Homilies on Matthew, Homily 27

“And when Jesus came into Peter’s house, He saw his mother-in-law lying sick with a fever: and He touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she got up and served Him.” But Mark also adds “immediately,” meaning to indicate the time as well; this evangelist records only the miracle, without also specifying the time. And while the others say that the woman who lay sick also pleaded with Him, he passes over this too in silence. This does not come from any disagreement: one aims at brevity, the other at a detailed account. But why did He go into Peter’s house? It seems to me that He went to eat. At least, this is indicated by the words, “She got up and served Him.” For He used to visit His disciples (Matthew too, when He had called him), honoring them in this way and making them more zealous. But please notice Peter’s reverence for Him here too. Although his mother-in-law was lying sick at home with a severe fever, he did not lead Him into his house. He waited first for the teaching to finish, then for all the others to be healed; only after He had come in did he plead with Him. In this way he was taught from the beginning to put everyone else’s concerns before his own. So Peter himself does not bring Him in; He enters of His own accord (after the centurion had said, “I am not worthy for You to come under my roof”), showing how much favor He bestowed on His disciple. And consider what these fishermen’s houses were like. Even so, He did not disdain to enter their humble huts, teaching you in every way to trample human pride underfoot. Sometimes He heals with words alone, sometimes He also reaches out His hand, and sometimes He does both, making His way of healing visible. For He did not wish always to work miracles in the most extraordinary way: He needed to remain concealed for a while, especially from His disciples, since in their great delight they would have proclaimed everything. This was clear from the fact that even after going up the mountain, He had to order them to tell no one. So, after touching her body, He not only put out the fever but also restored her to perfect health. Since the illness was an ordinary one, He displayed His power through the way He healed it—something no physician’s skill could have accomplished. For you know that even after a fever leaves, patients still need a long time to regain their former health. But here everything happened at once. And this happened not only here but also with the sea. There too He did not merely quiet the winds and the storm; He also immediately stopped the swelling waves. This too was extraordinary, for even when a storm stops, the waves keep swelling for a long time. But with Christ it was different: everything ended at once. The same happened to this woman. To make this clear, the evangelist said, “She got up and served Him,” which showed both Christ’s power and the woman’s attitude toward Christ. Along with these things, we can observe something else here: Christ grants healing to some people because of the faith of others. In this case too, others pleaded with Him, as they did for the centurion’s servant. He grants this when the person to be healed has no unbelief, but either cannot come to Him because of illness, has no great idea of Him because of ignorance, or is too young. 2. “When evening came, they brought Him many who were possessed by demons: and He cast out the spirits from them with a word and healed all who were sick, so that what was spoken through the Prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: He took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses.” Do you see how the crowd’s faith is growing by now? Even as time grew short, they could not bear to leave, nor did they think evening was an unsuitable time to bring their sick to Him. But please notice how many people the evangelists quickly pass over as healed, without mentioning them one by one and giving us an account of them. In a single statement they cross an indescribable sea of miracles. Then, so that the greatness of the wonder should not lead us back into unbelief—that so many people with so many different diseases should be delivered and healed by Him in a single moment—the evangelist also brings in the prophet to testify to what is happening. He points out how abundant the proof from the Scriptures is in every case, so abundant that the miracles themselves give us no more. He says that Isaiah too spoke of these things: “He took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses.” He did not say, “He removed them,” but “He took and bore them.” This seems to me to have been spoken by the prophet more about sins, in agreement with John when he says, “Look, the Lamb of God, who bears the sin of the world.” How, then, does the evangelist apply it here to diseases? Either he is recounting the passage in its historical sense, or he means to show that most of our diseases arise from sins of the soul. For if death itself, the culmination of them all, has its root and foundation in sin, much more do most of our diseases, since our very capacity for suffering originated there. 3. “Now when Jesus saw great crowds around Him, He gave orders to leave for the other side.” Do you see again how free He is from any desire to show off? Just as the others say, “He ordered the demons not to say it was He,” this writer says that He turns the crowds away from Him. In doing so, He was both training us to be moderate and calming the Jews’ envy, while teaching us to do nothing for show. For, as we know, He healed souls as well as bodies and taught self-restraint. He revealed Himself in both ways: by removing their diseases and by doing nothing for show. For they were staying close to Him, loving Him, marveling at Him, and longing to look at Him. Who would leave someone working such miracles? Who would not long even just to see His face and the mouth speaking such words? For He was wonderful not only when working miracles. Even when simply appearing before people, He was full of great grace. To express this, the prophet said, “More beautiful than the children of men.” And if Isaiah says, “He has no form or beauty,” he says this either in comparison with the glory of His Godhead, which is beyond all speech and description, or to describe what happened at His passion, the dishonor He endured at the time of the cross, and the humble condition He displayed in every aspect of His entire life. Furthermore, He did not first give “orders to leave for the other side”; He waited until He had healed them. Surely they could not have borne it otherwise. On the mountain they not only stayed with Him while He was teaching them but also followed Him when He fell silent. So here too they stayed with Him not only during His miracles but also after He stopped, receiving considerable benefit from His very face. For if Moses’ face was made glorious, and Stephen’s became like an angel’s, consider what our common Lord was likely to look like at such a time. Perhaps many of you now feel a passionate desire to see that form. But if we are willing, we will see one far better than that. For if we can pass through this present life with Christian boldness, we will receive Him in the clouds, meeting Him in an immortal and incorruptible body. But notice that He does not simply drive them away, which might hurt them. He did not say, “Go away,” but “gave orders to leave for the other side,” leading them to expect that He would certainly come there. 