Sermons to the People 86.1–86.17

The Gospel has admonished us by the present reading to speak to your Charity about the heavenly treasure. For our God did not, as greedy unbelievers think, want us to lose our goods: if what was commanded us is well understood, piously believed, and devoutly received, he did not command us to lose them, but showed us a place where we should put them. For no one can help thinking of his treasure and following his riches by a kind of journey of the heart. If, then, they are buried in the earth, the heart seeks the depths; but if they are kept in heaven, the heart will be above. If, then, Christians want to do what they know they also profess—for not all who hear know this; and would that those who know it do not know it in vain—whoever wants to have the heart lifted up, let him put there, there, what he loves; and, placed on earth in the flesh, let him dwell with Christ in heart; and as its head went before the Church, so let his heart go before the Christian. As the members will go where Christ the head went before, so the man, rising again, will go where his heart has now gone before. Let us go from here, then, by whatever part we can: the whole of us will follow where some part of us has gone before. The earthly house is falling into ruin; the heavenly house is eternal. Let us move ahead to where we plan to come.

We heard a certain rich man asking the good master for counsel on gaining eternal life. Great was what he loved, and cheap was what he would not despise. So, hearing with a perverse heart him whom he had just called good master, through a greater love of what was cheap he lost the possession of charity. Unless he had wanted to obtain eternal life, he would not have asked counsel about having eternal life. Why is it, then, brothers, that he spurned the words of him whom he himself had called good master, words drawn out for him from faithful teaching? Is that master good before he teaches, and bad when he has taught? Before he taught, he was called good. The man did not hear what he wanted, but he heard what he ought: he had come desiring, but he went away sad. What if it had been said to him, “Lose what you have,” when he went away sad because it was said, “Keep well what you have”? “Go,” he says, “sell all that you have, and give to the poor.” Are you perhaps afraid of losing it? See what follows: “And you will have treasure in heaven.” Perhaps you would have set some little slave as guardian of your treasures: your God will be the guardian of your gold. He who gave on earth keeps it in heaven. Perhaps the man would not have hesitated to entrust what he had to Christ, and was saddened because it was said to him, “Give to the poor,” as if saying in his heart: “If you said, Give to me, I will keep it for you in heaven, I would not hesitate to give to my Lord, the good master; but now you have said, Give to the poor.”

Let no one fear to pay out to the poor; let no one think that the one whose hand he sees is the one receiving. He receives who commanded you to give. Nor do we say this from our own heart or by human guesswork: hear him himself, both warning you and writing you a guarantee. “I was hungry,” he says, “and you gave me to eat.” And when, after he had listed their services, they answered, “When did we see you hungry?”, he answered: “When you did it to one of my least, you did it to me.” The poor man begs, but the rich one receives: you give to one who consumes, and he receives who will repay. Nor will he repay only what he receives: he has willed to borrow at interest; he promises more than you have given. Now bring out your avarice; think of yourself as a moneylender. Certainly if you were one, you would be reproved by the Church, refuted by the word of God; all your brothers would curse you as a cruel moneylender, eager to profit from others’ tears. Be a moneylender: no one forbids you. You want to give to a poor man who will lament when he repays: give to a sound debtor, who even urges you to receive what he promises.

Give to God, and sue God. Rather, give to God, and you will be summoned to receive. Certainly on earth you used to look for your debtor; and he was looking too, but for where to hide from your face. You had gone to the judge and said: “Order this debtor of mine to be summoned.” He, hearing this, goes off and does not even care to greet you, though perhaps, when he was in need, you had given him well-being by your loan. Here, then, you have someone to press. Give to Christ; he himself summons you of his own accord to receive, while you wonder that he received anything from you. For to those placed at the right he himself will say of his own accord: “Come, blessed of my Father.” Where? “Come, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” For what? “I was hungry, and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me drink; I was naked, and you clothed me; a stranger, and you took me in; sick and in prison, and you visited me.” And they: “Lord, when did we see you?” What is this? The debtor summons, and the creditors make excuses. The faithful debtor does not want them deceived. Do you hesitate to receive? I received, and you do not know it? And he answers how he received: “When you did it to one of my least, you did it to me.” I did not receive it in my own person; I received it through my own. What was given to them came to me: be secure, you have not lost it. You were looking at debtors on earth who could hardly pay: you have one in heaven who can. I, he says, received; I will repay.

