Homilies on Matthew, Homily 44

“While He was still speaking to the people, look, His mother and His brothers stood outside, wanting to speak with Him. Then someone said to Him, Look, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak with You. But He answered the person who told Him, Who is my mother, and who are my brothers? And He stretched out His hand toward His disciples and said, Here are my mother and my brothers.” What I was saying recently—that when virtue is missing, everything is worthless—is now made very clear again. I was saying that age, natural relationships, living in the wilderness, and all such things are equally useless without a good disposition. But today we learn something more: even having carried Christ in the womb and given birth to Him so miraculously brings no benefit without virtue. This is especially clear from what follows. “For while He was still speaking to the people,” it says, “someone told Him, Your mother and Your brothers are looking for You. But He says, Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” He said this neither because He was ashamed of His mother nor because He was denying the woman who gave birth to Him. If He had been ashamed of her, He would not have passed through that womb. Rather, He was declaring that this gives her no advantage unless she does everything required of her. In fact, what she had tried to do showed excessive vanity: she wanted to show the people that she had power and authority over her Son, since she did not yet think anything great of Him. That was also why she approached at an inappropriate time. Just look at both her self-assurance and theirs. They should have gone inside and listened with the crowd, or, if they did not want to do that, waited until He finished His address and then approached Him. Instead, they call Him outside, and do so in front of everyone, showing excessive vanity and wanting to make it appear that they give Him orders with great authority. The evangelist also shows his disapproval of this, for that is precisely what he alludes to when he says, “While He was still speaking to the people.” It is as though he were saying, What? Was there no other opportunity? Couldn't they have spoken with Him in private? And what did they want to say? If it concerned the teachings of the truth, they should have raised these matters publicly and stated them before everyone, so that the others could benefit too. But if it concerned other matters of their own, they should not have been so insistent. For if He did not allow a father to be buried because it would interrupt someone's time with Him, much less should they have interrupted His address to the people over unimportant things. Clearly, then, nothing but craving empty praise led them to do this. John also declares this when he says, “Even His brothers did not believe in Him.” He also reports some very foolish remarks of theirs, telling us that they wanted to drag Him to Jerusalem for no other purpose than to gain glory for themselves from His miracles. “For if You do these things,” it says, “show Yourself to the world. For no one does anything in secret while seeking to make himself known.” At that time He Himself also rebuked them, attributing this to their carnal mind. That is, because the Jews were reproaching Him and saying, “Isn't this the carpenter's son, whose father and mother we know? And aren't His brothers here with us?” they were urging Him to display His miracles because they wanted to escape the contempt His birth brought upon them. For this reason He firmly turns them away, intending to heal their weakness. Surely, if He had wanted to deny His mother, He would have denied her when the Jews were reproaching Him. As it is, we see that He cares for her so much that even on the cross He entrusts her to the disciple He loved most of all, giving him solemn instructions about her. But now He does not act that way, out of concern for her and His brothers. I mean that because they regarded Him as a mere man and were filled with a craving for empty praise, He drives out the disease, correcting them without insulting them. But please consider more than just the words, which contain a mild rebuke. Consider also His brothers' improper behavior, the boldness with which they acted, and who was rebuking it: no mere man, but the only-begotten Son of God. Consider, too, His purpose in rebuking them. He did not intend to leave them bewildered, but to free them from a most tyrannical passion, gradually lead them to a right understanding of Himself, and convince her that He was not only her Son but also her Lord. Then you will see that the rebuke is entirely fitting for Him and beneficial to her, and also full of gentleness. For He did not say, “Go, tell my mother, You are not my mother.” Instead, He addresses the person who told Him, saying, “Who is my mother?” Along with the things already mentioned, He also has another purpose. What is that? To keep both them and others from relying on their family relationship and neglecting virtue. For if being His mother brings her no benefit without that quality in her, hardly anyone else will be saved through family relationships. There is only one true nobility: doing the will of God. This kind of noble birth is better and more real than the other. 