Fallen humanity tends to hope in the magical power of the word. Even in prehistoric antiquity, when pronouncing a word, naming something, the human being was sure that one could influence the thing named. Later this attitude was transferred to people and to gods. It was believed that by a word one could compel not only a person, but even a god or spirit, to do what the one pronouncing the word needed. Spells could be laid on gods and spirits, forcing them to serve a human being.

Of course, Yahwism, just like later Judaism, always had a sharply negative attitude toward magic and all magical practices, including incantations. But deep in the subconscious, even among religious people, confidence in the magical power of the word continued to live. And if in pagan antiquity it gave rise to the magical practice of spells, then in Yahwist life, as indeed in Jewish life and later in Christian life, it gave rise to the practice of solemn sacred oaths and doctrinal declarations. Publicly and solemnly proclaim the Nicene Creed, and you are "Orthodox." Just as publicly and solemnly swear eternal loyalty to Jesus, and you are a "Christian." And if the oaths are repeated again and again, if declaring one's "faith" becomes a profession, then no doubts remain at all: surely God cannot leave such activity without attention, surely the Savior will not turn away from those who have spoken so many words, perhaps even very correct ones, in His defense!

But it turns out that He can leave them without attention. He can also turn away. For Jesus needs neither advocates nor brilliant orators playing with words; He needs witnesses of the Kingdom, and that is something very different.

Most Christians usually understand the question of the narrow and broad way in the context of everything Jesus said about persecutions against His followers and, more generally, about resisting the evil in which the world lies. Meanwhile, this image also has a wider semantic context. Indeed, any road, whether a multilane highway or a narrow path, always and by definition involves limitation. The absence of "narrowness," and therefore of boundaries, can mean only one thing: complete tracklessness, the absence of a way. And this is true not only of a physical way, but also, and even more, of a spiritual way. Choosing a certain spiritual path and stepping onto it, we thereby cut ourselves off from the possibility of taking some other path at the same time. It is impossible to walk two paths at once. And the path becomes narrower the more clearly its spiritual quality is defined.

Here the matter is not so much external as internal. The quality of a person's life, of that person's existence, becomes more and more definite; in other words, the quality of the person's soul in the biblical sense of the word. The soul is that stream of life that flows through us and in which we ourselves abide. The quality of this stream determines what our life will be: how much of it will be spiritual and how much natural; how much will be our will following God's commandments, and how much will be chance and automatism, inevitable where there is no awareness of one's own intentions, decisions, and actions, and no relating of them to the commandments given by God. And if a person walks the way of the Kingdom, sharing more and more in its life, then the quality of that person's soul becomes more and more spiritually defined.

And along with this, the way becomes narrower and narrower. For in gaining definiteness and form, it inevitably gains clear boundaries. Inner quality is unthinkable without form, and form does not exist without limits. The absence of boundaries and form also means the absence of quality, and without it life in the Kingdom is impossible, for there everything is utterly clear and distinct, just as God's will is clear and distinct. And everything is present in fullness, in the same fullness in which the breath of God abides, penetrating the Kingdom.

The desire for firmness, for a reliable ordering of life, belongs to almost every person. To a significant degree, many of our opinions and actions are explained by this desire. As Matthew concludes the account of the Sermon on the Mount, he includes in it today's parable of the houses built on sand and on rock: in it the Lord speaks precisely about this firmness of life.

This parable sounds like a kind of conclusion to the whole Sermon on the Mount. Some Protestants like to call the Bible an instruction manual for human life, and we see that this view is not without foundation. The whole Sermon on the Mount speaks of what is needed in order to be alive in the true sense of the word. And the concluding parable emphasizes that it is about real life, the kind no calamity can collapse.

This does not mean that there will be no calamities, but a person who lives by Christ's word and fulfills this word is stronger than any adversity. Moreover, by Christ's victory we become stronger with Him than death itself. Even hardships appear for such a person not as a depressing, oppressive accident, but as the way of the cross by which we can follow God.