Sermons to the People 101.1–102.5

In the reading of the Gospel which has just been recited, we are prompted to ask what the harvest is of which the Lord says: “The harvest is great, but the laborers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest to send laborers into his harvest.” Then to his twelve disciples, whom he also named apostles, he added another seventy-two, and sent them all, as appears from his words, to a harvest that was ready. What, then, was that harvest? For that harvest was not among these Gentiles, where nothing had been sown. It remains, then, that we understand this harvest to have been among the Jewish people. To that harvest the Lord of the harvest came; to that harvest he sent reapers; but to the Gentiles not reapers but sowers. Let us understand, then, that the harvest took place among the Jewish people, the sowing among the Gentile peoples. For from that harvest the apostles were chosen, where, when it was reaped, it was already ripe, because the prophets had sown there. It is a delight to look at God’s husbandry, and to take pleasure in his gifts and in the laborers in his field. For in this husbandry he worked who said, “I labored more than all of them.” But strength to work was given him by the Lord of the harvest: so he added, “Not I, but the grace of God with me.” For he shows clearly enough that he was engaged in husbandry where he says, “I planted, Apollos watered.” This apostle, then, from Saul became Paul, that is, from proud became least: for Saul is named from Saul, while paulum means “little”: so, as it were interpreting his own name, he says, “I am the least of the apostles.” So he himself, Paul, that is, little and least, sent to the Gentiles, says that he was sent especially to the Gentiles. He writes, we read, believe, and preach. He says, then, in his letter to the Galatians, that having been called by the Lord Jesus he came to Jerusalem and compared the Gospel with the apostles, that right hands were given him, the sign of concord, the sign of agreement, because what they had learned for themselves did not differ from him in anything. Then he says that it was agreed between himself and them that he should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcision: he the sower, they the reapers. Rightly too the Athenians, though without knowing it, gave him his name. For hearing the word from him, they say: “Who is this sower of words?”

Attend, then, and let it delight you to look with me at God’s husbandry, and in it at two harvests, one past, the other to come: the past one among the Jewish people, the one to come among the Gentile peoples. Let us prove this: and from where, if not from the Scripture of God, the Lord of the harvest? See, we have it there in the present passage: “The harvest is great, but the laborers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest to send laborers into his harvest.” But because in that harvest the Jews would be opponents and persecutors: “See,” he says, “I send you as lambs in the midst of wolves.” Let us show something about this harvest more plainly in the Gospel according to John. At the well where the Lord sat down tired, great mysteries indeed were enacted, but the time is short for us to treat them all. But hear what concerns the present matter. For we have undertaken to show the harvest among the peoples among whom the prophets preached: for they were sowers so that the apostles could be reapers. The Samaritan woman speaks with the Lord Jesus, and among other things, when the Lord had told her how God ought to be worshipped, she said, “We know that the Messiah is coming, who is called Christ, and he will teach us all things.” And the Lord to her: “I who speak to you am he.” Believe what you hear: why look for what you see? “I who speak to you am he.” As for what she had said, “We know that the Messiah is coming,” whom Moses and the prophets announced, “who is called Christ”: the harvest was already in the ear. It had received the prophets as sowers to bring it forth; ripe, it awaited the apostles as reapers. As soon as she heard this she believed, left her water jar, ran in haste, began to announce the Lord. The disciples had then gone to buy bread; returning, they found the Lord speaking with the woman, and were amazed. Yet they did not dare say to him, “What, or why, are you speaking with her?” They kept their amazement to themselves; they suppressed their boldness in their hearts. So to this Samaritan woman the name of Christ was not new: she was already expecting him to come, she already believed he would come. From where had she come to believe, if Moses had not sown? But hear this more plainly. The Lord then said to his disciples: “You say that summer is still far off; lift up your eyes, and see the fields white for harvest.” And he adds: “Others have labored, and you have entered into their labors.” Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, the prophets labored; they labored by sowing; at the Lord’s coming the harvest was found ripe. Reapers were sent with the sickle of the Gospel; they carried the sheaves to the Lord’s threshing floor, where Stephen was to be threshed.

