Homilies on John, Homily 9

“He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.” [1.] If you remember our earlier reflections, we will move ahead all the more eagerly with building up what remains, knowing how much we stand to gain. For what we say will be easier to understand for those of you who remember what has already been said, and we will not need to work very hard, because your great love of learning enables you to see more clearly into what remains. Anyone who keeps losing what he is given will always need a teacher and will never know anything. But someone who holds on to what he has received and then adds what remains will quickly become a teacher instead of a learner, useful not only to himself but to everyone else as well. Judging from your great eagerness to listen, I expect this assembly to be especially like that. Come, then, let us store the Lord’s money in your souls as in a secure treasury, and explain the words set before us today as fully as the grace of the Spirit gives us strength. He (St. John) had said, speaking of ancient times, that “the world did not know him” ( ver. 10 ). Then his narrative moves forward to the time of the proclamation (of the Gospel), and he says, “He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him,” now calling the Jews “His own” as His special people, or perhaps even all humanity, since He created them. Above, bewildered by the folly of the many and ashamed of our common nature, he said that “the world was made by Him,” yet after being made, it did not recognize its Maker. So here again, unbearably distressed by the stupidity of the Jews and the many, he states the charge still more forcefully, saying that “His own did not receive Him,” even when “He came to them.” And not only he, but the prophets too, said the very same thing in wonder, as Paul later did, amazed at these very same things. Thus the prophets cried out in the person of Christ, saying, “A people whom I have not known have served Me; as soon as they heard Me, they obeyed Me; the foreign children have dealt falsely with Me. The foreign children have grown old and have limped away from their paths.” ( Ps. xviii. 43–45 , LXX.) And again, “Those who had not been told about Him will see, and those who had not heard will understand.” ( Isa. lii. 15.) And, “I was found by those who did not seek Me” ( Isa. lxv. 1 ); “I made Myself known to those who did not ask about me.” ( Isa. lxv. 1, as quoted Rom. x. 20.) And Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, has said, “What then? Israel has not obtained what he seeks, but the elect have obtained it.” ( Rom. xi. 7.) And again, “What, then, should we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have attained righteousness; but Israel, who pursued the law of righteousness, has not attained the law of righteousness.” ( Rom. ix. 30–31.) It really is astonishing: they had been brought up in (knowledge of) the prophetic books; they heard Moses telling them every day countless things about the coming of the Christ, and the other prophets after him. Beyond that, they themselves saw Christ Himself working miracles among them daily, devoting His time to them alone. He did not yet allow His disciples to go among the Gentiles or enter a Samaritan city, nor did He do so Himself, but everywhere declared that He was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel ( Matt. x. 5 ). How, (I say), when they saw the signs, heard the Prophets, and had Christ Himself constantly reminding them, did they nevertheless make themselves blind and dull once and for all, so that none of these things brought them to faith in Christ? ( Matt. xv. 24.) Meanwhile, the Gentiles had enjoyed none of these things. They had never heard the words of God, not even, one might say, in a dream, but were always wandering among the fables of madmen, (for that is what pagan philosophy is,) always holding their poets’ foolish writings in their hands, nailed to wood and stone, with nothing good or sound either in their doctrines or in their way of life. (For their way of life was more impure and more accursed than their doctrine. That was only to be expected: when they saw their gods delighting in every kind of wickedness, worshiped with shameful words and still more shameful deeds, which they considered celebration and praise, and also honored with foul murders and the slaughter of children, how could they fail to imitate these things?) Still, although they had fallen to the very depths of wickedness, suddenly, as if lifted by some machine, they have appeared before us shining from on high, from the very summit of heaven. How, then, did this happen, and what caused it? Listen to Paul tell you. For that blessed man investigated these things carefully and did not stop until he had found the cause and explained it to everyone else. What, then, is it? And where did such blindness among the Jews come from? Listen to the man entrusted with this stewardship explain it. What does he say to resolve this question that troubles so many? ( 1 Cor. ix. 17.) “For they,” he says, “being ignorant of God’s righteousness and trying to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.” ( Rom. x. 3.) That is why they have suffered this. Again, explaining the same matter in other words, he says, “What, then, should we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have attained righteousness, even the righteousness that comes from faith; but Israel, who pursued the law of righteousness, has not attained the law of righteousness. Why? Because they did not seek it by faith. For they stumbled over that stumbling stone.” ( Rom. ix. 30, 32.) He means this: “These men’s unbelief caused their misfortunes, and their arrogance gave birth to their unbelief.” For previously they had enjoyed greater privileges than the pagans, through receiving the law, knowing God, and all the other things Paul lists. After Christ came, however, they saw the pagans called on equal terms with themselves through faith, and saw that once faith was received, a circumcised person had no advantage over a Gentile. They became envious, their arrogance stung them, and they could not bear the Lord’s indescribable and surpassing lovingkindness. So this has happened to them for no other reason than pride, wickedness, and unkindness. [2.] For how are you harmed by the care shown to others, you most foolish men? How are your blessings diminished by having