4. The crowds, for their part, showed this great love and followed Him with deep affection. But one particular man, a slave to wealth and full of arrogance, approaches Him and says, “Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go.” Do you see how great his arrogance is? He approaches as though he considers it beneath him to be counted among the crowd, signaling that he is above ordinary people. For such is the Jewish character: full of confidence at the wrong time. In the same way, another man later, when everyone was silent, jumps up on his own and says, “Which is the first commandment?” Nevertheless, the Lord did not rebuke his misplaced confidence, teaching us to bear even with people like these. So He does not openly expose those who are plotting evil, but answers their secret thoughts, leaving only them to know that they have been exposed. He benefits them in two ways: first by showing that He knows what is in their conscience, and then by letting it remain hidden from others after revealing it in this way, allowing them to recover if they are willing. This is what He does with this man too. For when the man saw the many signs and the many people following Him, he thought he could profit from such miracles. That is why he was so eager to follow Him. How is this clear? From Christ’s answer, which addresses not the question as it is worded but the attitude its meaning reveals. For He says, “What? Do you expect to gain wealth by following Me? Don’t you see that I do not even have a place to stay, not even as much as the birds have?” For He says, “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” These were not the words of someone turning him away. While testing his evil attitude, He still allowed him to follow Him, if he was willing to do so with such a prospect. And to convince you of the man’s wickedness, after hearing these things and being tested, he did not say, “I am ready to follow You.” 5. In many other places too, Christ clearly does this: He does not openly expose people, but through His answer reveals the purpose of those approaching Him. So again, when someone said, “Good Teacher,” thinking he could win His favor with this flattery, He answered according to the man’s purpose: “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except one, that is, God.” And when they said to Him, “Look, Your mother and Your brothers are looking for You,” these relatives were acting from a human weakness. They did not want to hear something beneficial, but to display their relationship to Him and take vain pride in it. Hear what He says: “Who is My mother, and who are My brothers?” And again, when His brothers themselves said to Him, “Show Yourself to the world,” wanting to feed their vanity through this, He said, “Your time” (these are His words) “is always ready, but My time has not yet come.” He does the same in the opposite cases too, as with Nathanael, when He says, “Look, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit.” And again, “Go and report to John again what you hear and see.” Here too He answered not the words but the intention of the man who sent them. And with the people again, He speaks to their conscience in the same way, saying, “What did you go out into the wilderness to see?” They probably thought John was a rather weak and wavering person. To correct this suspicion, He says, “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind?” Or “a man dressed in soft clothing?” Through both these images He declares that John was neither wavering by nature nor someone luxury could soften. So in the present case too, He answers what they mean. And see how He shows great moderation here too: He did not say, “I have it, but I despise it,” but “I do not have it.” Do you see the precise care that accompanies His condescension? In the same way, when He eats and drinks, when He seems to act in the opposite way from John, He does this too for the salvation of the Jews—or rather, of the whole world—both silencing the heretics and wishing to draw still more of the people of that day to Himself. 6. But another man, we read, said to Him, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” Did you notice the difference? One presumptuously says, “I will follow You wherever You go,” but this other man, although asking to perform a sacred duty, says, “Let me.” Yet He did not let him, but says, “Let the dead bury their dead, but you follow Me.” For in every case He considered the intention. Why did He not let him? someone may ask. Because, on the one hand, there were people to fulfill that duty, and the dead man would not remain unburied; on the other, it was not right for this man to be drawn away from more important matters. But by saying, “their own dead,” He implies that this is not one of His dead. That is because the man who had died was, at least as I suppose, an unbeliever. Now if you admire the young man for asking Jesus about something so necessary instead of leaving on his own, admire him much more for staying when he was forbidden to leave. Was it not, then, someone may say, extreme ingratitude to be absent from his father’s burial? If he had done so out of neglect, it would have been ingratitude. But if it was to avoid interrupting a more necessary task, leaving would certainly have shown extreme thoughtlessness. For Jesus forbade him, not to command us to think little of the honor due our parents, but to show that nothing should be more urgent to us than the things of Heaven. We should hold fast to these with every effort and not put them off even for a little while, however indispensable and pressing our obligations may be. For what could be more necessary than burying a father? What could be easier, since it would not even take much time? But if we should not spend even the time needed for a father’s burial, and it is not safe to be separated even that long from our spiritual concerns, consider what we deserve. We spend