And what did I receive? What do I repay? “I was hungry,” he says, “and you gave me to eat,” and so on. I received earth, I will give heaven; I received temporal things, I will restore eternal ones; I received bread, I will give life. Indeed, let us even say this: I received bread, I will give bread; I received drink, I will give drink; I received hospitality, I will give a home; I was visited when sick, I will give health; I was seen in prison, I will give freedom. The bread you gave to my poor has been consumed; the bread I will give both refreshes and does not fail. Let that bread which came down from heaven, then, give us bread. When he gives bread, he will give himself. For what did you want when you lent at interest? To give coins and receive coins; but to give fewer and receive more. I, says God, will exchange for something better all that you gave. For if you gave a pound of silver and received a pound of gold, with what joy would you be seized? Look, and question avarice: I gave a pound of silver, I receive a pound of gold. What likeness is there between silver and gold? Much more, then, what likeness is there between earth and heaven? Both the gold and the silver you were going to leave here; but you are not going to remain here forever. I will give something else, I will give more, I will give better, I will give what is eternal. So, brothers, let our avarice be restrained in such a way that another avarice, a holy one, may be kindled. She who forbids you to do good speaks to you wholly badly: you want to serve a bad mistress, not recognizing the good Lord. And sometimes two mistresses occupy the heart and tear apart, in different directions, the bad slave, who deserves to serve such mistresses.

Sometimes two contrary mistresses possess a man, avarice and luxury. Avarice says, “Keep”; luxury says, “Spend.” Under two mistresses giving different orders, making different demands, what will you do? Both have their speeches. And when you begin to refuse to obey and to go off into your freedom, since they cannot command, they flatter. And their flatteries are more to be guarded against than their orders. What does avarice say? “Keep for yourself, keep for your children. If you are in need, no one will give to you. Do not live for the moment: provide for yourself for the future.” Luxury, on the other hand: “Live while you live; do well by your soul. You are going to die, and you do not know when; you do not know whether the one to whom you leave it will possess it. You take away and withhold from your own throat: when you are dead, perhaps he will not set a cup on your grave; or if perhaps he does set a cup there, he himself will get drunk, and not a drop will come down to you. So do well by your soul when you can, while you can.” Avarice commanded one thing: “Keep for yourself; provide for yourself for later.” Luxury another: “Spend; do well by your soul.”

Be weary, O free man called into freedom; be weary of the slavery of such mistresses. Recognize your Redeemer, your Liberator. Serve him: he commands easier things; he does not command contrary things. I dare to say more. Avarice and luxury commanded contrary things, so that you could not obey both; and the one said, “Keep for yourself, and provide for later”; the other said, “Spend; do well by your soul.” Let your Lord come forward, your Redeemer, who will say the same things and will not say contrary things. If you are unwilling, his house has no need of one who serves unwillingly. Consider your Redeemer, consider your price. He came to redeem; he shed his blood. He held you dear, whom he bought so dearly. You know who bought you; consider from what he redeems you. I pass over the other vices that proudly lord it over you, for you were serving countless bad masters. I speak of these two, commanding contrary things, dragging you in different directions, avarice and luxury. Rescue yourself from them; come to your God. If you were a slave of iniquity, be a slave of righteousness. The very words that they spoke to you while commanding contrary things you hear from your Lord, and he does not command contrary things. He does not take away their words; he takes away their power. What did avarice say to you? “Keep for yourself; provide for later.” The word is not changed; the man is changed. Now, if you please, compare the counselors: that one is avarice, this one is justice.

Examine the very contraries. “Keep for yourself,” says avarice. Suppose you want to obey: ask where you are to keep it. She will show you a fortified place, a walled room, an iron chest. Fortify everything: perhaps a thief in your own household will break into even the inner rooms; and while you look after your money, you will fear for your life. Perhaps while you keep much, he who wants to snatch it is also planning to kill. Finally, though you fortify your treasure and your clothing against thieves with whatever defenses, fortify them against rust and moth. What are you going to do? It is not an enemy outside who takes away, but one inside who consumes.

