Homily One for the Sixth Sunday of Matthew (St. Luke of Simferopol)

Homily One for the Sixth Sunday of Matthew

Matthew 9:1-8

(Delivered on August 5, 1945)

In recounting the healing of the paralytic, the holy evangelists Mark and Luke state that when he was brought to the Lord, they could not enter the house where the Lord Jesus Christ was, due to the multitude of people. Therefore, they climbed onto the roof, removed the tiles, and lowered the paralytic on his bed before the Lord.

What a remarkable, audacious, and unprecedented event! 

For when they tore off the roofing, clay and dust fell upon the heads of all those sitting in the house, including that of Jesus Christ. Any other person in His position would certainly have been outraged, would have sharply replied to the audacious individuals who showered Him with dust. Yet the Lord Jesus Christ uttered not a single word of reproach to them. Instead of reproach, He performed the greatest act of kindness – He healed the unfortunate sick man, proclaimed that his sins were forgiven, and commanded him to take up his bed and carry it home.

Observe how these individuals acted. They literally approached the Lord fearlessly, with great audacity, not considering that they were embarking upon a completely unprecedented task by dismantling the roof. With all their hearts, they sought the Lord Jesus, for their hearts burned with fervent faith that the great Miracle Worker would grant them according to their faith. And it came to pass. The Lord declared that the unfortunate sick man would be healed according to their faith.

Time and again, in other instances, the Lord healed the sick according to their faith; He repeatedly approved of the great boldness with which unfortunate individuals approached Him.

Recall the wife of the Canaanite, a pagan, who, when the Lord Jesus Christ was passing by, fell to her knees before Him and implored Him: "Lord, my daughter is severely possessed by a demon; heal her." Yet, the Lord Jesus Christ paid her no attention and continued on His way. She persistently followed Him and pleaded with increasing fervor. So long, and so tenaciously did she beseech the Lord, that eventually the holy apostles became annoyed by her unrelenting prayers and said to the Lord: "Send her away!" And how did the Lord Jesus Christ respond to her? – "Is it right to take the children's bread and toss it to the dogs?" The woman, in response to this, spoke in a manner that astonished the Lord with the extraordinary depth of her faith, love, and hope.

"Thus, Lord, I am like a dog, I am a pagan, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." 

Then the Lord said to her, "O woman! Great is your faith. Be it unto you according to your word." And her daughter was healed. 

This illustrates the great boldness of this unfortunate woman, who did not know the true God. And the Lord valued her boldness exceedingly high.

With great boldness, we must always approach God. In prayer to Him, we should be like a small child, who, with outstretched hands, reaches towards his mother, yearning for her help. We should be like a hapless beggar, who is perishing from hunger and has come to ask for assistance from a man known for his compassion. We should be like the Canaanite woman, persistently praying to Christ and extending her hands towards Him. With boldness, she asks, for she believes and knows that she will receive, and according to her faith, help is granted to her.

Thus, you see that two conditions are required for our prayer to be accepted by God. First and foremost, a deep faith is necessary; we must believe with all our heart in the Lord to whom we send our petitions. There should be no doubt, no wavering of our hearts; there must be faith in God's infinite mercy. Only when we call upon God with a heart filled with fervent faith shall we be heard.

In addition to faith, there is also a need for great perseverance in prayer. We must understand that we will not be granted what we ask for from the very first words. We must demonstrate our hope — a fervent and steadfast hope in God — and show the persistence of our prayers.

The Lord Jesus Christ once spoke a parable to His disciples: "Suppose one of you has a friend and goes to him at midnight and says to him, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.' And he will answer from within, 'Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.' I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him whatever he needs" (Luke 11:5–8).

And another parable the Lord said – about the unfortunate widow, who was oppressed by a wicked man and who persistently, day after day, went to the judge, seeking protection. This judge did not fear God nor did he shame before men. For a long time he dismissed this unfortunate widow, yet she kept coming to him, persistently asking. Finally, he grew tired of her, and said, "Though I neither fear God nor am ashamed before men, yet because this widow troubles me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me." And the Lord said: "Hear what the unjust judge says? Will not God bring about justice for His chosen ones, who cry out to Him day and night? Will He keep putting them off?" (Luke 18:4–7).

The Lord said that if an unjust judge eventually heard the pleas of an unfortunate widow, then shall not your Heavenly Father hear your prayers, if your requests are as persistent as hers? Thus, with deep faith and perseverance, we must always pray to God – always pray, for this is commanded to us by the Holy Apostle Paul.

But what does it mean to pray without ceasing?

Do we not have many earthly affairs? Can we focus solely on prayer? It appears as if this is an unachievable requirement. No, it is entirely feasible, for the Lord Jesus Christ does not demand anything unachievable from us.

How can one fulfill this requirement addressed to every Christian? To pray unceasingly does not merely mean to stand in prayer, recite prayers, bow down, or always attend church. It is not so. One can pray unceasingly anywhere and at any time; it is only necessary that a prayerful disposition resides in our hearts at all times.

Our hearts must always be filled with contrition over our unworthiness and sinfulness, and be full of fear before the greatness of God, whom we anger. And then, if this holy disposition never leaves us, we will pray always and everywhere, amidst all our daily affairs, when we carry out our everyday work, when we labor in our trades, when we plow the land. We will pray even when we are called to account by those in power, and, standing before their doors, we will silently send our sighs up to God, asking for protection.

In all matters, we can always and everywhere pray, provided that there is a desire to pray at all times, that the heart is full of aspiration towards God; then this apostolic requirement is entirely achievable.

