Sermon on the 11th Sunday after Pentecost [2012]
My Beloved,
A Gospel [Mt.18, 23-35] for times… determinative. For times when we do not know what will happen to us, as will be…
The penultimate from this liturgical year 2011-2012…
A Gospel for times of the crisis, of the judgment. Or of „reckoning in word” as the saying goes at Mt. 18, 23.
For judgment is a decision, an explanation of things, an impartment of life…and at the judgment of the Lord must have word. You must be a word.
And we, His servants, will be judged by Him for the thoughts, for the desires of the heart, for our actions, whether this is about facts or about stopping acts.
Because you can do wrong…but, in the same time, you can to abstain from doing well…
And the good undone is all a harm. All a sin…
And the Lord judges us deep, profound…and not judge us human. Not duplicitous. Not after beautiful eyes…but after truth.
A judgment with mercy, namely with love. Given account of our infirmities and of social context of our lives.
But life, our life has a price, has a weight…which give our works.
And therefore we have a parable in the face… with two ofileti/ debtors.
The difference between mirion talanton/ ten thousand talents (v. 24) and ecaton dinaria/ one hundred dinars (v. 28)…is an image between excessive of much…and very little.
A talanton was equivalent to 5-6000 dinars.
And, on short, the question is this: how enjoy you that you are forgiven excessively…but you do not want to forgive not very, very little?
How are you so pagan at heart, you, the Orthodox, who has been forgiven by God so many times?
How to become tyrant/ judge ruthless, without scruple…if you were forgiven…so much…by the Lord, our God?
Dule ponire! (v. 32)/ Servant of evil/ wicked… is the addressing of the Lord to one who has been forgiven and does not forgive.
For that there are moments in life in which the forgiveness means the greatest need of someone.
And when you forgive…you understand…
You understand the need of other for liberty.
Must take his stone from the heart…
And if he wants to forgive him…it means that he made a mistake. Did wrong at hard…
But the Lord tells us today, through this Evangel: that we do not forgive as He has forgiven us. As He forgives us…
And that the forgiveness multiplied and in us the liberty, namely the beauty of the grace.
He, who asks our forgiveness…he needs of our word…after how and we need the smile of His grace.
But for to reach at the conscience to apologize…you need to grow in spiritual life.
Only he who purifies the passions cares for forgiveness.
He seeks God’s forgiveness and men’s forgiveness.
For the seek of the forgiveness is an ascesis…a self-defeating…an understanding of error. A life full of errors that you had…
Because of that you look forgiveness, because you have come to the awareness that you have to straighten. You have to get out of bad…for good.
And repentance, in its content, has, from itself, and this theological dimension of the economy of God with the world. For that you look…all from the perspective of what God has done for the world.
What Christ has done for us…for our salvation?
And, suddenly, from the beginning of the world until now…you understand the work of God to the world. That everything is for man…all preparing for His incarnation, incarnation and life full of pain, of suffering and death for us…for that to break with His death our death.
You assume all the hard, all the suffering of the Lord for the world…
Namely you consent the fact that everything He has done for the world…He made and for you…
From here, you, who repent, you realize that you crucified on Christ. That you grieved on Him through your sins.
That for you, the too-sinful man, He came and died…that life you have.
And from here, from this deep understanding of His economy for us, each of us has awareness that we are debtors to Him…
We are debtors sold Him…too His great love.
Infinite…and groundbreaking His love…
We, each of us…we are the debtors of the Lord…
Therefore He makes judgment always…and will make…with us, those who do not appreciate His forgiveness, His love, His patience with us…
He reckons with us in word…
Just therefore the conscience reproves us: for that He judges with us! He draws us at liability.
And we are full of shame in the face of Him… for that all know our infirmities…the precipice of passions…
Yes, at end of ecclesiastical year…
For that we do not have consciousness that „we have fought spiritually”…that we have made the sea with the salt…that we are „clean”…
But, the contrary, to see the shame of our face, the depth of heart, what we cannot do…what we cannot forgive…
And it’s a great weakness that you cannot forgive…
You need more theology…and much good sense…but and much suffering…to forgive…
To forgive from the heart (v. 35).
To forgive with understanding…
For that is not about the forgiveness from mouth…but of the forgiveness that frees you from yourself. That you free of which you were yesterday…of which you were today…
And school of forgiveness is immense…
I knew, in my short life, people who have learned with hard to forgive…
That have not forgiven for what they did. Who ate wounds until death…
But and people who have found peace through forgiveness…through reconciliation with God and with men.
I was dismayed by some, those who could not and cannot forgive, ie those who do not know how is to be another…and I learned from the joy and the liberty of those whom God delivered them through beauty.
For that the forgiveness is much beauty.
Is the filling of much beautiful conscience.
Thus we are called to a spiritual heroism: at the clock of the inner sincerity.
We prefer the chains or the humbleness?
We see our stupidity, immorality and the callousness from heart…or we are „most angels” on earth?
We want to be fooled, on every day, of devils…or we want high-minded, clean, quiet…more quiet on every day?
This is the choice!
This is the calling of end of liturgical year!
And we must give the answer in us…for that there arises forgiveness…the acceptance of others… for that we accept ourselves in the first row.
We accepted that and we need of inner freedom as others. Amen!