all our time away from the things of Christ, prefer quite ordinary things to necessary ones, and are careless even when nothing is pressing us. Here too we should admire the wisdom of His teaching: He nailed the man firmly to His word and in this way freed him from endless evils, such as lamentation, mourning, and everything that follows. For after the burial he would necessarily have to inquire about the will, then about the division of the inheritance, and all the other things that follow. Thus wave after wave, coming over him in succession, would carry him far away from the harbor of truth. This is why He draws him close and fastens him to Himself. But if you are still astonished and puzzled that he was not allowed to attend his father’s burial, consider that many people do not let the sick know when a father, mother, child, or another relative has died, or let them follow the body to the tomb. We do not accuse them of cruelty or inhumanity for this, and with good reason. On the contrary, it would be cruel to bring people in such a condition out to the funeral. But if mourning and mental distress over our relatives is harmful, much more harmful is being drawn away from spiritual teaching. For this same reason He also said elsewhere, “No one who has put his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of Heaven.” Surely it is far better to proclaim the kingdom and draw others back from death than to bury a dead body, which gains nothing from it—especially when others are there to fulfill all these duties. 7. What we learn from this is simply that we must not carelessly lose any time, not even the smallest amount, even if ten thousand things press upon us. We must put spiritual things before everything, even the most indispensable matters, and know both what life is and what death is. For many who seem to be alive are no better than dead people, living as they do in wickedness. Or rather, they are worse than the dead: “For the one who has died,” it says, “is freed from sin,” but this person is a slave to sin. So do not tell me that worms are not eating him, that he does not lie in a coffin, that he has not closed his eyes, or that he is not bound in graveclothes. Indeed, he suffers these things more terribly than the dead: no worms devour him, but the passions of his soul tear him apart more fiercely than wild beasts. And if his eyes are open, this too is far worse than having them closed. For the dead person’s eyes see nothing evil, but this man, while his eyes are open, is gathering countless diseases for himself. And while the other lies in a coffin, unmoved by anything, this man is buried in the tomb of his countless disorders. But you do not see his body decaying. What does that matter? Before his body decays, his soul is corrupted and destroyed, undergoing greater decay. For the other stinks for ten days, but this man gives off evil odors throughout his entire life, with a mouth fouler than sewers. This, then, is the difference between them: the dead person undergoes only the decay that comes from nature, but this man adds to that the decay that comes from lack of self-control, devising countless causes of corruption every day. But is he riding on horseback? What does that matter? The other is carried on a couch too. And what is especially distressing is that while no one sees the other decomposing and decaying, since his coffin covers him, this man goes everywhere with his foul smell, carrying a dead soul in his body as in a tomb. And if you could just once see the soul of someone living in luxury and vice, you would realize that it is far better to lie bound in a grave than to be shackled by the chains of our sins, and to have a stone laid over you than that heavy lid of numbness. So above all, the friends of these dead people, seeing that they have lost all feeling, should approach Jesus on their behalf, as Mary did then for Lazarus. Even if he “stinks,” even if he has been “dead four days,” do not despair. Approach and first remove the stone. Yes, for then you will see him lying as in a tomb, bound in his graveclothes. If you wish, let us bring before you someone great and distinguished. No, do not be afraid: I will give the example without a name. Or rather, even if I mentioned the name, there would still be no need for fear. For who is ever afraid of a dead man? Whatever anyone does, he remains dead, and the dead cannot harm the living, whether a little or a great deal. Let us look, then, at their heads bound up. For when they are continually drunk, all their sense organs are closed and bound up, just as those of the dead are by their many wrappings and graveclothes. And if you look at their hands too, you will see these also bound to their bellies, like the hands of the dead, and tied up not with graveclothes but with something far worse: the bonds of greed. Greed gives them no permission to reach out to give to the poor or do any other such good deed; instead, she makes their hands more useless than those of the dead. Would you also like to see their feet bound together? See how these too are tied up with cares, and for this reason can never run to the house of God. Have you seen the dead? Look also at the embalmer. Who, then, embalms these people? The devil, who carefully binds them up and no longer allows the person to appear human, but like a dry piece of wood. For where there is no eye, no hands, no feet, or anything else of the kind, how can such a person appear human? In the same way, we can see their soul wrapped up too, more a phantom than a soul. Since, then, they are in a kind of senseless state, having become dead people, let us approach Jesus on their behalf. Let us beg Him to raise them up; let us take away the stone; let us loosen the graveclothes. For if you take away the stone—that is, their inability to feel their own misery—you will soon be able to bring them out of the tomb too. And once you have brought them out, you will more easily free them from their bonds. Then Christ will recognize you, when you have risen, when you are unbound; then He will even invite you to His own supper. So all of you who are Christ’s friends, all who are disciples, all who love the one who has died, approach Jesus and pray. For even if his foul odor is overwhelming and extremely intense, we, his friends, should still not abandon him, but approach all the more, just as Lazarus’s sisters did then. Nor should we stop interceding, pleading, and begging until we have received him alive. For if we manage our own affairs and our neighbors’ affairs in this way, we will also quickly attain the life to come. May we all attain it through the grace and love for humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.