Here, however, that Paul comes in and is sent to the Gentiles. And he does not keep silent about this when he commends the grace he received especially and as his own. For he says in his writings that he was sent to preach the Gospel where Christ had not been named. But now, since that harvest has been gathered, and all the Jews who remained [are chaff], let us attend to the harvest that we are. For it was sown by the apostles and prophets. The Lord himself sowed. For he was in the apostles, because Christ also reaped. For they do nothing without him; he is perfect without them. For he himself says to them: “For without me you can do nothing.” What, then, does Christ say, sowing now among the Gentiles? “The sower went out to sow.” There, reapers are sent to reap; here, the sower went out to sow, untiring. For what did he fear, that some fell on the road, some on rocky places, some among thorns? If he feared these difficult soils, he would not reach the good soil. What is it to us, what is it to us now to argue about the Jews and talk about chaff? This alone concerns us: that we be not the road, not the rock, not thorns, but good soil. Let our heart be ready, to yield thirty, sixty, a hundred and a thousandfold: that is less, this more; but it is all wheat. Let it not be the road, where the seed is trampled by passers-by and the enemy carries it off like a bird. Let it not be rock, where shallow soil makes it sprout at once, so that it cannot bear the sun. Let it not be thorns, the desires of the world, the cares of a vicious life. For what is worse than the care for life that does not let one reach life? What more wretched than by caring for life to lose life? What more unhappy than by fearing death to fall into death? Let the thorns be rooted out, the field prepared, the seeds received; let the harvest be reached, the barn desired, the fire not feared.

It belongs to us, then, whom the Lord has set, such as we are, as laborers in his field, to say these things to you: to sow, to plant, to water, also to dig around some trees and apply a basket of dung. It belongs to us to do these things faithfully; to you, to receive them faithfully; to the Lord, to help us as we work, you as you believe, all of us as we labor, but as we overcome the world in him. What belongs to you, then, I have said: what belongs to us, I want to say. But perhaps it seems to one of you that I have said I want to say something superfluous, and speaking to himself in thought he says: “Oh, if only he would let us go now! He has already said what belongs to us; what belongs to him, what is that to us?” I think it better that in mutual and reciprocal love we should belong to you. You are indeed of one household; we of that same household are all stewards; we all belong to one Lord. Nor do I give from my own what I give, but from his from whom I too receive. For if I give from my own, I shall give a lie. “For whoever speaks a lie speaks from his own.” So you ought to hear what belongs to a steward, either so that you may rejoice with yourselves if you find such in yourselves, or so that you may be instructed in this very thing. For how many in this people will be stewards? We too were where you are; and we who now seem from a higher place to measure out rations to our fellow servants, a few years ago in a lower place were receiving rations with our fellow servants. As a bishop I speak to laypeople; but I know how many future bishops I am speaking to.

So let us see how we are to understand what the Lord commanded those whom he was sending to preach the Gospel, and let us see in the mind the harvest made ready. “Do not carry,” he says, “a purse or a bag or sandals, and greet no one on the way. And into whatever house you enter, say, Peace to this house. If a son of peace is there, your peace will rest on him; if not, it will return to you.” If it has rested, has he lost it? Far be this from the minds of the saints. So that too is not to be taken in a fleshly way; and for this reason perhaps neither the bag nor the sandals nor the purse; and most of all that command which, if we take it simply without examination, seems to impose pride on us: that we should greet no one on the way.

Let us look to our Lord, the true example and help. Let us prove that he is a help: “Without me you can do nothing.” Let us prove that he is an example: “Christ suffered for us,” Peter says, “leaving us an example, that we should follow in his steps.” Our Lord himself had a money bag on the road, and he had entrusted that bag to Judas. He put up with a thief, indeed; but I, wanting to learn from my Lord, say: “Lord, you put up with a thief; from where did you have what he could take? You warned me, a wretched and weak man, not even to carry a purse: you carried a money bag, and so there was something with which to put up with a thief. If you had not carried it, he would not have found anything to take.” What remains, except that he says to me here: “Understand what you hear: Do not carry a purse.” What is a purse? Money shut up, that is, hidden wisdom. What does “Do not carry a purse” mean? Do not be wise in your own eyes. Receive the Holy Spirit. There ought to be a spring in you, not a purse; something from which to pay out, not in which to shut up. The bag is the same as the purse.

What are sandals? The sandals we use are the skins of dead animals, coverings for our feet. By this, then, we are commanded to renounce dead works. Moses was warned of this in a figure when the Lord, speaking, said, “Loose the sandals from your feet; for the place where you stand is holy ground.” What is so holy a ground as God’s church? Let us stand in it, then, and loose our sandals, that is, renounce dead works. For as to those sandals in which we walk shod, my Lord himself consoles me. For if he had not been shod, John would not have said of him, “I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandals.” So let there be obedience; let proud harshness not creep in. “I,” someone says, “fulfill the Gospel, because I walk barefoot.” You can; I cannot. Let us keep what we receive together. How? Let us burn with love, let us love one another; and so it comes about that I love your strength, and you bear my weakness.

