Homily Two on the Twelfth Sunday of Luke
(29th Sunday After Pentecost)
(About Jesus Christ's healing of ten lepers, of whom only one gave thanks to God for his healing. About spiritual leprosy, which is sin, and especially about the modern leprosy of socialism and nihilism.)
By St. John of Kronstadt
(29th Sunday After Pentecost)
(About Jesus Christ's healing of ten lepers, of whom only one gave thanks to God for his healing. About spiritual leprosy, which is sin, and especially about the modern leprosy of socialism and nihilism.)
By St. John of Kronstadt
Today, beloved brethren, the Holy Gospel according to Luke was read to us, concerning the healing by our Lord Jesus Christ of ten leprous men.
Not daring to approach Him closely, they stood at a distance and cried out with a loud voice: “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” The Lord said to them: “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And they went. And as they were going, they were indeed all cleansed. Then one of them, seeing that he had been healed, immediately returned to the Savior, fell down before Him on the ground, and with all his soul gave thanks to Him, loudly glorifying God. He was a Samaritan, that is, a resident of the city of Samaria, who professed a mixed religion of Judaism and paganism. Jesus Christ, not seeing the other nine who had been healed, said—reproaching their ingratitude: “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? How is it that they did not return to give glory to God, except this foreigner?” And turning to the grateful Samaritan, He said: “Rise, go your way; your faith has saved you” (Luke 17:12–19).
My brethren, all of us suffer from a grievous leprosy that has penetrated our entire being — soul and body — entered into our bones and marrow, our veins and our blood. This leprosy is sin, with its countless branches: a fierce, chronic, contagious, poisonous, deadly disease, killing human souls and bodies. It removes a person not only from human society — though this also often happens according to Scripture: “Put away the evil person from among yourselves” (1 Cor. 5:13) — but, what is most terrible, it cuts him off from God, from the Mother of God, from the Angels and all the Saints, and makes him a companion of the devil and his angels and of the eternal fire prepared for them from the foundation of the world. Behold the dreadful leprosy that devours the human race!
And it is from this dreadful leprosy, which can kill a person for endless eternity, that the Son of God came to deliver and heal mankind, first prescribing the remedy for it — sincere repentance: “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand” (Matt. 3:2). The leprosy that raged in the East, from which the Lord healed the lepers, was only in a certain way an image and likeness of the spiritual leprosy that has infected all people.
The Law sent lepers to the priests, who, on the basis of the Law of Moses, knew how to distinguish leprosy from ordinary sores and removed those infected with it from society so that they would not infect others. So now the Lord — and the Holy Church — send those spiritually leprous, that is, sinners, to the priests, for testimony concerning their leprosy and for the healing of the spiritual leprosy of sins. “I am only a witness,” says the priest to the sinner before confession, “to bear witness before God to all that you tell me.”
Thus, the Gospel read today wishes to draw our attention to this most dreadful leprosy — our sins — and teaches the immediate healing of them through heartfelt repentance. It also teaches us earnest gratitude to the Lord when He heals and cleanses our leprosy, after we sincerely acknowledge it and condemn ourselves for it.
Yes, brethren, this leprosy — sin — is terrible, and it must not be neglected, as neither was it permitted for those who were bodily leprous, but must be immediately treated with the tears of repentance. For sin, like fire, quickly seizes the whole being of a person and horribly corrupts soul and body. Sin is the flame of Gehenna, the flame of Sodom and Gomorrah. Meanwhile, every sin often appears alluring, captivates with a false sweetness, wishes to seem justified, or an inevitable demand of nature, or of custom, of fashionable propriety, of the spirit of the times, or of one’s social position, and so forth. Sin is exceedingly cunning and contagious. One must not believe its flattery in the least.
A sincere Christian can easily distinguish sin from virtue, from truth — by its very fruits. So what, then, is this spiritual leprosy? One must point out its forms. This leprosy is our boundless and foolish self-love, pride, unbelief, estrangement from God and the Church, malice, enmity, hatred, greed, plunder, hard-heartedness, avarice, sensuality, drunkenness, fornication, foul speech, recklessness, obstinacy, lies and deceit, the pursuit of sensual pleasures, a passion for gambling, free-thinking, unbelief, social sedition, laziness toward prayer and public worship; disrespect for parents and superiors, lack of respect for royal authority and authorities in general, contempt for social order (that is, real order, not disorder), and, finally, the nihilism and socialism of our own time.
Nihilism — that is, the rejection by some people of everything holy: the holiness and necessity of religion, the holiness of marriage, the holiness of family bonds, the holiness and inviolability of royal authority, the commandment of obedience to parents, the binding force upon all members of the state of its laws and established courts. Socialism is the same thing as the unlawful cohesion of certain people with the aim of overthrowing the social order and equalizing all members of society in dignity, property, and rank — in a word, to establish equality in everything, as though this were possible, and as though God Himself had not indicated differences of service within society.
“Now there are varieties of ministries, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of operations, but it is the same God who works all in all. For as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of that one body, though many, are one body, so also is Christ… But God has arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as He pleased… that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another” (see 1 Cor. 12).
And among simple folk there is a saying: just as God did not make the fingers on the hand equal, nor the trees in the forest, so He did not make people equal — for the benefit of people themselves. Clearly, the will of God is that all should respect their position and condition and be content, that all should care for one another: the higher for the lower, the rich for the poor, shepherds for their flock; and conversely, the lower for the good of the higher, the poor for honesty and diligence in labor toward the rich, and the flock for their shepherds, respecting and obeying them and providing them what is necessary for life.
Therefore, brethren, beware of the leprosy of sin, whatever form it may take; be healed of it through sincere and constant repentance. Give thanks to the Physician of soul and body — our Lord Jesus Christ; be saved, and save one another in the Lord. Amen.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