So avarice did not give good counsel. See, she commanded you to keep, and could not find a place to give you where you might keep. Let her also say what follows: “Provide for later.” For how much later? For a few uncertain days. She says, “Provide for later,” to a man who perhaps will not live even till tomorrow. But suppose he lives as long as avarice thinks—not as long as it shows, not as long as it teaches, not as long as it is sure of, but as long as it thinks: he has lived, grown old, reached his end; still the old man, bent, leaning on a stick, seeks gain, and hears avarice saying, “Provide for later.” For what later? He is already speaking as he breathes his last. “For your children,” she says. Would that we did not have old men who are avaricious even when they have no children! Even to them, even to such, even to those who excuse their iniquity with no semblance of family affection, she does not stop saying, “Provide for later.” But perhaps they quickly blush: let us look at those who have children, whether they are sure that their children will possess what they leave. Let them consider, while they live, the children of others: some losing what they had through the dishonesty of others, some consuming through their own wickedness what they had possessed; and the children of the rich remain destitute. Stop being born slaves of avarice. “But my children will possess it,” he says. It is uncertain: I do not say it is false, but what you are doing is uncertain. Finally, make it certain: what do you want to leave them? What you acquired for yourself. Certainly what you acquired had not been left to you, and yet you have it. If you could have what was not left to you, they too can have what you do not leave them.

The counsels of avarice have been refuted; but let the Lord say the same things, let justice speak now: the words will be the same, not the meaning. “Keep for yourself,” says your Lord, “provide for later.” And ask him: “Where shall I keep?” “You will have treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.” For how much later will you keep? “Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” How many days this kingdom lasts the very end of the sentence shows. When he had said of those on the left, “So they will go into eternal burning,” he said of those on the right, “But the righteous into eternal life.” This is providing for later: a later with nothing after it. Those days without end have been called days, and called a day. For someone said, “That I may dwell in the house of the Lord for length of days,” speaking of those days. And it has been called a day: “Today I have begotten you.” And those days are one day, because there is no longer time: that day is neither preceded by a yesterday nor shut out by a tomorrow. Let us provide, then, for that later; the words are not different from what avarice said to you, and yet avarice has been overthrown. It remains for you to say: “And what do I do about my children?” Hear on this too the counsel of your Lord. If your Lord says to you, “I who created them think better about them than you who begot them,” perhaps you will have nothing to say. But you will look at that rich man who went away sad and was reproved in the Gospel; and perhaps you will say to yourself: “This rich man did wrong in not selling everything and giving to the poor, because he had no children; but I have children; I have those for whom to keep.” And in this weakness of yours your Lord stands by you. Let me dare to speak by his mercy—let me dare to say something, not from my own presumption but from his compassion: Keep for your children too; but hear me. If, as human things go, someone loses one of his children—pay attention, brothers, pay attention, for avarice has no excuse, neither here nor in the age to come—see, these are human things; we do not wish for them, but we see examples. Some Christian has been lost; you have lost a Christian son: you have not lost him, then, but sent him ahead. For he has not departed, but gone before. Question your faith: certainly you too are going where he has gone ahead. I say a short thing, to which I think no one can reply. Is your son alive? Question your faith. If, then, he is alive, why is his share seized by his brothers? But you will say: “Is he going to come back and possess it?” Then let it be sent to him where he has gone ahead: he cannot come to his property; his property can go to him. See with whom he is. If your son were serving in the palace and became the emperor’s friend, and said to you, “Sell my share there and send it to me,” would you find anything to answer? Now your son is with the Emperor of all emperors, the King of all kings, the Lord of all lords: send to him. I do not say that he himself needs it: his Lord, with whom your son is, is in need on earth. Here he wants to receive what he gives in heaven. Do what some misers are accustomed to do: make a transfer of funds; give to strangers what you may receive back in your homeland. Finally, I say nothing now of you; I speak of your son. You hesitate to give what is yours; you hesitate also to return what is another’s: you are surely proved not to have been keeping it for your children. See, you do not give to your children, since you will take from your children. From this one, certainly, you will take. Why is he unworthy to receive, because he lives with one more worthy? There would be reason for it if he with whom he lives were unwilling to receive it. As it is, you will be rich not for your own house but for the house of God. Far be it, then, that I say to you, “Give what you have”; I say to you, “Return what you owe.” “But his brothers,” you say, “will have it.” O evil teaching, teaching your children to wish death on their brothers! If they become richer from the property of their dead brother, see how they will watch one another in your house. What will you do, then? Divide the patrimony and teach parricide?