But what do you think, you who do not want to understand how these things were said, and are driven perversely to slander the Lord himself about the money bag and sandals? What do you think? Is it right that when traveling we meet our dear ones and do not greet our elders, do not return the greetings of our juniors? Do you fulfill the Gospel now because you are greeted and keep silent? Then you will be like, not a traveler on the road, but a milestone showing the road. So let us put away foolishness, and understand the Lord’s words, and greet no one on the way. For we are not commanded this without reason, or else he would not want us to do what he commands. What, then, does “Greet no one on the way” mean? It can indeed be taken simply thus: he commanded us to carry out quickly what we were charged with, and said, “Greet no one on the way,” as if saying, “Pass everything by while you accomplish what you have been charged with,” by that figure of speech with which, in the usage of conversation, sayings are commonly exaggerated. Let us not go far: in the same discourse a little later he says, “And you, Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven, will be brought down to hell.” What does “exalted to heaven” mean? Did that city’s walls touch the clouds, or reach the stars? But what does “you are exalted to heaven” mean? “You think yourself too happy, too powerful; you are too proud.” So just as this was said for exaggeration, “you are exalted to heaven,” to a city that was not exalted to heaven or rising to it: so for haste, by exaggeration, it was said: “Run so, do what I have charged you so, that not even the least things that people do may delay you; but despising everything, hasten to the end set before you.”

But there is another thing which I may consider here with greater attention, an understanding not unlike it, which concerns me and all stewards more, but you hearers as well. Whoever greets, says “salvation.” For the ancients too wrote thus in their letters: “So-and-so to so-and-so, salvation.” Greeting (salutatio) took its name from salvation (salus). What, then, does “Greet no one on the way” mean? Those who greet on the way greet incidentally. I see that you have understood quickly; yet I ought not to finish yet. For not all of you have understood quickly. I have seen some understanding by their voices; I see more seeking in silence. But since we are speaking of the way, let us walk as on the way: you who are quick, wait for the slow, and walk together. What, then, did I say, “Whoever greets on the way greets incidentally”? He was not going to the one he greets. He was doing something else; something else came up: he was making for something else, and found by the way something else to do. What, then, is it to greet incidentally? To announce salvation incidentally. And what else is it to announce salvation but to preach the Gospel? So if you preach, do it out of love, not incidentally. There are, then, people who, seeking their own interests, not something else, preach the Gospel; of whom the apostle says with a groan, “For all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.” And these were greeting, that is, announcing salvation; they were preaching the Gospel, but seeking something else; and so they were greeting incidentally. And what is this? If you are such, whoever you are, you do it; rather, not whoever does it, but perhaps someone of that kind who does it. If you are such, you do not do it; rather, it is done through you.

For the apostle admitted such people too; yet he did not command them to be such. They too do something, and something is accomplished through them: they seek something else, and they announce the word. Do not care what the announcer seeks: be willing to hold what he announces; what he is aiming at, let that not concern you. Hear salvation from his mouth; hold salvation from his mouth. Do not be the judge of his heart. If you see him seeking other things, what is that to you? Hear salvation: “Do what they say.” He who said, “Do what they say,” has made you secure. They do evil: “What they do, do not do.” They do good, they do not greet on the way, they do not announce the Gospel incidentally: “Be imitators of them, as they also are of Christ.” A good man preaches to you: pick the grape from the vine. A bad man preaches to you: pick the grape hanging on the hedge. The cluster grew entwined on the branch among the thorns, and did not spring from the thorns. Plainly, when you see something of this kind and are hungry, pick it carefully, lest when you put your hand to the grape you be torn by the thorns. This is what I say: so hear what is good that you do not imitate bad conduct. Let him preach incidentally, let him greet on the way: it will harm him that he has not heard Christ’s command, “Greet no one on the way”; it will not harm you, who, whether you hear salvation from one passing by or from one coming to you, hold salvation. Hear the apostle, as I said before, giving this advice. For what? “Provided that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is announced, in this I rejoice, and I shall rejoice. For I know that this will turn out for my salvation through your prayer.”

Such, then, the apostles of Christ, preachers of the Gospel, not greeting on the way, that is, not seeking or doing anything else, but announcing the Gospel with genuine love, let them come to the house and say, “Peace to this house.” They do not say it with the mouth only: they pour out what they are full of; they preach peace and have peace. Let them not be such as those of whom it was said, “Peace, peace, and there is no peace.” What does “Peace, peace, and there is no peace” mean? They preach it and do not have it; they praise it and do not love it; they say and do not do. But still, you receive peace, “whether in pretense or in truth Christ is announced.” So whoever is full of peace and greets, “Peace to this house”: “if a son of peace is there, his peace will rest on him; if not” (for perhaps there is no son of peace there), the one who greeted has lost nothing: “it will return to you,” he says. It will return to you, for it did not depart from you. For this is what he meant: what you announced profits you; it profited nothing the one who did not receive it. It is not because he remained empty that you have lost your reward; it is given back to you for your good will, given back to you for the love you spent; he will give it back to you who made you secure by the angels’ voice: “Peace on earth to men of good will.”

