Sermons to the People 54.1–55.6

It often troubles many, dearly beloved, that our Lord Jesus Christ in the Gospel sermon, after first saying, “Let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven,” afterwards said, “Take care not to do your justice before men in order to be seen by them.” For the mind of one who understands too little, and who certainly wants to obey the commandment, is troubled and pulled apart by different and opposing directions. For no one can obey even one master who gives conflicting orders, any more than one can serve two masters, as the Savior himself testified in the same sermon. What, then, will a wavering mind do, when it thinks it cannot obey and is afraid not to obey? For if it puts its good works in the light for people to look at, so as to do what is commanded, “So let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven,” it will think itself guilty, because it has acted against the commandment that says, “Take care not to do your justice before men in order to be seen by them.” And again, if, fearing and avoiding this, it hides the good it does, it will think it is not obeying him who commands, “Let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good works.”

But the one who understands rightly fulfils both, and will serve the most universal Lord, who would not condemn a lazy servant if he commanded things that could in no way be done. For listen to Paul, “a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the Gospel of God,” both doing and teaching both. See how his light shines before men, so that they may see his good works: “We commend ourselves,” he says, “to every man’s conscience in the sight of God”; and again, “For we provide what is good, not only in the sight of God but also in the sight of men”; and again, “Please all in all things, as I also please all in all things.” See, on the other hand, how he takes care not to do his justice before men in order to be seen by them: “Let each one test his own work,” he says, “and then he will have glory in himself and not in another”; and again, “For this is our glory, the testimony of our conscience”; and what could not be plainer: “If I were still pleasing men,” he says, “I would not be a servant of Christ.” But lest any of those who are troubled about the seemingly conflicting commandments of the Lord himself should press the question much more on his Apostle and say, “How do you say, Please all in all things, as I also please all in all things, and the same you say, If I were still pleasing men, I would not be a servant of Christ?”, may the Lord himself be present, who spoke also in his servant and Apostle, and open his will to us, and grant us the power to obey.

For the Gospel words themselves carry their own explanations; nor do they shut the mouths of the hungry, since they feed the hearts of those who knock. What must be looked at is where the intention of the human heart is directed and what it aims at. For if someone who wants his good works to be seen by people sets his own glory and advantage before people and seeks this in their sight, he has fulfilled neither of the things the Lord commanded about this matter; because he both took care to do his justice before men in order to be seen by them, and his light did not shine before men in such a way that they saw his good works in order to glorify the Father who is in heaven. For he wanted himself to be glorified, not God; and he sought his own advantage, he did not love the Lord’s will. Of such the Apostle says, “For all seek their own, not the things of Jesus Christ.” So the sentence did not end where he says, “So let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good works”; he immediately added why this is to be done: “so that they may glorify,” he says, “your Father who is in heaven.” So that when a person doing good is seen by people, he may have the intention of the good deed in his own conscience, and have no intention of becoming known except in the praise of God, for the benefit of those to whom he becomes known; for it benefits them that God, who granted this to a man, begins to please them; and so they do not despair that this could be granted to them too, if they wish. And so he ended the other sentence, where he says, “Take care not to do your justice before men,” nowhere else than where he said, “in order to be seen by them”; nor did he add, “and they glorify your Father who is in heaven,” but rather added, “Otherwise you will have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.” By this he showed that those who are such as he does not want his faithful to be seek their reward in the very fact that they are seen by people; there they set their good; there they delight the vanity of their heart; there they are emptied and puffed up, there they swell and waste away. For why was it not enough for him to say, “Take care not to do your justice before men,” but he added, “in order to be seen by them,” unless because there are some who do their justice before men, not in order to be seen by them, but so that the works themselves may be seen and the Father who is in heaven may be glorified, who deigned to give them to the ungodly whom he has justified?

Those who are such do not count the justice as their own, but as his by faith in whom they live. Hence the Apostle says, “That I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having my own justice, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the justice from God by faith”; and in another place, “So that we might become the justice of God in him.” Hence also he rebukes the Jews thus: “Being ignorant,” he says, “of the justice of God, and wanting to establish their own, they did not submit to the justice of God.” Whoever, then, wants his works to be seen by people in such a way that he is glorified from whom he received what is seen in him, and so that those very people who see may be stirred by the devotion of faith to imitate the good, truly lets his light shine before men; because the light of love shines from him, not the smoke of pride belched out. And in that very act he takes care not to do his justice before men in order to be seen by them; because he neither counts that justice as his own nor does it in order that he himself may be seen, but so that he may be recognized who is praised in the justified man, so that he may do in the one who praises what is praised in the other, that is, make the one who praises worthy of praise. Notice the Apostle too: when he had said, “Please all in all things, as I also please all in all things,” he did not stop there, as if he had set the end of his intention there, to please people; otherwise he would have said falsely, “If I were still pleasing men, I would not be a servant of Christ.” But he immediately added why he pleased people: “Not seeking,” he says, “what is useful to me, but to many, that they may be saved.” So he both did not please people for his own advantage, lest he not be a servant of Christ; and he pleased people for their salvation, so that he might be a fit steward of Christ; because for him his conscience before God was enough, and from him shone before people what they might imitate.

