to cast out another's demon, how much more should he pray to cast out his own avarice? How much more, to cast out his own drunkenness? How much more, to cast out his own lust? How much more, to cast out his own impurity? How many things are in man, which, if they persevere, do not admit him to the kingdom of heaven? See, brothers, how one asks a doctor for temporal health, how if anyone is desperately ill, is he ashamed, or reluctant to hold the feet of the man, the most skilled chief physician, washing his footprints with tears? And what, if the doctor says to him: You cannot be healed otherwise unless I bind you, cauterize you, cut you? He answers: Do what you want, only heal me. With what fervor does he desire the fleeting health of a few days, so that for it he is willing to be bound, and cut, and burned, and to be kept from eating what he likes, from drinking what he likes, or when he likes? He endures it all, so that he might die later: and he does not want to endure a little, so that he might never die! If God, who is our heavenly physician, says to you: Do you want to be healed? What will you say, except, Heal me? Perhaps you do not say, because you think yourself healthy, and that is what makes you worse sick.

Christ the physician finds all the sick.

For if you put two sick people in place; one who begs the doctor with tears, the other who, in his sickness, mocks the doctor with a lost mind; the former promises hope to the one weeping, laments for the one laughing. Why? Except because he is sick with such a peril that he thinks himself to be healthy? So were the Jews. Christ came to the sick and found all sick. No one should flatter himself with health, lest the doctor renounce him. He found all sick; it is the apostolic judgment: For all have sinned and are in need of the glory of God. When therefore he found all sick, there were two kinds of sick people. Some came to the doctor, clung to Christ, listened, honored, followed, and converted. He received all without any scorn, healing for free, because omnipotence healed. When he received them and joined them to be healed, they rejoiced. However, another kind of sick people, already having lost their mind due to the sickness of iniquity, did not know they were sick; they mocked him because he received the sick, and said to his disciples: Behold what kind of master you have, who eats with sinners and publicans. And he, knowing what they were and who they were, answered them: It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. And he showed them who was healthy, and who was sick: I have not come, he said, to call the righteous, but sinners. If sinners, he said, do not come to me, why have I come? For whom have I come? If all are healthy, why did such a great doctor descend from heaven? Why did he make medicine for us not from his box, but from his blood? Therefore, that kind of sick people who were milder in their sickness and felt themselves to be sick, adhered to the doctor to be healed. But those who were more dangerously sick mocked the doctor, denounced the sick. To what extreme did their madness proceed? That they would seize, bind, scourge, crown with thorns, suspend by wood, and kill the doctor by the cross. Why are you surprised? The sick killed the doctor: but the doctor, being killed, healed the insane one.

By which remedy the sick are healed through Christ, the sick are healed.

First of all, not forgetting himself on the cross, and showing us his patience, and giving an example of loving our enemies; seeing them raging around, knowing their sickness, as a doctor who knew the frenzy in which they had lost their minds, immediately [said] to the Father: "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." But do you think that those Jews were not wicked, cruel, bloodthirsty, turbulent, enemies of the Son of God? Do you think that voice was void and empty: "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing"? He saw all, but he recognized his own among them. Finally, he died, because it was fitting that with his death he would kill death. God died, so that a kind of celestial compensation might be made, that man might not see death. For Christ is God, but he did not die there as God. For the same one is God, the same one is man: there is one Christ, God and man. Man was assumed, so that we might be changed for the better, did not drag God towards the worse. For he took what he was not, he did not lose what he was. Since he was therefore God and man, wanting us to live by means of him, he died in accordance with us. For he had nothing from which he might die: nor did we have anything from which we might live. For what was he, who had nothing from which he might die? “In the beginning was the Word; and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Seek from God how he might die, you will not find [a way]. But we die, who are flesh, a man bearing sinful flesh—that is, a man of sin. Seek from sin how it might live, it does not have it. Therefore, neither could he have death from his own [being], nor we life from ours: but we [have] life from his, he [has] death from ours. What sorts of exchanges! What did he give, and what did he receive? Trading men come to exchanges, to change things. For the ancient exchange was the change of things. A man gave what he had, and received what he did not have. For example, he had wheat, but he did not have barley; another had barley, and he did not have wheat: that one gave the wheat which he had, received the barley which he did not have. How much it was that a greater quantity compensated for a cheap kind! Behold therefore, one gives barley, to receive wheat: finally, another gives lead, to receive silver; but he offers much lead for a little silver: another gives wool, to receive clothing. And who can list all? However, no one gives life, to receive death. Therefore, the voice of the physician hanging on the wood was not empty. For that he might die for us, because the Word could not die: the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. He hung on the cross, but in the flesh. There is the vileness, which the Jews despised: there is the love, through which the Jews were saved. For concerning them, it is said: "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." And that voice was not empty. He died, was buried, rose again; after forty days spent with his disciples, he ascended into heaven, sent the Holy Spirit to those who awaited the promise. They, having received the Holy Spirit, were filled, and began to speak in the tongues of all nations. Then the Jews who were present, being terrified at the name of Christ speaking in all tongues, men who were unlearned, uncultured, whom they knew among themselves to be raised in one language, were terrified: they learned from Peter speaking whence this gift was. He gave this, who hung on the wood. He gave this, who was mocked hanging on the wood, to give the Holy Spirit sitting in heaven. They heard, they believed those of whom he had said: "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." They believed, were baptized, and conversion was made. What conversion? The blood of Christ, which they furiously shed, believing, they drank.