2. Knowing these things, then, let us take no pride in children with good reputations unless we share their virtue, or in noble fathers unless we resemble them in character. For it is possible for the man who fathered someone not to be his father, and for a man who did not father him to be his father. So elsewhere, when a woman said, “Blessed is the womb that gave birth to You, and the breasts You nursed at,” He did not say, “The womb did not give birth to me, nor did I nurse at the breasts.” Instead, He said, “Rather, blessed are those who do the will of my Father.” Do you see how on every occasion He does not deny the natural relationship, but adds the relationship through virtue? His forerunner, too, when he says, “You brood of vipers, do not think of saying, We have Abraham as our father,” does not mean that they were not Abraham's natural descendants, but that being descended from Abraham does them no good unless they are also related to him in character. Christ declared this too when He said, “If you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham.” He was not taking away their relationship according to the flesh, but teaching them to seek the relationship that is greater and more real. He establishes this here too, but in a less offensive and more measured way, as was fitting when speaking to His mother. For He never said, “She is not my mother, nor are those my brothers, because they do not do my will.” Nor did He make a declaration and pronounce judgment against them. Instead, He still left the choice in their own hands, speaking with the gentleness fitting for Him. “For whoever does,” He says, “the will of my Father is my brother and sister and mother.” So if they want to be His family, let them come this way. And when the woman again cried out, “Blessed is the womb that gave birth to You,” He did not say, “She is not my mother,” but, “If she wishes to be blessed, let her do the will of my Father. For such a person is brother and sister and mother.” Oh, what honor! Oh, virtue! How high she raises the person who follows her! How many women have called that holy Virgin and her womb blessed, and prayed that they might become such mothers and give up everything! What, then, stands in the way? Look, He has laid out a broad road for us. And this rank is granted not only to women but also to men—or rather, a much higher rank. For this makes someone His mother far more than those birth pains did. So if that was a reason to be called blessed, this is much more so, since it is also more real. Therefore, do more than merely desire it: walk with great diligence along the road that leads to what you desire. 3. After saying these words, “He came out of the house.” Do you see how He both rebuked them and did what they wanted? He did the same at the wedding. There too He rebuked her for asking at an inappropriate time, yet still did not refuse her. Through the first He corrected her weakness; through the second He showed His affection for His mother. In the same way here, He both healed the disease of craving empty praise and gave His mother the honor she was due, even though her request came at an inappropriate time. For “on the same day,” it says, “Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea.” Why, if you want to see and hear, He says, here I am, coming out to speak. So, after performing many miracles, He again offers the benefit of His teaching. And He “sits beside the sea,” fishing and catching in His net those who are on land. But He “sat beside the sea” for a reason, and the evangelist has hinted at that very reason. For to indicate that He did this because He wanted to arrange His audience carefully, leaving no one behind His back but having everyone face Him, he says, “And great crowds,” it says, “gathered around Him, so that He got into a boat and sat down, and the whole crowd stood on the shore.” And after sitting down there, He speaks in parables. “And He spoke,” it says, “many things to them in parables.” Yet on the mountain, as we know, He did no such thing, nor did He weave so many parables into His address. For then there were only the crowds, ordinary people; but here there are also scribes and Pharisees. But please notice what kind of parable He tells first, and how Matthew arranges them in order. Which does He tell first? The one it was most necessary to tell first, the one that makes the listener more attentive. Because He was going to speak to them in obscure sayings, He first thoroughly awakens His listeners' minds through His parable. That is also why another evangelist says that He rebuked them for not understanding, saying, “How did you not understand the parable?” But this is not His only reason for speaking in parables. He also does so to make His teaching more vivid, impress it more firmly on their memory, and bring these things before their eyes. The prophets do the same. 4. What, then, is the parable? “Look,” He says, “a sower went out to sow.” Where did He go out from, He who is present everywhere and fills all things? Or how did He go out? Not by changing His location, but in His condition and His saving work for us, drawing nearer to us by clothing Himself with flesh. Because we could not enter, our sins barring our entrance, He comes out to us. And why did He come out? To destroy the ground overgrown with thorns? To take vengeance on the farmers? Certainly not. He came to cultivate and care for it, and to sow the word of godliness. By the seed here He means His teaching; by the land, human souls; and by the sower, Himself. What, then, happens to this seed? Three parts perish, and one is saved. “And as He sowed, some seeds fell,” He says, “beside the road, and the birds came and devoured them.” He did not say that He threw them there, but that “they fell.” “And some fell on the rock, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up immediately because the soil was shallow. And when the sun rose, they were scorched, and because they had no root, they withered away. And some fell among the thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. But others fell on the good ground and bore fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold. Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear.” A fourth part is saved, and even this is not all alike: here too there is a great difference. He said these things to show that He offered His teaching freely to everyone. For just as the sower makes no distinction among the land before him, but simply scatters his seed impartially, so He Himself makes no distinction between rich and poor, wise and foolish, lazy and diligent, brave and cowardly. He speaks to everyone, doing His part, even though He knows the results beforehand, so that He can say, “What should I have done that I have not done?” The prophets speak of the people as a vine: “For my beloved,” it says, “had a vineyard,” and, “He brought a vine out of Egypt.” But He speaks of them as seed. What might this show? That obedience will now be quick and easier, and will soon bear its fruit. But when you hear, “The sower went out to sow,” do not think this is needless repetition. A sower often goes out for some other task too: to plow, cut out weeds, pull up thorns, or attend to some similar matter. But He went out to sow. Tell me, then, why was most of the seed lost? Not because of the sower, but because of the ground that received it—that is, the soul that did not listen. And why does He not say, Some careless people received it and lost it; some rich people received it and choked it; and some shallow people received it and betrayed it? He does not want to rebuke them harshly, for fear of driving them to despair. Instead, He leaves the rebuke to His listeners' consciences. This was true not only of the seed, but also of the net, for that too brought in many that were useless. 