The passage of the holy Gospel that we heard just now when it was read greatly frightened us, if we have faith; but it did not frighten those who have no faith. And because it does not frighten them, they want to be perversely secure, not knowing how to apportion and distinguish the times for fear and for security. Let the one, then, who now leads a life that has an end be afraid, so that in that life he may have security without end. So we were afraid. For who would not fear the Truth speaking and saying, “Whoever says to his brother, Fool, will be liable to the fire of Gehenna”? “But no man can tame the tongue.” Man tames a wild beast but does not tame his tongue; he tames a lion and does not bridle his speech; he tames others and does not tame himself; he tames what he used to fear, and, to tame himself, he does not fear what he ought to fear. But how is this? It is a true sentence, and this too came from the oracle of truth: “But no man can tame the tongue.”

What, then, shall we do, my brothers? I see that I am speaking to a multitude; but because we are all one in Christ, let us take counsel as if in private. No outsider hears us; we are one, because we are gathered into one. What shall we do? “Whoever says to his brother, Fool, will be liable to the fire of Gehenna.” “But no man can tame the tongue.” Will everyone, then, go into the fire of Gehenna? Far from it. “Lord, you have become our refuge from generation to generation.” Your wrath is just; you send no one into Gehenna unjustly. “Where shall I go from your Spirit?” And where shall I flee from you, except to you? So let us understand, dearly beloved, that if no man can tame the tongue, we must take refuge in God, so that he may tame our tongue. For if you want to tame it, you cannot, because you are a man. “No man can tame the tongue.” Notice a likeness from the very beasts that we tame. The horse does not tame itself; the camel does not tame itself; the elephant does not tame itself; the asp does not tame itself; the lion does not tame itself; so man too does not tame himself. But so that the horse, the ox, the camel, the elephant, the lion, the asp may be tamed, a man is sought. So let God be sought, so that man may be tamed.

So, “Lord, you have become our refuge.” We betake ourselves to you, and it will be well with us from you. For it is bad for us from ourselves. Because we left you, you left us to ourselves. Let us be found, then, in you, because we were lost in ourselves. “Lord, you have become our refuge.” Why, then, my brothers, should we doubt that the Lord will make us gentle, if we offer ourselves to him to be tamed? You have tamed a lion, which you did not make; will he who made you not tame you? For how were you able to tame such savage beasts? Are you their equal in bodily strength? By what power, then, were you able to tame huge beasts? Even the animals called beasts of burden are beasts. For they cannot be put up with untamed. But because habit has never known them except in the hands of men, under the bridles of men, and in the power of men, do you think they could have been born tame? At least look at the savage wild beasts. The lion roars: who would not be afraid? And yet how do you know you are stronger? Not by the strength of your body, but by the inner reason of your mind. You are stronger than the lion in that by which you were made in the image of God. The image of God tames a wild beast; and will God not tame his own image?

In him is our hope: let us submit ourselves to him and beg for mercy. Let us place our hope in him, and until we are tamed and thoroughly tamed, that is, made perfect, let us bear with our tamer. For our tamer often brings out the whip too. For if you bring out a rod, bring out a whip, to tame your animals, will God not bring it out to tame his animals, which we are, he who will make his sons out of his animals? You tame your horse: what will you give your horse when it has begun to carry you gently, to bear your training, to obey your command, to be your beast of burden, that is, the help of your weakness? What do you give in return to one that you do not even bury when it dies, but throw out to be torn apart by the birds? For you, when you are tamed, God keeps an inheritance, which is God himself; and when you have been dead for a time, he raises you up. He will give you back your flesh to the number of your hairs, and will place you with the angels for ever, where you will no longer need to be tamed, but only to be possessed by the most loving one. For then God will be all in all; nor will there be any unhappiness to exercise us, but only happiness to feed us. Our shepherd himself is our God; our drink is our God; our honor is our God; our riches are our God. Whatever various things you seek here, he alone will be all things to you.

Is it for this hope that man is tamed, and is the tamer considered unbearable? Is it for this hope that man is tamed, and does he grumble against this useful tamer if perhaps he brings out the whip? You have heard the Apostle exhorting: “If you are left without discipline, then you are bastards and not sons.” Bastards are the children of adulterers. “For what son is there to whom his father does not give discipline? And we had fathers of our flesh,” he says, “who corrected us, and we respected them; shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live?” For what could your father give you because he corrected you, because he beat you, because he brought out the whip and struck you? Could he give you to live for ever? What he could not give himself, when could he give you? For the sake of his money, however small, which he had gathered by interest and labor, he trained you with whips, lest his labor, left to you, be squandered while you lived badly. And he struck his son, fearing that his labors would be lost; since he left you what he could neither keep here nor take away. For he did not leave you here anything that could be his: he gave way so that you might come in. But your God, your Redeemer, your tamer, your chastiser, your Father, trains you. For what? So that you may receive an inheritance where you will not carry your father to burial, but will have the Father himself as your inheritance. For this hope you are trained, and you grumble? And if something sad happens, perhaps you blaspheme? Where will you go from his Spirit? See, suppose he lets you go and does not whip you; suppose he abandons you as you blaspheme: will you not experience him as judge? Is it not better that he should whip you and receive you than spare you and abandon you?

Let us say, then, to the Lord our God: “Lord, you have become our refuge from generation to generation.” In the first generation and in the other generation, you have become our refuge. You were our refuge, that we might be born, who were not; you were our refuge, that we might be born again, who were evil; you were our refuge, to feed those who deserted you; you are our refuge, to raise up and direct your sons; you have become our refuge. We will not go back from you, when you have freed us from all our evils and filled us with your good things. You give good things, you deal gently with us, so that we may not grow weary on the way; you rebuke, you strike, you smite, you direct, so that we may not stray from the way. So whether you deal gently, so that we may not grow weary on the way, or chastise, so that we may not stray from the way, “Lord, you have become our refuge.”