A prayer in the perils of this life.

Therefore, to conclude our discussion from where we began, let us pray, and presume upon God: let us live as He commands, and where we falter in this life, let us call upon Him, just as the disciples called upon Him saying: "Lord, increase our faith." And Peter presumed, and faltered: yet he was not despised and drowned, but was uplifted and raised up. Indeed, from where did he presume? It was not from his own strength: it was from the Lord. How? "Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water." For the Lord was walking on the water. "If it is You, command me to come to You on the water. For I know that if it is You, You command and it is done." And He said: "Come." He descended at His command, and trembled in his own weakness. Yet when he trembled, he cried out to Him: "Lord," he said, "save me." Then the Lord reached out His hand to him, and said: "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?" He Himself invited, He liberated the one who was faltering and trembling; so that it might be fulfilled, what is said in the Psalm: "If I said, My foot slips; Your mercy, O Lord, supported me."

How temporal and eternal benefits are to be sought.

Therefore, there are two kinds of benefits: temporal and eternal. Temporal benefits include health, substance, honor, friends, house, children, wife, and the other aspects of this life where we are but sojourners. Let us consider ourselves in the stable of this life as if we are pilgrims passing through, not as possessors intending to stay. The eternal benefits are, however, first and foremost, eternal life itself, the incorruption and immortality of flesh and soul, the company of Angels, the heavenly city, unfailing dignity, the Father and the fatherland, He without death, it without an enemy. Let us desire these benefits with all fervor, ask for them with all perseverance, not with lengthy speech but with witness of groaning. Desire always prays, even if the tongue is silent. If you always desire, you always pray. When does prayer slumber? When desire grows cold. Therefore, let us request these everlasting benefits with total eagerness, seek those goods with all intention, ask for those goods securely. For those who possess these goods, they benefit and cannot harm. On the other hand, temporal benefits sometimes are useful, sometimes harmful. Poverty has benefitted many, and riches have harmed many: a private life has benefitted many, and high honor has harmed many. Likewise, money has benefitted some, dignity has benefitted others; it benefitted those who used them well: but for those who used them poorly, not having them hurt more. And accordingly, brothers, let us ask moderately for these temporal things, securely knowing that if we receive them, He gives, who knows what is expedient for us. Have you asked, and it has not been given to you what you requested? Trust the Father, who would give it to you if it were expedient for you. Consider about yourself as well: As your child, unaware of human affairs, is to you, so you are to the Lord, unaware of divine affairs. Behold, your child cries before you all day to give him a knife, that is, a sword: you refuse to give it, you do not provide it, you disregard his crying so that you do not mourn over his death. Let him cry, let him vex himself, let him clash himself to be lifted onto a horse: you do not do it, because he cannot manage it; he will injure and kill himself. What you refuse as a part, you are keeping whole for him. But so that he may grow and securely possess everything, you do not give him a small dangerous thing.

Bad times: from where and how they should be endured.

Therefore, we say, brothers, pray as much as you can. Evils are abundant, and God has willed that evils are abundant. If only the evil ones were not abundant, and evils were not abundant. People say these are bad times, laborious times. Let us live well, and the times are good. We are the times: as we are, so are the times. But what can we do? Can we not turn the multitude of people to a good life? Let the few who listen live well: let the few living well endure many living badly. They are grains, they are in the threshing floor: they can have chaff with them in the threshing floor, but they will not have it in the granary. Let them endure what they do not want, so that they come to what they want. Why are we saddened and do we blame God? Evils are abundant in the world, so that the world is not loved. Great men, faithful saints, who despised the beautiful world: we cannot even despise the ugly one. The world is evil, behold it is evil, and yet it is loved as if it were good. But what is the evil world? For the heavens are not evil, nor the earth, and the waters, and the things that are in them, the fish, the birds, the trees. All these things are good: but evil men make an evil world. But since we cannot be without evil men as long as we live, as I said, let us groan to our Lord God; and let us endure evils, so that we may come to good things. Let us not blame the Master of the household; for He is dear. He carries us, not we Him. He knows how to govern what He has made: do what He has commanded, and hope for what He has promised.