5. He tells this parable as though anointing His disciples for their work, and to teach them that even if more people are lost than receive the word, they must not lose heart. For this was the case even with their Lord, and although He knew fully beforehand that these things would happen, He did not stop sowing. And how can it be reasonable, someone says, to sow among thorns, on rock, or beside the road? With seeds and soil, it cannot be reasonable. But with human souls and their instruction, it deserves great praise. A farmer would rightly be blamed for doing this, since rock cannot become soil, nor can the roadside stop being a roadside, or thorns stop being thorns. But with beings who possess reason, things are different. Rock can change and become rich soil; the roadside can stop being trampled and lying open to every passerby, and become a fertile field; and the thorns can be destroyed, leaving the seed completely safe. If this had been impossible, this Sower would not have sown. And if the change did not happen in everyone, the fault lies not with the Sower, but with those unwilling to change. He has done His part. And if they betrayed what they received from Him, He is blameless, having shown such love for humanity. But please notice this: there is not just one road to destruction, but several, very different from one another. Those who are like the roadside are crude-minded, indifferent, and careless. Those on the rock fail only through weakness. For “what is sown on the rocky places,” He says, “is the person who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy. Yet he has no root in himself and lasts only a while. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he immediately falls away! When anyone,” He says, “hears the word of truth and does not understand it, the wicked one comes and snatches what was sown out of his heart. This is the person sown beside the road.” Now it is one thing for the teaching to wither away when no one is mistreating anyone or disturbing its foundations, and another when trials bear down on someone. But those compared to the thorns are much more inexcusable than these. 6. So that none of these things happen to us, let us cover what we are told with zeal and constant remembrance. For although the devil snatches it away, whether it is snatched away rests with us. Although the plants wither, this does not happen because of the heat (for He did not say it withered because of the heat, but “because it had no root”). Although His sayings are choked, this is not because of the thorns, but because of those who allow them to grow. For if you are willing, there is a way to stop this harmful growth and use our wealth rightly. That is why He did not say “the world,” but “the cares of the world”; nor “riches,” but “the deceitfulness of riches.” So let us blame the corrupt mind, rather than the things themselves. For it is possible to be rich without being deceived, and to live in this world without being choked by its cares. Riches, in fact, have two opposite disadvantages: one is anxiety, which wears us out and casts darkness over us; the other is luxury, which makes us effeminate. And He rightly said, “The deceitfulness of riches.” For everything connected with riches is deceit: these are mere names with no reality behind them. Pleasure, glory, splendid clothing, and all such things are an empty show, not a reality. After speaking of the roads to destruction, He then mentions the good ground, keeping them from despair and giving them hope of repentance, and showing that it is possible to change from the conditions mentioned before into this one. Yet if the land is good, the Sower is one, and the seed is the same, why did one bear a hundred, another sixty, and another thirty? Here again the difference comes from the nature of the ground, for even among good ground the differences are great. Do you see that neither the farmer nor the seed is to blame, but the land that receives it? And this is because of its disposition, not its nature. Here too His mercy toward humanity is great: He does not demand a single measure of virtue, but while accepting the first and not rejecting the second, He also gives a place to the third. He says these things so that His followers will not suppose that hearing is enough for salvation. And why, someone might ask, did He not include the other vices too, such as lust and craving empty praise? In speaking of “the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches,” He included them all. Yes, the craving for empty praise and all the rest belong to this world and to the deceitfulness of riches: pleasure, gluttony, envy, the craving for empty praise, and everything like them. But He also added the “road” and the “rock,” showing that freedom from riches alone is not enough; we must also cultivate the other parts of virtue. For what if you are free from riches, yet are soft and unmanly? And what if you are not unmanly, but are lax and careless about hearing the word? No single part is enough for our salvation. First we need attentive hearing and constant remembrance; then courage; then contempt for riches and freedom from all worldly things. In fact, He puts attentive hearing before the other requirements because it must come first (for “How will they believe unless they hear?” Just so, unless we pay attention to what is said, we will not even be able to learn what we ought