Sermon 179A

SERMON 179/A

"For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it."
"Whoever shall keep the whole law, yet stumble in one point,"
He has been made guilty of all.

Judgment with mercy.

A terrible reading sounded in our ears before the Psalm, because: Whoever keeps the whole law but offends in one point has become guilty of all. Therefore, in such great danger, who would not cry out: Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy on us? For unless His mercy is withdrawn, we cannot more vehemently recall or commend the danger itself. Do not enter into judgment with Your servant, said one—notwithstanding holy—but still a man; Do not enter into judgment with Your servant, for no living being will be justified in Your sight. He therefore did not want to enter into judgment with himself. But judgment without mercy will be to him who has shown no mercy. Let us understand the opposite of this statement, and see where we ought to place our hope. For if judgment is without mercy to him who has shown no mercy, undoubtedly judgment will be with mercy to him who has shown mercy. This statement was made by the Apostle James, from whose Epistle the same terrible reading was recited, because: Judgment without mercy will be to him who has shown no mercy. But this from the opposite, which we have said: Judgment with mercy will be to him who has shown mercy, the Lord expressed, when He said: Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Therefore, there is hope in the mercy of God, provided our misery is not barren of the work of mercy. What do you seek from the Lord? Mercy. Give, and it shall be given to you. What do you seek from the Lord? Forgiveness. Forgive, and you shall be forgiven.

The words of the apostle James raise a question.

Nevertheless, it is commonly asked how it should be understood: Whoever keeps the entire law but stumbles in one point has become guilty of all. For it is to be feared and avoided lest we think that a thief should be compared to a murderer or an adulterer; indeed this error is dangerous and troublesome; there is much difference between theft and murder. But it is objected to us: Surely, then: Whoever keeps the entire law but stumbles in one point has become guilty of all. He keeps himself from murder, he keeps from adultery, he keeps from false testimony, he keeps from idolatry, he keeps from any damnable sacrilege. He has stolen; now he will be held as both a murderer and an adulterer and a false witness and an idolater and a sacrilegious person, because he committed theft? Certainly not, then, whoever stumbles in one point has become guilty of all. But when explaining this very thing, the same apostle, whose epistle it is, added and said: For he who said: Do not commit adultery, also said: Do not kill. If you do not kill, but you commit adultery, you have become a transgressor of the law. When he placed this peril before their eyes, and all trembled, as if to console them, he added: So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to the one who has not shown mercy. Whether, therefore, we are able to untangle the knot of this question or our effort perhaps succumbs to its difficulty, and whether I can think worthily of what I should say, or perhaps I may say what I have been able to think, be zealous in works of mercy. This is plain, this is clear, this needs no expositor, but a listener and a doer. Nevertheless, I will also try to open that somehow; may your prayer assist us before God. Indeed, it is a time for hearing, not for praying; but if you expect what I am going to say to be from God, you are praying.

The law contains many precepts.

The law contains many precepts; and indeed that law, which is called the Decalogue, has ten precepts. The ten precepts, however, are almost general, to which all other innumerable commandments are referred. Nevertheless, how the other commandments, which seem innumerable, are reduced to this scantiness of the number ten, it is infinite to discuss. However, in this way, as much as the Lord helps, we will be able to demonstrate that, just as all other precepts are referred to these, understanding this discourse to be very laborious, so these ten are referred to two. Truly, these ten are such. Concerning the worship of one God and not worshipping another, there is one precept there: You shall not make for yourself an idol, nor any likeness of what is in heaven above, nor what is on the earth below. The Lord your God is one Lord. The second precept is: You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. The third precept is: Observe the Sabbath day. These precepts pertain to God. Regarding the observation of the Sabbath, it is almost superfluous to teach a Christian anything. Indeed, not only is it not superfluous, but this is substantial; for that is the shadow. For the people are prohibited from servile works on the Sabbath. Are we not prohibited from servile works? Hear the Lord: Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. However, to hope from God to not commit sin, this is to keep the Sabbath; for it is written: God rested on the seventh day from all His works. God rested: God makes you rest. For what labor could there be for God, who created all things by His word, to need rest? Therefore, these three pertain to God. The other seven pertain to man: Honor your father and your mother; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not kill; you shall not bear false witness; you shall not steal; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife; you shall not covet your neighbor's goods. If you love God, you neither worship another, nor take His name in vain, and you keep the Sabbath for Him to rest in you as He makes you rest. If, however, you love your neighbor and honor your parents, and do not commit adultery, and do not kill, and harm no one with false testimony, and do not steal from anyone, and do not covet another’s wife, and do not covet another’s goods. Thus: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind; and: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets. Listen also to the Apostle: The fulfillment, he says, of the law is love. He did not send you into many, nor into ten, nor into two: one love fulfills everything. But that love is twofold: for God and for neighbor. For God, how much? With all. With what all? For it is not with ear, and nose, and hand, and foot. With what whole can He be loved? With all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind; with all that in you lives, you shall love the source of life. If, therefore, with all that in me lives I should love God, what do I leave to love my neighbor? For in the commandment concerning loving the neighbor, it wasn’t said to you: With all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind; but rather as yourself. God with your whole self, because He is better than you; your neighbor as yourself, because he is what you are.

