NOTES for Mat 10:16-42

The words that the disciples are sent out as sheep among wolves may recall the popular worldly principle, "When you live with wolves, howl like a wolf." But no, we have not been given a commandment to turn into wolves. And yet how can we avoid becoming wolves without also becoming eaten?

Like much of what the Lord has revealed to us, these words of Christ are paradoxical. But behind this paradox stands a reality confirmed by the experience of spiritual life: if we want to rely on human strength alone and intend to become equal to the wolves, we risk rejecting the help of the Heavenly Father. This may give us some temporary advantages, but degradation will inevitably follow. And conversely, what people are used to considering a manifestation of weakness may turn out to be not only a manifestation, but also a source of strength.

Christ warns of the inevitability of persecution, and it will come not only from obvious enemies; many of the dearest and closest will also become enemies. In such circumstances it is hard to preserve love for one's neighbor, but this is precisely what the Lord wants from us, calling us not to become like the persecutors. All the more so because in a number of cases love for neighbors and love for enemies mean love for the same people...

Among the things Christ promised, especially astonishing is the promise that the Spirit of the Father will speak in us in difficult moments. Meanwhile, many Christians who have gone through trials confirm the truth of these words. And this is practical confirmation of the truth of the Gospel.

Today the Lord speaks to us about how to die for another, how to die for the faith, and therefore for Him. But has it been granted to us to die for Him? No one persecutes our faith; we are free - does this mean that we have no share in martyrdom? Here is what the poet and preacher John Donne writes in the "Litany" dedicated to the martyrs:

And when You so irresistibly
Strove to die, even before it was granted You,
And afterward, when it was no longer granted You to die again,
You, in Your generously scattered mystical body, desired
To die in Abel, and yet
In Yourself. Let their body be
For our forgiveness, by meaningful acceptance
Of death, or rather, of life: for behold, there are those
For whom not to be a martyr is martyrdom.

We really are free - but if it is torment for us not to be martyrs, if love for God and people is so strong in us that everything within burns with the desire to lay down our life "for our friends," then by our life we partake of their death.

For most of us the grim picture Christ describes is something remote. Some may remember that persecution did indeed soon descend upon the Christians and that everything happened exactly as the Lord had foretold: Christians—people who bear the name of Christ (see Matt. 10:22)—were persecuted, tortured, and executed. They also very often encountered incomprehension among those close to them... Some may remember the martyrs of the twentieth century, who passed through the same grief and pain. But few of us have personally experienced anything similar. And this is something to regret. For the Lord addresses these words of warning not only to the Twelve, but to all of us. He calls us the light of the world (see Matt. 5:14), yet this “light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5). Christians are people who stand on the boundary between this world and eternity. Our position is very dangerous: the world did not know our Teacher (see John 1:10), and it does not love us either. Yet we have gradually grown accustomed to coexisting with the world and have learned to compromise. We will have to answer for this “lukewarmness” of ours (see Rev. 3:14-16)... Therefore it might perhaps be better for us if we were threatened by some danger, persecution, or oppression, because it is in extreme situations that the steadfastness of convictions and relationships is tested—the strength of faith and of our bond with God.

The Christian life is full of risks and dangers, as Jesus warns His disciples. And the greatest, deadliest dangers come from those closest to us. Yet in this life we can also experience what is most beautiful and precious: the presence of the Son of Man with us and the action of the Spirit of God within us, bearing witness to the greatness and glory of the Father.

When appointing the apostles to their ministry, the Lord also tells them of the fate that awaits them. His words sound like a grim prophecy or instructions before a military campaign. We are accustomed to seeing a certain flavour of pink syrup in Christianity. It was this flavour that an exotic thinker of the nineteenth century had in mind when he called religion the opium of the people. There is no point denying it: saccharine bombast and ignorant mysticism truly poison a considerable part of Christian culture.