to do). After that come courage and contempt for the things of this life. 7. Having heard these things, then, let us strengthen ourselves on every side, paying attention to His instructions, putting down deep roots, and cleansing ourselves of all worldly things. But if we do one thing and neglect another, we will gain nothing. Even if we do not perish in one way, we will in another. For what does it matter if riches do not ruin us, but laziness does? Or if laziness does not, but softness does? In the same way, a farmer mourns his loss equally, whichever way he loses his crop. So let us not comfort ourselves because we are not perishing in all these ways. Let us grieve over whichever way we are perishing. And let us burn up the thorns, for they choke the word. Those rich men who prove useless not only in these matters but in others too know this. Having become slaves and captives of their pleasures, they are useless even in civic affairs, and if in those, much more in the affairs of Heaven. Yes, our thoughts are corrupted in two ways by this: through luxury and through anxiety as well. Either one alone would be enough to overwhelm the boat. But when both come together, imagine how high the wave rises. And do not be surprised that He calls our luxury “thorns.” You are unaware of it because you are intoxicated with your passion, but those in sound health know that it pricks more sharply than any thorn, and that luxury wastes the soul more than anxiety does, causing more severe pain to both body and soul. For anxiety does not strike a person as painfully as overeating does. When sleeplessness, throbbing temples, heaviness in the head, and intestinal pains seize such a person, you can imagine how much more painful these are than thorns. And just as thorns draw blood from the hands that grasp them, whichever side they are grasped from, so luxury torments the feet, hands, head, eyes—in fact, every part of us. Like the thorn, it is also withered and fruitless, and it does far greater harm, reaching our vital parts. Yes, it brings on premature old age, dulls the senses, clouds our reasoning, blinds the sharp-sighted mind, and makes the body swollen, producing excessive deposits of waste and piling up a great mass of evils. It makes the burden too heavy and the load overwhelming. That is why our falls are so many and constant, and our shipwrecks so frequent. Tell me, why do you pamper your body? What? Are we going to slaughter you as a sacrifice and put you on the table? It is fine for you to pamper birds—or rather, not so fine even for them, for when they are fattened, they are no longer wholesome food. Luxury is such a great evil that its harm appears even in irrational creatures. Through luxury we make even them useless both to themselves and to us. Their excess flesh is indigestible, and that kind of fatness produces a wetter kind of decay. But creatures that are not fed this way, and instead live, so to speak, in abstinence, on a moderate diet, with labor and hardship, are most useful both to themselves and to others, as food and for everything else. At any rate, those who eat them are healthier, while those who feed on the others become like them, dull and sickly, and make their chain more burdensome. For nothing is so hostile and harmful to the body as luxury. Nothing tears it apart, overloads it, and corrupts it like intemperance. Above all, this should make us astonished at their foolishness: they are unwilling to show themselves even as much care as others show their wineskins. Wine merchants do not let those hold more than they should, for fear they will burst. But these men do not give even that much thought to their own wretched bellies. After stuffing and stretching them, they fill everything up to their ears, their nostrils, their very throats, squeezing the spirit and the power that directs the living being into half their space. What? Was your throat given to you so that you could fill it right up to your mouth with soured wine and every other kind of decay? That is not why you were given it, man, but above all so that you could sing to God, offer holy prayers, read the divine laws aloud, and give your neighbors useful advice. But you act as though you received it for this purpose, allowing it no time for that service, even briefly, and subjecting it to this evil slavery all your life. It is as though someone were given a beautifully made lyre with golden strings and, instead of drawing the most harmonious music from it, covered it with dung and clay. That is just what these men do. Now I use the word “dung” not for living, but for luxurious living and this extreme self-indulgence. For what exceeds our needs does not nourish us; it only harms us. In truth, the belly alone was made simply to receive food, while the mouth, throat, and tongue were made for other purposes too, far more necessary than these. Or rather, even the belly was not made simply to receive food, but to receive a moderate amount of food. It makes this clear by crying out loudly against us when we torment it with this greed. Nor does it merely cry out against us: it also avenges the wrong by making us pay the harshest penalty. First it punishes the feet that carry and lead us to those wicked revels, then the hands that serve it, binding them together for bringing it such quantities and kinds of food. And many have even had their mouths, eyes, and heads distorted. Just as a servant ordered to do more than he can manage often becomes insolent toward the person giving the order out of desperation, so the belly, together with these parts of the body, often ruins and destroys the very brain itself through being overstrained. God has wisely arranged for so much harm to arise from excess, so that when you will not willingly practice self-restraint, at least unwillingly, through fear of such great ruin, you may learn moderation. Knowing these things, then, let us flee luxury and practice moderation, so that we may enjoy bodily health and, having freed our soul from every weakness, attain the good things to come, through the grace and love for humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and might forever and ever. Amen.