Love God and love your neighbor, as you would love yourself.

There are therefore two commandments; nevertheless, there are three things to be loved. Two commandments were given: love God and love your neighbor; yet I see that three things are to be loved. For it would not be said: and your neighbor as yourself, unless you also loved yourself. Therefore, if three things are to be loved, why are there two commandments? Why? Understand. God did not judge it necessary to warn you to love yourself; for there is no one who does not love himself. But because many, by loving themselves poorly, destroy themselves, by instructing you to love your God with all of yourself, there you are given the rule for how to love yourself. Do you want to love yourself? Love God with all of yourself; for there you will find yourself, lest you lose yourself in yourself. If you love yourself in yourself, you will fall both from yourself and will seek many things beyond yourself. Hence the Apostle started from that point of all evil, where he said: For men will be lovers of themselves. Behold, you have chosen to love yourself; let us see if you remain even in yourself. It is not true; you will not remain there; having fallen away from God, you will also fall away from yourself. For there is the foundation; there you should have adhered, making that place for yourself a stronghold and a house of refuge. But now you have loosened, or torn the bond of your love from Him to yourself; you do not remain even in yourself. Finally, listen to the Apostle himself. When he said: For men will be lovers of themselves, he immediately added: lovers of money. Did I not say that you would not even remain in yourself? Are you money? Behold, you have also perished from yourself, who have departed from God. What remains but that you pour out all the patrimony of your mind, living prodigally with harlots, that is, with lusts and various desires, and compelled by poverty, feed pigs, that is, because unclean avarice has possessed you, unclean demons are fed by you? But that son, having endured poverty, and broken by hunger, returned to himself he said. Returned to himself, because he had perished from himself, and in himself found himself impoverished; he sought happiness everywhere, and found it nowhere. Returned to himself, what did he say? I will arise and go. Where shall I go? To the father. Now he has returned to himself, but still lying down; I will arise and go; I shall not lie down, I shall not remain. Therefore, a rule has been set for you on how to love yourself; love one better than yourself, and you have loved yourself. But I say better by nature, not by will. For many men are found better than you by will, but only God by nature; the Creator, Builder, Maker, made by none. Fix yourself there. Understand sometimes, and say: But for me. What, but for you? It is good for me to cling to God. Why this? Consider what was said above: You destroyed all who commit fornication from you. Because therefore He has destroyed all who commit fornication from Him, you found yourself. But for me to cling to God is good, that is, not to commit fornication from God, not to remove myself from God. Do you want to see what is promised to you in this matter? But he who clings to the Lord is one spirit with Him. This is therefore your love or the love of yourself, that is, the love by which you love yourself, that you love God. I now entrust to you also your neighbor, whom you shall love as yourself; for I see that you have begun to love yourself. Therefore, whom you love as yourself, lead where you have led yourself. For if you loved gold and had gold, and loved your neighbor as yourself, by loving you would share what you had, and make him a partaker of your gold. But by sharing, both would have less. Why therefore do you not possess Him, where you will suffer no constraints with a coheir? As many as you are able to persuade, as many as you are able to invite, call, compel to love God, and He is whole to all, and whole to each.

The root of all good things is love.