There is nothing remotely saccharine in the Gospel as a whole, or in Christ’s words read today. He says that the world lying in evil will meet Christ’s witnesses with hatred, not only “organized” hatred coming from the authorities, but personal hatred coming from those closest to them. History has seen many attempts to soften the severity of these words, but all were unsuccessful and benefited neither Christians nor societies that claimed to be Christian ad nominem (for the most part, those were unpleasant empires that eventually collapsed beneath the weight of their hypocrisy).

Perhaps the most important thing in this passage is not even Christ’s warning that His true witnesses are intolerably inconvenient to the “respectable” world, to the point of hatred and death. In practice, what matters to us is His promise to the disciples that the Holy Spirit would be present and active within them. And acquiring the Holy Spirit, as St Seraphim put it with genius, is the purpose of the Christian life.

The wisdom of the serpent and the simplicity of the dove are a paradoxical combination even at a first, quick glance. It becomes still more paradoxical on closer consideration. The matter here is evidently the very serpent that tempted the first people in the Garden of Eden. It is he who is called "wise" in the biblical story of the fall. Or, more precisely, "prudent," "cautious" - this is exactly what the corresponding Hebrew word in the story means. Just as does the Greek word from the Savior's speech addressed to the apostles.

The same "prudence" is also characteristic of a wise person - at least this is what is said about the wise in the Book of Proverbs. Translators call the serpent "crafty," but when the same word refers to a person, they most often call this person "prudent," and sometimes, as in our Gospel passage, even "wise."

But the point is evidently not definitions. In essence the matter concerns one and the same thing: the ability to see the world as it is. With all its pluses and minuses. With all its possibilities, even those that can be used for evil. The ability to distinguish white and black, light and darkness. And to understand the logic of the action both of the forces of light and of the forces of darkness. At least so as not to be deceived about those who have chosen the side of darkness. But this knowledge alone is not enough. The serpent who tempted the first people also had such knowledge. In itself it does not yet save from evil.

What is also needed is the wholeness and purity, precisely these qualities are designated by the corresponding Greek word, of the turtledove, the woodland dove, the only bird suitable for every sacrifice, including a cleansing one. That wholeness which will allow one to make a choice and a decision relying not on the wisdom of this world, so well known to the one choosing, but on the will of God. And that purity which allows one, while seeing all the evil of the world as it is, not to look back at it at all when the matter concerns God's work.

The prudence of this world is useful when analyzing a situation, but it becomes spiritually destructive when one must make a choice and decisions by following God's will, decisions corresponding to the Torah and the Gospel. The Kingdom of God is reality, not a pious fantasy or religious symbol, and therefore the one who seeks it must be a realist. But his realism must not be limited only to the realities of the fallen world, as often happens with the realists of this world. Then the Kingdom too will become reality for such a person, a real goal that can be reached.

What does Jesus mean? And why, one might think, not prepare in advance, not think through at least in general terms what will have to be said when one has to testify before the authorities? God, of course, will help in a critical situation, but it would not be useless for a person himself to think through and formulate his own views and convictions, would it?

If the matter were views and convictions, then perhaps that would be exactly right. If Christianity were some new teaching, new religion, new theology, or new ethical system, then this teaching would have to be defended like any teaching, with arguments in hand, preferably with a clear and preplanned outline, or at least with ready answers to the most probable questions.

But the point is that Christianity is not a new teaching but a new life: life with Christ in the Kingdom He brought into the world. Of course, one can tell about this life just as about any other, but words alone are not enough here: behind them must stand real experience of that very life, so that the listener understands that the speaker really knows what he is talking about. And for this, the life of which the witness speaks must be a reality for him himself, a reality being lived at the very moment when he bears witness to it.

Such speech, of course, cannot be prepared in advance in any way. The breath of the heavenly Father, the breath of the Kingdom, is always unpredictable. One can never say for certain what it will reveal in a minute. Such is the life of the Kingdom in general, and only in this way can one speak about it.