But I do not want to speak of the loss of one child, lest I seem to threaten human misfortunes. Let us speak in a more favorable and happy way. I do not say, “You will have one less”; count that you have one more. Make room for Christ among your children; let your Lord join your family, let your Creator join your offspring, let your brother join the number of your children. For though the difference is so great, he has deigned to be a brother too. And though he is the Father’s only Son, he willed to have co-heirs. See how generous he is! Why are you so barren? You have two sons: count him as the third. You have three: let him be counted as the fourth. You have five: let him be called the sixth. You have ten: let him be the eleventh. I do not want to say more: keep the place of one of your children for your Lord. For what you give to your Lord will profit both you and your children; but what you wrongly keep for your children will harm both you and them. You will give one portion, the one you had allotted to one child. Reckon that you have begotten one more.

What great thing is this, my brothers? I give counsel; do I tie your throat? As the Apostle says: “I say this for your benefit, not to throw a noose on you.” I think, brothers, it is a small and easy thought for a father of children to think that he has one more son, and so to purchase estates that you may possess forever, both you and your children. Avarice has nothing to say. You cried out at these words. Speak against her; let her not conquer you; let her not have more power in your hearts than your Redeemer. Let her not have more power in your heart than he who admonishes us to have our hearts lifted up. So let us now dismiss her. What does luxury say? What? “Do well by your soul.” See, the Lord too says: “Do well by your soul.” What luxury said to you, justice says to you. But see here too how it is said. If you want to do well by your soul, consider that rich man who, by the counsel of luxury and avarice, wanted to do well by his soul. His land yielded well, and he had nowhere to store his produce, and he said: “What shall I do? I have nowhere to gather it. I have found what I will do: I will pull down the old storehouses and build new ones, and fill them, and I will say to my soul: You have many goods; rejoice.” Hear the counsel against luxury: “Fool, this night your soul will be taken from you: the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” And where will that soul go that will be taken from him? It will be taken this night, and he does not know where it will go.

See another rich man, luxurious and proud. He feasted splendidly every day and was clothed in purple and fine linen; and a poor man covered with sores lay at his gate and longed in vain for the crumbs from the rich man’s table; he fed the dogs with his sores, and was not fed by the rich man. Both died: one of them was buried; what was said of the other? “He was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom.” The rich man sees the poor man—or rather now the poor man sees the rich man: the rich man longs for a drop of water from the poor man’s finger on his tongue, from him who longed for a crumb from his table. Certainly the roles have been reversed. In vain does the dead rich man say this; let us not hear it in vain, we who live. For he too wanted to be called back to those above, and was not permitted; he wanted one of the dead to be sent to his brothers, and this too was not granted him. But what was said to him? “They have Moses and the prophets there.” And he: “They will not listen, unless someone goes from the dead.” Abraham said to him: “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they believe if someone goes from the dead.”

So concerning giving alms and acquiring rest for the soul for later, so that we may do well by our soul—what luxury said perversely, Moses said too, and the prophets said. Let us hear while we live. For there he longs in vain to hear who despised these things when he heard them. Or are we waiting for someone to rise from the dead too and tell us to do well by our soul? This too has already happened: your father has not risen, but your Lord has risen. Hear him; accept good counsel. Do not spare your treasures; pay out as much as you can. It was the voice of luxury; it has become the voice of the Lord. Pay out as much as you can, do well by your soul, lest your soul be taken this night. You have, in the name of Christ, as I think, a sermon on giving alms. This voice of yours as you praise is acceptable to the Lord only if he also sees your hands at work.