What our Lord Jesus Christ said to his disciples at that time was being written down, and was being prepared for us to hear. So we have heard his words. For what would it profit us if he were seen and not heard? Nor is it any loss now that he is not seen and yet is heard. He says, then: “He who rejects you rejects me.” If he said only to the apostles, “He who rejects you rejects me,” reject us. But if his word has come to us, and has called us, and has set us in their place, see that you do not reject us, lest the injury you do to us reach him. For if you do not fear us, fear him who said, “He who rejects you rejects me.” And what do we, who do not want to be rejected by you, say to you, except that we may rejoice in your good conduct? Let your good works be the consolations of our dangers. Live well, so that you may not die badly.

And in these words I have said, “Live well, so that you may not die badly,” do not look at those who perhaps lived badly and died in their beds, and the pomp of their funeral was carried out, and they were laid in costly sarcophagi, in tombs most beautifully and elaborately built; and because each of you perhaps says to himself, “I should like to die like that,” do not think that I meant to say something empty when I said I wanted you to live well so that you may not die badly. On the other hand, perhaps someone comes to mind who both lived well and, in men’s opinion, died badly: perhaps he died in a collapse, died in a shipwreck, died by wild beasts; and every fleshly person says in his heart, “What is the good of living well? See, that man lived so, and died so.” Return, then, to the heart; and if you are faithful, you will find Christ there; he himself speaks to you there. For I shout; but he teaches more in silence. I speak by the sound of words; he speaks within by the fear of thought. So let him plant my word in your heart, since I have dared to say, “Live well, so that you may not die badly.” See, since faith is in your hearts and Christ is there, he can teach what I want to make heard.

Remember in the Gospel that rich man and that poor man: the rich man clothed in purple and fine linen and fattened with daily feasts; that poor man lying before the rich man’s gate, hungry, seeking crumbs from his table, full of sores, licked by dogs. Remember, then: and how do you remember, except because Christ is there in your hearts? Tell me what you asked him within, and he answered you. For the Gospel goes on and says: “It happened that the poor man died and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom. And the rich man also died and was buried in hell. And being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Lazarus resting in Abraham’s bosom. Then he cried out, saying, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip his finger in water and drip it on my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame.” Proud in time, a beggar in hell. For the poor man was reaching for a crumb; but he could not reach a drop. Of these two, then, tell me, which died well, and which died badly? Do not ask your eyes; return to the heart. For if you ask your eyes, they give you false answers. For very splendid and worldly painted were the things that could be displayed for that rich man when he died. What troops of mourning slaves, men and women, could there have been? What a procession of clients? What splendor of funeral? What a costly burial? I believe he was smothered in spices. What, then, shall we say, brothers: did he die well or badly? If you ask your eyes, he died very well; if you consult your inner teacher, he died very badly.

If, then, proud hoarders of their own goods, who give nothing of them to the poor, die like this, how do those die who seize what belongs to others? So I spoke the truth: “Live well, so that you may not die badly,” so that you do not die like that rich man. Nothing proves a death bad except the time after death. On the other hand, look at that poor man: not with the eyes, for you will go wrong; let faith look, let the heart see. Set him before your eyes, lying on the ground covered with sores, the dogs coming and licking his sores. But when you call such a man back before your eyes, you at once spit, turn away your face, block your nose. See with the eyes of the heart. He died, and was carried away by the angels into Abraham’s bosom. The rich man’s household was seen mourning; the angels were not seen rejoicing. What, then, did Abraham answer the rich man? “Remember, son, that you received good things in your life.” You thought nothing good except what you had in this life. You received it; but the days passed, and you lost it all, and remained to be tormented in hell.

It is timely, then, brothers, that these things should be said to you. Pay attention to the poor, whether lying down or walking about; pay attention to the poor, do good works. You who are used to doing it, do it; and you who are not, do it. Let the number of those who do good grow, since the number of the faithful is growing too. How great a good what you do is, you do not yet see; for the countryman too, when he sows, does not see the crop, but trusts the earth. Why do you not trust God? Our harvest will come. Consider that now we act laboring, we work laboring, about to receive, as it is written: “Going they went and wept, casting their seeds; but coming they will come with exultation, carrying their sheaves.”