Love therefore God, and love your neighbor as yourself. For I see that you love yourself, because you love God. Charity is the root of all good works. For just as: The root of all evils is greed, so the root of all good things is charity. Therefore the fullness of the law is charity. So I say quickly: whoever offends charity, has become guilty of everything. For whoever offends the very root, what part of the tree remains unoffended? What then do we do? Whoever offends charity has become guilty of everything; it is altogether true. But the thief offends charity differently, the adulterer differently, the murderer differently, the sacrilegious differently, the blasphemer differently. All offend the same charity, because where there is full and perfect charity, there can be no sin. But it is that which grows in us, so that it may sometime be perfected; and so be perfected, that there may no longer be anything to add. When it will have been so perfect that it cannot grow any further, cannot be increased any further, there will be no sins. But where will this be, unless when death is swallowed up in victory? For there it will be said, because there will be no sin at all: Where is your contention, death? where is your sting, death? Where is it? Behold it is not; behold you no longer prick, you no longer strike down. Where is your sting, death? And what is: Where is your sting? Hear the expositor: But the sting of death is sin. Therefore, brothers, he who commits lesser sins is guilty of everything; and he who commits a greater and more criminal sin is guilty of everything. But one is more guilty, another less guilty; yet both guilty of everything, so that in the diversity of sins nothing is sought but greater and lesser. He committed theft: if he had charity, he would not commit theft; for the Apostle says, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not kill, you shall not steal, you shall not covet, and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this sentence; you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love of neighbor works no evil. But the fullness of the law is charity. Therefore, both the one who commits theft is guilty of everything, because he has injured charity; and the one who commits adultery is guilty of everything, because he has injured charity. How has he not violated everything, who has injured the root? But one has injured less, another more.

Daily sins.

Yet even he who has caused less harm should not be lazy: For judgment without mercy is for him who does not show mercy. All sins are forgiven to baptized believers; there is none at all left that that sanctification has not previously removed and extinguished. It is true: who doubts it? But if one were to depart from the body then, the innocence, as it had begun, would immediately remain; since, however, one lives here, iniquity is erased, but weakness remains. Through this weakness and in a way the frailness of human nature, some very small cracks let in water from the sea, which flows into the bilge. He has not committed murder: he has escaped the wave as a castaway. But do you not know that a neglected bilge can flood? Therefore, because of greater waves, and because of any creeping moisture, the sacrament of baptism washes away everything; but because of the frailty of this ship, which is carried on the vast sea and is agitated by temptations like tempests, because it is necessary for some although smaller sins to creep in, another remedy was given, because another sacrament of baptism could not be given. That one is unique; this is the daily one, which I mentioned a little before: Judgment without mercy is for him who does not show mercy. Give, and it will be given to you; forgive, and you will be forgiven. And in a way, in your prayers, you are daily cleansed from daily, light, and lesser sins, if you say from the heart, if you truly say, if you faithfully say: Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.

You have within what you control.

If you do not forgive your adversary, you are your own adversary. Do you want to see how great the difference is? For example, he injured you by taking away money; you defraud yourself by not deserving forgiveness. Finally, you will say: He was very cruel, he seeks my blood. He, the blood of your flesh; you, the death of your soul. I do not forgive, he says; he injured me greatly, he was much my adversary. You are worse to yourself. I do not forgive. I ask you, forgive, let go. But he does not ask me. You ask for him. I absolutely do not forgive. You want to litigate, and you do not know with whom you should. You love to litigate; return to yourself, be angry, but do not sin. Be angry with yourself, so that you do not sin; rage against yourself, chastise yourself. You have something within to tame, and you sleep. You pay attention to with whom you are litigating outside, your neighbor, your companion, your partner, your fellow co-possessor. You do not pay attention, you do not see, another law in your members, waging war against the law of your mind, and taking you captive to the law of sin which is in your members. But he robbed me. You are dragged captive, and you are angry with the robber! You recognized yourself, you saw where you are. You acknowledged the captor, show yourself a fighter, seek a redeemer. Just as he himself, when he said: Leading me captive in the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am, he said, who will deliver me from this body of death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. But who calls for grace, who does not see his own punishment? Therefore understand, see where you are dragged. But justice pleases me. I know that it pleases: for you delight in the law of God according to the inward man, but you see another law in your members; you delight in the law of God, there is another law in your members. With this you live, with this you die. The robbers left you half-dead on the road, but now you have been found lying by the passerby and the merciful Samaritan; wine and oil have been poured on you, you have received the sacrament of the Only Begotten; you have been lifted onto his beast, you believed in the incarnate Christ; you were brought to the inn, and in the Church you are being cared for.

Because of God, let us love one another.

Hence it is that I speak: this I too, this we all do; we perform the duty of innkeepers. To him it was said: If you spend anything more, I will repay you when I return. Would that we at least dispense that which we have received! But however much we dispense, brothers, it is the Lord's money. We are your fellow servants: we live from what we feed. Let no one credit us with a favor; we will be bad servants if we do not fulfill our duty; but if we do fulfill it, let there be no arrogance in us, because we do not give from our own resources. Let us all love him, let us cherish him, for his sake let us love one another. We all have one king; let us all arrive at one kingdom.