The point is not that in a critical situation it is difficult to speak and therefore the direct participation of the Father, the Savior, the immediate sense of the breath of the Kingdom is needed at that moment. It is needed not only then; it is always needed. Testimony before authorities is only a particular case of testimony in general. But the probability of spiritual failure in a critical situation is, of course, higher. Therefore a Christian especially needs here what he actually needs constantly. And the Savior reminds the disciples listening to Him of this simple truth, the truth that a true witness of the Kingdom is not the one who speaks about the Kingdom, but the one through whom the breath of the Kingdom speaks. And the voice of the Father.

Jesus encourages the disciples in the face of future persecutions. But in fact this promise of His applies not only in such critical situations, but in every case of testimony to Christ. In Christ God fully reveals Himself to people, and therefore testimony to Him is God's work, which can be done soundly only by His power, that is, by the Holy Spirit. But like every promise of God, it is realized not without human participation: in order for the Spirit to speak in us, we must let Him in, so that He abides in us. As we see, once again Christian life turns out to be not a matter of "what we should do," but of "what we should be." If we are with God and He is with us, then any testimony to Him becomes natural, like breathing.

Christ's words, foretelling imminent persecutions and encouraging believers, may at first glance call to mind the way adherents are "pumped up" in totalitarian sects: "We alone are right, and everyone else is foolish. Therefore they will beat us, but we will stand firm because we are right, and for this we will receive a reward. And we cannot be wrong, because that can never happen." Or something in the same spirit...

There is, however, one essential difference between what Jesus says and what people may say. It lies precisely in who is speaking, because only Christ's words are backed by genuine truth. Only God Himself can truly promise anything, because only His promises are unshakable.

Although our reward is invisible, our patience is all the more precious, for "if someone sees, why does he still hope?" (Rom 8:24). And if Christ says that nothing will happen to us apart from the will of our Father, then we can be sure it is so. For everyone understands, and many of us know from our own experience, that God truly cares for us: even if we are walking down the street and no brick falls on us, there is every reason to see in that a gift from God...

In these days, during the fast dedicated to the memory of the holy apostles, it is entirely natural to read in small portions chapter 10 of the Gospel of Matthew, where the Lord sends the disciples out to preach and gives them instructions. But both this fast itself and the words Christ speaks to the disciples are important for all Christians, because what was said to the apostles in one degree or another necessarily applies to all members of the Church.

In the passage we read today, the Lord calls His disciples to become like the Teacher, saying that this is enough, sufficient for them. But this also applies to all of us, the disciples of His disciples. And Christ tells the disciples that the hostility of the fallen world is a kind of touchstone: if the disciples follow the Teacher, then they too will meet this resistance. But as one contemporary saint said, if you feel resistance, it means you are moving forward.

But a human being was created to be together with other people. Therefore our heart finds it burdensome to experience this resistance, and therefore we so easily join crowds, even for some act of meanness, just to feel like fish in a school, moving together with everyone else. And the world's resistance awakens in us doubts about the correctness of the path we have chosen. Therefore Christ tells the disciples that the Truth revealed to them will in the end become manifest, and that they should fear only betraying it. It is important for us to hear this, because the world's resistance to Christ's disciples does not become weaker, though it changes forms.

