Homily One on the Eighth Sunday of Luke (St. Justin Popovich)

Homily One on the Eighth Sunday of Luke
25th Sunday after Pentecost 

By St. Justin Popovich

(Delivered in 1965 at the Ćelije Monastery)

Again and again, the Good News of Eternal Life. This is the work of the Gospel of the Lord Christ. We live in a world of time and space, and we think that our life consists only of days and nights, of moments and hours. But behold, through His Holy Gospel, the Savior continually speaks about His Eternal Life. O man! You are in this world for the sake of Eternal Life; this is what continually resounds throughout the Holy Gospel of the Lord Christ. You are never transient, you are never mortal; you were created for Eternal Life—do not deceive yourself. The whole world around you should remind you of God, of Him who is Eternal and who, out of His great love, created you also for eternity.

Let those who struggle with the question of how to obtain Eternal Life learn from today's wondrous Good News, proclaimed by the Holy Gospel on this Sunday. I, a man in this world, am surrounded on every side by death, and yet the Law demands, and the commandments of God demand, that I be eternal. How? How can I obtain Eternal Life in this world, a world full of death? And someone approached the Lord, testing Him: “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Luke 10:25). The Savior perceived that he was testing Him. He approached Him not as the Lord, but as a Teacher. And what teacher can give Eternal Life to a man? What man can give it, when every man is a prisoner of death? Therefore, the Savior said: “What is written in the Law of God?” And he answered and said: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” “Do this and you will live,” the Savior answered him (Luke 10:26–28).

But only now does the torment begin for the learned lawyer. He knew, yes, he felt that he did not love God with all his strength, with all his soul, and with all his mind. Had he loved Him in this way, he would not have asked the question; instead, he would have done this and felt himself to be eternal even in this world. And, surely, in order to justify himself before the people who were there, as there were always many people gathered around the Lord Christ, he asked the Savior: “Who is my neighbor?” Then the Savior told him a strange occurrence: “A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when robbers seized him on the road, wounded him, stripped him of his clothing, robbed him, and went away, leaving him half dead. At that moment, a priest came along, looked at him, and passed by. A Levite, from the priestly tribe, came along, looked at him, and passed by. Then a Samaritan came along, a foreigner, not a Jew. He looked at the wounded man, had compassion on him, washed his wounds, bandaged them, placed him on his own beast, and took him to an inn. There he stayed and cared for him, and the next day he gave the innkeeper two denarii, asking him to continue caring for him and attending to him, and saying that whatever more he spent, he would repay him when he returned.” And the Savior asked the learned lawyer: “Which of these was neighbor to the wounded man?” The lawyer answered: “The one who showed mercy to him.” “Yes,” the Savior replied, “go, and you do likewise,” and you will obtain Eternal Life (Luke 10:29–37).

Do not think—do not think that Eternal Life is in your hands. No, Eternal Life is not in your hands, but in the hands of your neighbor, in the hands of God and your neighbor. What do you have to give, for yourself and from yourself, in order to obtain Eternal Life in the world to come? What must you, as a human being, give? Love. Love for God, love for your neighbor. If you give this, then you will surely receive Eternal Life. And what must you do in order to have true love for God, true love for your neighbor? Give your whole heart to God, give your whole soul to God, give all your strength to God, give all your mind to God—that is love. And say to the Lord: Lord, behold me; I do not know how to govern my soul, I do not know how to govern my heart. What happens in my heart! What happens in my soul! What thoughts pass through it, what passions, what obscurities, what darkness, what sins! Lord, behold my heart, behold my soul, behold my thoughts! Ah, my thoughts! How often my mind becomes a racecourse for unclean spirits; how often my mind becomes a playground, a playground for unclean thoughts and filthy desires. Lord! Behold my thoughts; cleanse them, restore them to health, heal them. I, I cannot govern myself. You, Lord, govern my heart, govern my soul, govern all my strength, because I, a thoughtless and foolish man, often squander my strength on trifles, on the foolish things of this world, on various petty pleasures and enjoyments, and I forget You. I forget that I was created for Eternal Life; I forget that You are waiting for me; I forget that You have given me my neighbors as helpers, so that together with them I may attain Eternal Life.