We are all far less occupied than the Holy Prophet David. He was indeed the King of Israel and was engaged from morning till night with numerous state affairs, burdened with the cares of establishing the life of his people. One might wonder when he had the time to pray. Yet, observe how he prayed: "My tears were my bread day and night." The Holy Prophet always shed tears, and tears became his bread. Day and night, he offered supplications to God, composing numerous psalms, all of which are prayers to God. "I am weary with my groanings; all the night I make my bed swim; I drench my couch with my tears." This is how he prayed — lying in bed, he soaked his pillow with a torrent of his tears. "At midnight I will rise to give thanks unto You because of Your righteous judgments." He sang praises to God in the middle of the night, while being burdened all day with royal labors.

How can we, being much less burdened by heavy cares, not find the time to lift our sighs to God and shed tears? It is necessary to pray not only with the words of memorized prayers; it must come from the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks. We must silently, from our hearts, send forth our prayers to God, as the Holy Anna, the mother of the Prophet Samuel, did. She was barren and suffered, tormented by her barrenness; she fervently desired to have a child. And so, one day she went to the Temple of Jerusalem. Kneeling down, she prayed to God to grant her a son and vowed to dedicate this son to Him. She prayed without words; her lips merely moved quietly. With all her heart and fervent spirit, she reached out to God and requested, tirelessly imploring Him, without words, merely with the sighs of her heart.

Thus prayed the Holy Prophet of God, Moses, asking God to cancel the terrible punishment prepared for the people of Israel. He too, silently, with all his heart, lifted his pleas to God. Even his lips did not move, as the lips of the Holy Anna moved. And the Lord said, "Why do you cry out to Me, Moses?" Moses was silent, but his fervent plea, the silent supplication of his heart, ascended to God like a loud, sorrowful cry.

See how one can pray. The essence of prayer is to turn all one's heart to God in our supplications, so that the prayer is filled with faith and unyielding hope. But do most of us pray this way? Not at all. Our prayer is usually just a repetition of memorized words, and while repeating these words, we often do not pray in spirit at all; rather, we utter the words of prayer mechanically, without thinking about what we are asking for. We do not even hear our own prayers, and if we do not hear them ourselves, how can God hear them?

God does not hear even those prayers that are unpleasing to Him. God rejects those requests of ours that are directed towards harm to others. For example, when we pray for Him to punish our enemies. We often, and unconsciously, ask in our prayers for things that could be harmful to our neighbors, and such prayers are not answered by God. He did not even fulfill the request of the Holy Apostle Paul, who himself said that he asked God three times to be freed from the persecutions and insults of the evil coppersmith Alexander, but the Lord refused to grant him this request. He said: "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:9).

When we are weak, we are strong; then we have boldness before God. This is something to remember; we should always ask God only for spiritual blessings, rather than what we, in our misguided notions, consider to be good for ourselves. The Lord knows better than we do what we need and what is beneficial. The Lord gives us what we deserve. Sometimes, as you have seen today, punishment falls not on individual people, but upon entire nations.

We pray diligently, day after day, that the Lord may have mercy on us and cease the dreadful rains that are destroying our gardens and crops. Yet the rains pour down without stopping. What does this mean? Does it mean that there is no point in praying, that God does not hear our prayers? No, it does not mean that. However, if the Lord sends a calamity upon the people, then the entire nation must beseech Him for relief from it. The people must act as the inhabitants of the ancient city of Nineveh did when they learned from the Prophet that their city was condemned by God to destruction. At that time, the entire populace, as one person, prayed and fasted for three days and three nights. And the Lord spared them, for the entire people prayed fervently. But now, as the unending rains prepare a grave calamity for us, how many are praying to God for deliverance from this disaster? 

Here, there are very few of you. If we compare the number of those praying to the population of the entire city and the whole region affected by the rains, it becomes evident that only a small handful prays to God, while in the mass, the people do not pray at all.

When a severe punishment was destined for the people of Israel for their departure from the true God and worship of the Astartes and Baals – namely the Babylonian captivity and the destruction of Jerusalem – then the Lord spoke through the words of the great Prophet Jeremiah: "Walk through the streets of Jerusalem, and look, and take note, and search its squares; see if you can find a man, one who does justice, who seeks truth? I would spare Jerusalem... You strike them, but they feel no pain; you destroy them, but they do not accept correction; they have made their faces harder than stone; they refuse to return... Your sons have forsaken Me and swear by those who are not gods. I fed them to the full, yet they committed adultery... Shall I not punish for this? – says the Lord, – and shall not My soul be avenged on such a nation as this?" (Jer. 5:1, 3, 7, 9).

Do you see what the answer is? Do you see why our rains do not cease despite our prayers? Yet, we must not despair; we know that when the Lord condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction and the Righteous Abraham heard about it, he began to plead with the Lord for mercy. He said to the Lord, "Will you not spare these cities if there are at least fifty righteous people found in them?" And the Lord was prepared to spare them. Abraham continued to ask, "Will you not spare them if there are forty, twenty, or even ten righteous people?" (Genesis 18:16–32) The Lord was willing to spare Sodom and Gomorrah even for the sake of ten righteous. But not even ten righteous could be found.

Well, should not we, the little flock of Christ, be righteous before God? Should we not have such merits before God that for the sake of our righteousness the Lord would spare all those who do not pray to Him? We must always, relentlessly pray; we must pray despite the fact that the Lord delays in fulfilling our requests. Often, even great saints prayed for an exceedingly long time for God to grant some request of theirs, especially when they prayed for a sinful people. In such cases, it was necessary for them to pray for months in order for the Lord to have mercy on His people.

We must always and tirelessly pray, remembering the words of Christ: "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you; for everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened" (Matthew 7:7–8).

This is what we must remember: we must always and tirelessly knock at the door of God's mercy, sending prayers not only for ourselves, Christians, but also for those who never pray.

And the Lord will hear our prayers, and He will repay us according to His boundless mercy.

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.