How often we catch ourselves thinking, when something happens that we, to put it mildly, do not like: 'Why is this happening to me?' Why did the Lord arrange everything this way, and if He did not arrange it, why did He allow it to happen? What did I do that now this has happened? And so on... But if we are to seek an answer to such a question, it should be formulated differently - beginning with the question 'For what purpose?' And then the answer is not far away: 'We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose' (Rom 8:28).

In addition, the apostle Paul directly warns Timothy in today's passage: 'All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted' (2 Tim 3:12). So it would seem that everything is sealed... But people believe and strive toward Christ not in order to be persecuted. People seek God and find communion with Him, and this becomes far more important than any surrounding problems. Persecutions, in Paul's words, are only a consequence of the desire for a godly life in Jesus. For as long as the whole world has not received the message about our Lord and the Lord Himself, there will remain people who do not acknowledge Him. And accordingly, they will not acknowledge those who follow Him.

What follows? What is alien is rejected, especially what 'condemns' us. But this 'condemnation' is of a different kind from the one we are used to. 'And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil; for everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light, so that his deeds may not be exposed' (John 3:19-20).

Today's passage offers us two images: the image of the scribes, who were used to honor and respect, and the image of a poor widow who gave to the Temple the last thing she had. At first glance, we have two different themes before us, with little connection to each other. And yet there is a connection between them, though it does not stand out at once. In essence, what is at issue here is wealth and poverty.

The point is not only that the "scribes," that is, the theologians and teachers of the Law, were usually people of means, which certainly cannot be said of the poor widow. In the Gospel, as in the Bible as a whole, poverty is considered first of all not as a material condition, but as a spiritual one. One of the greatest prophets of the Old Testament, Isaiah of Jerusalem, also considered himself "poor," even though he belonged to one of the finest aristocratic families of Jerusalem and was far from destitute. His followers as well, whom the Old Testament often calls "the poor," were apparently mostly people of moderate means. These people called themselves "poor" because they considered their only support in life to be not property and not social status, but God, to whom they entrusted themselves completely and without looking back, as though apart from God they truly had nothing else on which they could lean or grasp in a difficult moment.

And the poor widow, after giving to the Temple the last thing she had, acted in exactly the same way: her gift showed that she trusted God absolutely. It is different with those who gave only part of what they had: in that case another part of their savings remains, something they can always count on. Of course, such a gift also remains acceptable to God, but the fullness of trust is not yet there. The widow, by giving everything to God, showed Him precisely that full trust. It is just such poor people whom Jesus calls "blessed" in the Sermon on the Mount.

But wealth can be expressed not only in money or property. Knowledge, honor, social position: all of these are also a kind of wealth. And genuine Gospel poverty is impossible as long as the owner enjoys his wealth, which can take forms such as those seen in the scribes described in today's story, intoxicated by the signs of honor and respect shown to them by ordinary believers. The matter here, of course, is not knowledge or status in itself, nor even the sins that can be connected with it (the mention of "devouring widows' houses" in v. 40 is hardly accidental, especially considering that encroaching on the property of a widow or orphan is a direct violation of the Law that these people taught to others). The point is that knowledge and status obscure God for those who possess them, making them believe in something that is not actually there: their own righteousness and importance in God's eyes. And then one can hardly speak of the fullness of trust in God that Gospel poverty presupposes.

Speaking about the two commandments the Lord gave us in today's reading, one wants to pay attention to Christ's words about their likeness. At first they seem understandable: indeed, in both cases the matter is love. But let us think about this again. Love for God and love for a human being - how different these things are! We express love for God in prayer. We express love for a human being in labor. Every layperson (in the sense of someone who is not a monastic) who lives a life of prayer knows well that prayer takes time away from labor, and labor takes time away from prayer (especially if the labor is intellectual). That means these are two different principles standing in opposition to each other. Why, then, does the Lord speak of likeness? What does He put into these words?

Looked at from this side, these words cease to be a simple statement that in both cases the matter is love. In general, we must always be extremely careful when something in the word of God seems simple to us. Most often this is an apparent simplicity connected with the fact that we have not penetrated the text deeply enough. After all, the Lord had little time, and He understood this, so He could not waste it on obvious things. What, then, is the meaning here?

Perhaps what is being affirmed here is the ideal of likeness reaching the point of indistinguishability between labor and prayer. This is precisely what we must strive for: that prayer would be labor for us, hard labor, and that labor would be prayer for us. But of course this in no way means (as one often has to hear from secular, unchurched people who are accustomed to working much and intensely) that labor is prayer, a word by which they try to justify themselves before the Most High, dimly perceived by a soul that has not learned to love God.

It is precisely when we live in the tension between these two poles, labor and prayer, unconfused yet inseparable, so inseparable that they manifest a unity, that we fulfill God's commandment.