Who are my neighbors? Who is my God? Who is this God in this world, on this earth that we human beings see, whom I, as a human being, must truly love with all my heart, with all my soul, with my whole being, with all my strength? (Matthew 22:37–39) Behold, many gods are proposed in this world. The Greeks believed, and the Romans too, in many gods. Even today, many people believe in (many) gods, false and imaginary ones. How many polytheists there are in Europe who worship false gods instead of the True God! How many worship themselves, treating wealth itself as a god! How many fools there are in this world who proclaim a human being to be God and follow him as though he were God! But I, O Lord, who love You, know: which of all human beings has shown himself to be truly the True God? Who? Only the Lord Christ. How, and by what means? By taking upon Himself the greatest suffering, by conquering death and securing Eternal Life for us. Through His Resurrection He conquered death and lives eternally, in order to give Eternal Life to each one of us. Behold the Only True God in all the worlds! Behold the Only True God for the human race, for mankind, for every human being, for me and for you, for everyone who has a mind and thinks wisely. Every such person must choose the Lord Christ as the Only True God. And to Him, to Him, entrust his whole heart; love Him with all his heart, with all his soul, with all his mind. He is God, who endured death for our sake and rose again to conquer death for your sake and mine. Behold, He is ready to receive your heart, to fill it with all the Divine powers, and to give you immortality and Eternal Life.

“How?” you will ask. “How?” In this way: He is here, among us, eternally Living, the Conqueror of death in His Church. He founded the Church in this world and gave it all the Divine powers we need for Eternal Life and salvation—all the Divine powers, powers stronger than every sin, stronger than every demon, Divine powers that secure Eternal Life for every human being. In the Church of Christ are the Holy Mysteries; there are the holy virtues. All these are Divine powers, Divine powers that are always stronger than every sin, always stronger than every death, always stronger than every devil. And what is required of you, O man? What is required of you, O Christian? You are required to love such a Lord and God. Indeed, can you love anyone as you love Him? Has anyone deserved to be loved as the Lord Christ, who gives such great gifts to each one of us: Eternal Life, Eternal Truth, Eternal Righteousness? Therefore, He had the right to demand that we love Him more than our parents, more than our brothers, our neighbors, and our children (Matthew 10:37). Therefore, let us seek Him first, incomparably more than any of us; He gives more than parents, friends, acquaintances, and all mankind can give.

For He came into this world as though among the sick: O people, all of you are mortally ill; every human being is mortally ill. Every human being is like a wounded man lying on the road, whom robbers have plundered. And not only that, brethren, but the whole human race is a wounded man whom robbers have seized—whom demons have seized, disarmed, and stripped of everything that belongs to God. They have wounded him, wounded his soul with sins and passions, and left him half dead, as the Gospel says, as the Lord says: half dead (Luke 10:30). The human race, before the Lord Christ and without Him, is half dead. It barely lives amid sins, barely lives amid passions, barely lives amid the terrible deaths that surround it and dwell within it. The priest passes by; he goes around him and does not help him, brother! The Levite passes by; he does not help him! This means, brethren, that the Old Testament, that the remedies of the Old Testament, do not help; they do not save man from death, they do not save him from sin.

And who is this merciful Samaritan who had compassion on the man and on the human race, approached him, and bandaged his wounds? Who? The Lord Christ! He is the Heavenly Samaritan! He descended into the earthly world and came to the human race, that terrible half-dead wounded man. He bound his wounds, healed them, cured him, and carried him to the inn, to His Church. The inn is the Church, and in it there is a remedy for every sin. In this world, every human being is gravely ill, sick with sin. Do not merely think about this, but believe it deeply: you and I, you and I are that wounded man lying on the road, whom no human remedies can help. No one can heal you of death, of that most terrible and greatest of our sufferings. There are no such physicians! There are no human physicians on earth who can heal us of death. That is why the Heavenly Physician came to earth—the Lord Christ came and brought a remedy for that most terrible sin, death. He brought a remedy against death, a remedy against sin: that which the earth did not possess, that which Heaven alone possesses, that which the Only True God alone possesses!

Therefore, it is said in the Gospel that the Lord Christ is the Only True God, and He is Eternal Life (1 John 5:20). He, the Lord Jesus of Nazareth, came into this world and gave us all the remedies we need to be healed of all sins and all deaths. Holy Communion—behold the remedy for every sin; prayer—behold the remedy for every one of your sins, a remedy both for sin and for death; fasting—behold a remedy for sin, because fasting destroys within you everything that is sinful, cleanses both body and soul, and you humble yourself before the Lord and afflict your body in order to drive out from it your chief tormentors: sins and passions. And the Lord gives consolation; the Lord gives joy if you truly and sincerely afflict yourself through fasting in order to cleanse yourself of sin. And then there is mercy—what is that? It too is a remedy for sin. Humility, meekness, gentleness, repentance—all are remedies, one after another, and all of them heal us from sin, heal us from death, and bestow Eternal Life.