Speaking about witness and how those around a witness will treat them, Jesus compares that treatment with the way people treat the members of the household of someone accused of every sin. He says that a servant is not above his master. In this way, the Saviour wants to emphasize again and again that the persecution of His followers is no accident but a regular consequence; the world rejects Him not because it has failed to understand or see something, but because, lying in evil, it needs neither Christ nor the Kingdom. Witnesses therefore have no reason to conceal anything, leave things unsaid, or hide. What they speak about is unacceptable not because it is too complicated or too difficult. If that were the case, the situation could indeed be softened by concealing during the witness something that provokes the greatest resistance or rejection. But the very essence of Christianity, the person of the Messiah, and the image of the Kingdom are what provoke rejection in this case. Clearly, then, trying to “ease” or “simplify” the witness so as to make it more acceptable to a world lying in evil means in practice distorting that witness or abandoning it altogether, replacing it with something else—for example, the preaching of some new religion or new morality. Unfortunately, this has happened more than once in the history of different churches, but one must admit that such preaching has no direct relation to what Jesus is speaking about. To preach without hiding, however, one must set one’s spiritual and practical priorities correctly from the outset. From the outset one must accept and experience the reality of the Kingdom and its life as the sole reality that determines one’s own life, as something for which one does not regret surrendering the semblance of life that the fallen world allows us to have. Readiness to part with that semblance for the sake of true life, the life of the Kingdom in all its fullness, is the necessary condition for open witness. The point is not only that persecution of witnesses sometimes ends in their martyrdom, but also that without experience of this full life, the life of the Kingdom, it is impossible to bear witness to the Kingdom; even if it is possible, such witness will not be complete. Jesus calls His disciples and followers to live this full life of the Kingdom, without fear and without looking back.

Living on earth can be frightening enough as it is, and if we apply to ourselves Christ's words addressed to the apostles, it becomes deeply unsettling. That is why the words "do not be afraid" are repeated so often and so seriously in the instruction. Fear is one of the strongest human experiences, which means it can be overcome only by something even stronger. The Lord points the disciples to these "powerful remedies": trust and, strangely enough, fear.

The trust in question is not simply faith that "God will always help," but the deepest, most fundamental confidence that everything is in His hands, from the little birds sold in the market for copper coins to every human life and death. And the second is the fear of God: not fear of punishment, not even fear of sin, but precisely "fear" before God, reverence and awe that make God immeasurably more real and significant for us than any other fears.

At first the words that a disciple cannot become greater than his teacher can appear to limit his possibilities. But if we take into account that to become like the teacher is already no small thing, and that not everyone is able to become equal to him, then here we can see a call to growth. If the matter is discipleship to Christ, then the call to become like the Teacher reveals to us His special attitude toward those who follow Him. For the matter concerns the high level to which Christ intends to raise fallen humanity - He wants to deify us.

And even in the stern words of warning that Christ will deny the one who denies Him, we can see how highly He has placed the human person. For relationships are implied here that almost make one think of equality...

Of course, it would be enormous insolence on such a basis to forget reverence before His majesty and to introduce familiarity into relations with Him. He did not become one of human beings so that we would bring into spiritual life what is "human, all too human," that is, in the words of one author, "always something animal." But what draws us near to God is a gift that imposes responsibility.

Many times, when God addresses people, He begins with the words "Do not be afraid!" And now Jesus encourages His disciples in the same way. They are to preach "from the housetops" and bear witness to their Teacher. Is it frightening? It is! But fear departs when love comes, because "there is no fear in love" (1 Jn 4:18). Love the Father, who cares for you so deeply, and everything will become possible.

People are characterized by fear of the unknown, the hidden. One can try to prepare in advance for something known; in any case, it is clear what to expect from it. Hidden danger is always sudden and unpredictable; it is impossible to "lay down straw" and somehow soften undesirable consequences. And this is natural. Only this naturalness does not mean rightness before God; it comes from human nature distorted by the fall, from the habit of living in distrust and, consequently, in fear. Fear is the basic state of the fallen human soul, and a person fears not only real dangers but imaginary ones as well. At the same time imaginary dangers are always more frightening, because they are inevitably "hidden," since only realities can be known.

It is no accident that God, in practically every contact with people, says: "Do not be afraid." He calls us to trust, because there is no fear in trust. After all, the most incomprehensible One for a person is God Himself. If anyone is to be feared, then only Him, not some of His creatures and their "secret conspiracies." But in Christ God reveals Himself as true love; therefore even He should not be feared, but loved, and with reverence and trembling one should seek the meeting.

