NOTES for Mat 5:33-37

The abolition of the principle of equal retribution, of which the Lord speaks in today's passage from the Sermon on the Mount, marks a fundamentally new stage in the spiritual evolution of humanity. In antiquity, in the era when the Law of Moses proclaimed 'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,' the world was still ruled by the principle of Lamech, who killed a young man for a wound and a man for a scratch. Against that background the rule of equal retribution became the height of civilization and mercy. But the time came when even it ceased to be the highest spiritual achievement: the Lord calls us to renounce vengeance altogether.

Usually interpretation of this call is based on the Old Testament words of God that only He has the right to vengeance and recompense. But the Lord Himself says nothing about this. He does not promise, 'God will avenge you,' but directly commands, 'Renounce revenge; do not resist the evil one.' And this means that in these words we again hear a call to the way of the Cross.

The Lord says to us today: do not swear at all. What kind of oaths are being discussed here? Perhaps the first thing that comes to mind is Herod's seemingly innocent oath (Mark 6:6-14), which turned out to be so terribly sinister when it was carried out. But is that all that is meant here?

Let us turn to the parallel passage from the book of Numbers. "If anyone makes a vow to the Lord, or swears an oath, binding himself by a pledge, he must not break his word, but must do everything that has come out of his mouth" (Num. 30:3). Here, on the contrary, the subject is a pious custom. And what about us? Do we also have similar "pious customs"?

Of course we do, even though more than 2,000 years have passed since Christ forbade us to do this. Very often today one can read, even in texts by contemporary hierarchs, that for Great Lent, for example, in addition to bodily abstinence, one should take on various pledges: not to watch television, to reread the Four Gospels, to be more affectionate with one's parents, and so on. All of this is a lie offered to oneself and to God. Every day must be lived as if the aorta could rupture; every day can become the last both for you and for the whole world, and that does not depend on whether the day falls during Great Lent or during the Easter season. Against that background, all vows and pledges are foolish.

Father Georgy Chistyakov, rector of the Church of the Protection at the Russian Children's Clinical Hospital, once recalled how he came to his ministry. "And at some point I understood: since none of the priests had begun working here regularly, then I must be the one to do it. I cannot say now exactly when it became clear to me that I had to be involved in this. I did not make any vow, I did not experience any illumination. It happened very simply, naturally, one might say without my participation, without the participation of our parishioners, my friends - everything happened apart from us."

Christ's words about love for enemies provoke perhaps more debate and more attempts at interpretation than anything else. Some reject them, defending their right to revenge and hatred of the enemy, while others, on the contrary, respond with the ideology of pacifism and nonresistance. But it seems that in both cases the driving force is the desire to secure oneself, to establish one's own invulnerability before the enemy - either by force or by indifference. The Gospel offers precisely a behavior built not on the pursuit of one's own safety, not on withdrawal into oneself, but on an active response to the offender: "bless, do good, pray..." And the point, it seems, is not pacifism and not the ability to endure pain and bear insults, but a far more difficult art - the ability to love.

Today's passage shows how seriously God takes us. Here Jesus speaks about what He would like us to be, without making any allowances for our weakness or infirmity. And as we honestly read these words, all we can do is be crushed: "I cannot do this. And I cannot do that. And I cannot do this either." So we read all the way to the last, forty-eighth verse, and almost with relief exhale: "Well, there, I told you I cannot!"

But, of course, here is also the answer to all our "I cannot." Only God can be perfect, and Christ's whole call to us is this: "Make room for God in your life, and it will become perfect!"

“Your righteousness must exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees”—these words were probably received like a proposal to drink the sea or leap higher than one’s own head. The scribes and Pharisees were precisely the people who paid special attention to righteousness: they tried to fulfill every religious prescription so as to please, by their life and conduct, the God who had given people the Law. Yet these words were addressed to Jesus’ disciples, among whom were people of limited understanding, weak people, people of doubtful reputation—in a word, sinners. And they were supposed to live more righteously than the “specialists” in right living! Perhaps this obvious moral dead end was meant to transform fundamentally His listeners’ whole understanding of the world. God cannot be pleased by our wretched righteousness; in His eyes, irritation or a lustful look at another man’s wife is as much a crime as murder or adultery. He does not count our sins and good deeds—it is useless, because a relationship with Him is not a trade. Clearly, Christ’s disciples must live differently, in a new way, as the salt of the earth and the light of the world. They must become a place of God’s presence on earth.