Behold, today, through the Holy Gospel, the Lord has proclaimed that the first law, the first rule, the first virtue in this world is—what? Compassion, compassion toward sinful man. Do not imagine that you are spiritually healthy, as you suppose, while everyone around you is sick. If you think this, you are in fact the sickest of all, the one who most needs the Lord Christ, because pride destroys your soul. It is such a terrible sin, such a terrible death in the soul, that only He, the Only True God and Lord Jesus Christ, can raise you from this death. We human beings attain Eternal Life only in this way: by giving ourselves to God and our neighbor through love. What does this mean? It means that my life, my Eternal Life, is in the hands of God and my neighbors, in your hands and theirs; and your life is likewise in the hands of your neighbors, not in your own. You give your heart and your soul to God, and the Lord fills them with holy powers so that you may be able to love your neighbor, so that you may have compassion in your soul for people, pity for them as your fellow brethren, your sinful fellow brethren. You yourself are a sinner; you yourself are surely sick; every one of us is under sin, and therefore every one of us is sick. That is why we look upon one another as sick people who seek and need help, who seek a remedy. And we Christians in this world are truly Christians only when we have compassion for people, for our neighbors, for our brethren.

In the Church, you have surely noticed the words you hear most often: “Lord, have mercy” on us! Have mercy on me! This is what man needs most from God, who is above this world: that He have mercy on you, on me, on every Christian, on every human being. But this is also required of us: that we too have compassion for people, for our brethren, as for those who sin alongside us and are subject to death. The same affliction torments us all; the same sin. The same passions torment us all; the same deaths. The same devils torment and attack us all. And we, we can defend ourselves against them only together, only when filled with the Divine powers of the Lord Christ, powers that are stronger than all deaths, all sins, and all afflictions.

Who is my neighbor, who is your neighbor? The Savior has said in today's parable: your neighbor is every afflicted person in this world, every sufferer, every human being who struggles and suffers—and in what way? In sins, in passions; and such is every human being in this world. This is your neighbor, whether he be a Serb, a Chinese person, an American, or a Russian; these are our neighbors. A man beneath the heavy steel slab of death and sin—that is my neighbor, my neighbor… Every one of us is like this; every one of us is beneath the heavy millstone of sin and death. But that millstone of sin and death, so heavy, so exceedingly heavy without the Lord Christ, becomes as light as a pin when the Lord Christ approaches you, when you surrender your soul to Him and give Him your heart through love. Thus, today's Holy Gospel is the Gospel for each one of us, and through it we have learned who our neighbor is and what he is in his suffering: a wounded man, half dead. He is raised from the dead by Him who has Eternal Life and gives Eternal Life, the True Lord Jesus Christ, the Only God in all the worlds.

Let us learn this also from today's Holy Gospel: that our life is in the hands of our neighbors. When do we receive Eternal Life? When, through love, we surrender ourselves to God, so that He may guide our soul, our thoughts, our heart, and all our strength through this world; so that He may rule over both our soul and our body; so that He may direct our thoughts, our feelings, and our life every day and every night. Then, then we secure Eternal Life for ourselves, and then, then we are stronger than every death, every sin, and every passion. Then, O Christian, do not be afraid! When you are with the Lord Christ through faith, no sin can be stronger than you. And if you fall into sin, rise up; rise again from the dead. He awaits your cry, just as He awaited Peter's when he began to sink into the sea, and He stretched out His hand to him. Only do not doubt; believe. “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” Never doubt that the All-Merciful Heavenly Samaritan, the All-Merciful Heavenly Physician, the Lord Christ, has come into this world; He has come to you, who are sick, to heal you of sin.

Therefore, let there be ever more love, ever more prayer to Him, and you—you will walk through this world as a conqueror who fears neither sin nor death. For with him (that is, with you) is the One who is stronger than both sin and death, the One who conquers every evil, every hell, and every devil: the wondrous Lord Christ. To Him be glory, now and always, and unto all ages. Amen.

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.