In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!
The Russian poet Sergei Yesenin once wrote these lines: “My friend! I was very, very ill. I do not know where this pain came from…” Like many talented people and sensitive souls, he felt the painful condition of his soul very deeply, but as a man consumed by the world, he did not know where this pain came from. For us, people who are at Church, it is often the opposite. We know where this pain comes from — we know about the Fall of Adam, about the corruption of our nature — but the very sense that we are sick escapes us. We live and behave as though everything is fine, as though we are healthy. But if I am healthy, then I have no need for Christ. “They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick,” says the Lord (Matt. 9:12). That is why we have spoken in such detail about our illnesses for many weeks now, repeating again and again: if we seek the salvation of the soul and eternal life, then we must be healed of our spiritual diseases.
Let us briefly review the material we’ve already covered. What are these illnesses? Above all, they are passions. There are eight of them: gluttony, fornication, love of money, anger, despondency, sorrow, vainglory, and pride. Through passions, the demons who bear the same names have power over us. The fruit brought forth by the passions is sin. And “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). Of course, if death is the result of physical illness, then with spiritual illness it is another matter entirely. A person who is spiritually ill is not merely in danger of dying from these illnesses in the future — he is already spiritually dead. For what else can the words “enter into life” (Matt. 19:17) mean, if not rising from the dead? That is why Christ does not speak only to the rich young man in today’s Gospel, but to each one of us: “If you want to enter into eternal life, keep the commandments” (Matt. 19:17) — that is: do not sin, for it is sin that causes death. However, it is impossible not to sin and to keep the commandments unless we first conquer the demons and heal the passions. Thus, everything is interconnected — not only in the area of our sicknesses, but also in the process of healing. The weapon against demons, as we’ve already said in a previous sermon, is prayer and fasting. The medicine for passions is divine virtues. And for sin — the commandments, about which we will say a few words today.
Hearing that keeping the commandments leads to eternal life, the young man wants to clarify which commandments are meant. And Christ lists them: “You shall not kill; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; honor your father and mother; and, you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 19:18–19). These are commandments concerning our neighbor. And when the young man says that he has kept all these, he then asks what more he must do. The Lord then answers with the first and highest commandment — love for God: “If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me” (Matt. 19:21). And then: “The young man went away sorrowful” (Matt. 19:22), because he could not part with everything for the sake of love for God.
My dear ones, just like this young man, we too are very far from love for God. Each of us can see this within himself when we stand for prayer. “Do not deceive yourselves,” says Elder Aimilianos, “if your mind is scattered during prayer, that means you do not love God — you love what your mind runs toward in its thoughts.” This is precisely what the Lord means when He says:
“With men this is impossible” (Matt. 19:26). But that does not mean we cannot enter eternal life. It turns out, we enter eternal life not through love for God, but through the simple and universally accessible love for our neighbor.
Let us leave love for God to the monastics — they will be held accountable for that. They left everything and followed Christ, as if having already ascended the height of righteous lay life and desiring more — desiring perfection. It is assumed they have already loved their neighbor as themselves, conquered the demons, and now stand before God in pure and undistracted prayer.
I say this with bitter irony, because we monks know how often the passions still act within us. I shudder to think what answer we shall give to the Lord at the Dread Judgment… But for you, the laity, it is simpler: it is enough for your salvation to overcome your egoism and devote yourselves to the service of your neighbor. The Church Fathers call the Church a spiritual infirmary, and if we establish domestic churches in our homes, they become not only places of prayer, but hospitals, where we must bear the infirmities of our neighbors, receive them as they are — spiritually sick, sinful, passionate, possessed by demons — and serve them as we would Christ Himself. To bandage their wounds. To comfort them. To lighten their inner torment. And not to take out our anger on them, not to scold them constantly, expecting them to behave like spiritually healthy and holy people. After all, we do not get angry at a bedridden patient for being unable to walk. So here too, we must deeply understand: not only are we spiritually sick, but our neighbor is also sick. And if we wish to correct and heal someone, let us begin with ourselves — let us fulfill the commandments, overcome the passions, and drive away the demons!
And for this, let us use the medicines which God offers us! The world also offers its “remedies” for the pain felt by the fallen human being: sinful and empty pleasures, drugs, alcohol — which, by the way, Yesenin also mentions further on in that same poem. But using these “medicines” never ends well — Sergei, like many other talented people, could not bear the pain and ended his life in suicide. May God have mercy on his soul! But let us choose life. Here are the remedies of God: prayer and fasting, acquiring virtues, and keeping the commandments. Let us at least fulfill the very smallest of the commandments — love for neighbor — and we shall enter life eternal. But let us fix this truth firmly in our memory: we will not be able to fulfill even a single commandment unless we first overcome our passions with the weapons of virtue. For the commandments are fulfilled through divine virtues — patience, mercy, humility, meekness, and so on. And where shall we get these virtues? Right — we will receive them as a gift from God. But this gift, God gives to those who labor and ask — that is, to those who fast and pray. The Dormition Fast has ended, but Wednesdays and Fridays remain. Constant temperance remains. And the ever-present, unceasing prayer remains. Let us not forget this! So then: if we do not at least loosen the grip of the demons, by which they hold our soul through the passions, we will not succeed in this labor…
Lord, help us! Amen.