others share them? But wickedness really is blind and cannot readily see anything it should. So, stung by the prospect of others sharing the same confidence before God, they drove a sword into themselves and cast themselves out of God’s lovingkindness. And rightly so. For He says, “Friend, I am doing you no wrong; I will give to ‘these also’ just as I give to you.” ( Matt. xx. 14.) Or rather, these Jews do not even deserve these words. For the man in the parable, though dissatisfied, could at least speak of a whole day’s labor and exhaustion, heat and sweat. But what could these men point to? Nothing like this, only laziness, debauchery, and countless evils that all the prophets continually accused them of, and by which they, like the Gentiles, had offended against God. Paul declares this when he says, “For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace.” ( Rom. x. 12; Rom. iii. 22–24.) Throughout that Epistle he discusses this subject very helpfully and wisely. But earlier in it he proves that they deserve still greater punishment. “For all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law” ( Rom. ii. 12 ); that is, more severely, since the law as well as nature accuses them. And not only for this reason, but because they have caused God to be blasphemed among the Gentiles: “My Name,” He says, “is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” ( Rom. ii. 24; Isa. lii. 5.) Now this was what stung them most. (For it seemed incredible even to the believers among the circumcised, and so, when Peter returned to them from Caesarea, they accused him of having “gone in to uncircumcised men and eaten with them” ( Acts xi. 3 ). Even after learning God’s plan, they still wondered how “the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also” ( Acts x. 45 ), showing by their astonishment that they could never have expected anything so incredible.) Since Paul knew that this touched their most sensitive point, see how he has deflated their pride and reduced their swollen arrogance. After discussing the pagans and showing that they had no excuse or hope of salvation from any source, and after firmly charging them both with the corruption of their doctrines and the impurity of their lives, he turns his argument to the Jews. He recounts all the Prophet’s statements describing them as polluted, treacherous, and hypocritical who had “all become useless,” with “no one” among them “who seeks God,” and who had “all gone astray” ( Rom. iii. 12 ), and other things like these. Then he adds, “Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world may become guilty before God.” ( Rom. iii. 19.) “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” ( Rom. iii. 23.) Why, then, do you put yourself above others, you who are a Jew? Why are you arrogant? Your mouth too has been silenced, your confidence too has been taken away, and you too have become guilty along with the whole world and, like everyone else, need to be justified freely. Surely, even if you had remained upright and had great confidence before God, you still should not have envied those who were to receive pity and be saved through His lovingkindness. It is the height of wickedness to be miserable over the blessings of others, especially when they receive them without any loss to you. If the salvation of others had harmed your own interests, your grief might have been understandable, though even then it would not have been reasonable for someone who had learned true wisdom. But if someone else’s punishment does not increase your reward, and his well-being does not diminish it, why do you grieve because he is freely saved? As I said, even if you were (one) of those approved by God, you should not be distressed at the salvation that comes to the Gentiles through grace. But when you, who are guilty before your Lord of the same things as they are and have yourself sinned, resent the good that comes to others and think so highly of yourself, as though you alone should share in grace, you are guilty not only of envy and arrogance but of extreme folly, and you may face all the severest torments. For you have planted within yourself the root of all evils: pride. That is why a wise man has said, “Pride is the beginning of sin” ( Ecclus. x. 13 ): that is, its root, its source, its mother. Through pride the first man created was banished from that happy home; through pride the devil who deceived him had fallen from his exalted position. Knowing from that fall that this sin was enough to cast someone down even from heaven itself, that accursed being used it when he tried to bring Adam down from such high honor. For by puffing him up with the promise that he would be like a God, he broke him and cast him down into the very depths of hell. For nothing estranges people from God’s lovingkindness and hands them over to the fire of the pit as much as the tyranny of pride. When it is present in us, our whole life becomes impure, even if we practice self-control, chastity, fasting, prayer, almsgiving, or anything else. For, as the wise man says, “Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord.” ( Prov. xvi. 5.) Let us, then, restrain this swelling of the soul; let us pull this mass of pride up by its roots, if we want to be clean and escape the punishment appointed for the devil. To learn that the proud must fall under the same punishment as that (wicked) one, listen to Paul: “Not a new convert, so that he does not become puffed up with pride and fall into the judgment and the snare of the devil.” What does “the judgment” mean? He means the same “condemnation,” the same punishment. How, then, does he say a person can avoid this dreadful thing? By reflecting on his own nature, the number of his sins, the greatness of the torments in that place, and the fleeting nature of the things that seem splendid in this world, no different from grass and fading faster than spring flowers. If we constantly stir up these thoughts within ourselves and remember those who have lived most uprightly, the devil, though he tries in ten thousand ways, will be unable to puff us up or even trip us at all. May the God of the humble, the good and merciful God, grant both you and me a broken and humbled heart. Then we will easily be able to set everything else right, to the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom and with whom, to the Father and the Holy Spirit, be glory forever and ever. Amen.