"...Even the hairs of your head are all numbered..." What does this mean? No one dies apart from the Father's will, but does this mean that those who die die by His will? This is a very difficult question, and the abyss of unbelief lies very close here. But it can be avoided if we trust our heart and the Word of God.

Priest Georgy Chistyakov writes in his work "Martyrdom as a Phenomenon":

"To endure September 11, the almost daily explosions in Israel, and other horrors. Or does He behave the way a strict teacher sometimes does? No, that too is impossible! If God is merciless, then Job's wife is indeed right when she advises him to curse God and die. How can one not remember Voltaire here? 'How could God create this terrible cesspool of misfortunes and crimes? It is supposed,' says Voltaire, 'that God is powerful, just, and good, while we see madness, injustice, and malice on every side. Therefore people prefer denying God to cursing Him.' At the same time Voltaire himself believed in God, although he said that he preferred to believe in a God who was not almighty and was limited in His possibilities, but good. [...]

Yet despite everything, and above all despite what is obvious, we somehow feel God's presence in the world. [...] We feel this precisely, not knowing it, and understand not with the mind but with the heart, that the Lord shares with us every misfortune of ours in all its fullness. He is with us where things are bad. And this is the main thing. Descending with us as if into hell, into the depths of our misery and despair, He also leads us out of those depths, giving us wisdom and patience. As this is depicted on the Paschal icon 'The Savior's Descent into Hades'..."

How are we to understand this? We are fully entitled to ask. Not peace, but a sword? What, then, of “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you” (Jn 14:27)? Or “Go in peace” (Lk 7:50; Lk 8:48)? Or “Peace be with you” (Jn 20:26)? Did Christ not bring peace? Did He not promise to give rest to all who labour and are heavy laden? Should God not give peace?

First, God owes nothing to anyone. As the apostle Paul says, “It depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy” (Rom 9:16). Yes, His words may contradict one another, but only at first sight. After all, God knows a little better than we do what He is saying and how all His words can form a single picture. The question is: how can He bring both “peace” and “not peace”? Quite simply. Notice that He gives and promises peace not to the whole world, but specifically to those with whom He has some relationship: His disciples, the woman who was healed... Fellowship with Christ truly brings them peace. But what about the others? What about the surrounding world?

Imagine an adult giving a child a sweet. The child is happy, but his happiness only arouses envy and resentment in the other children around him: he was given one, but I was not. The other child can then either withdraw into his grievance or demand the same sweet, instead of asking the giver calmly and politely, without asserting a supposed right to it, for the giver probably has sweets for everyone. So it is with God. A “you give me this, and I will give you that” arrangement does not work with Him. A different principle operates: “in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of Him who calls” (Rom 9:11-12). God is free to give peace, and He desires peace for everyone, but far from everyone comes to Him for peace and asks for it. Hence the sword: people who make no effort to understand God cut themselves off from His gifts.

How should we understand Jesus' words about household members who become enemies? One can, of course, see in them a reference to a fairly ordinary family conflict, when people living under one roof differ so much in views and worldview that they become ideological enemies. But there would be nothing special or unusual in that; it has happened in every age and for many different reasons. Meanwhile, Jesus' words clearly receive their meaning only in the context of everything He said about the Kingdom. Here the matter is no longer a question of worldview or ideological disagreements, but of something far more serious.

What, in fact, can one expect if one tries to combine under one roof life according to the laws of the Kingdom and life according to the laws of this world? Clearly, nothing except conflict, and a conflict almost impossible to resolve. When the matter concerns ideological or worldview disagreements, it is still possible to look for some compromises, mutual concessions, and, in the end, mutual acceptance. But the Kingdom and the world that lies in evil are in no way compatible, and here no other ties or relationships will save the situation, not even ties of blood.

Moreover, blood ties can turn out in this case to be the main problem, since they are perhaps the strongest natural tie possible in human relationships. But their nature remains part of the untransformed world; in its untransformed form it by no means brings the people bound by them closer to the Kingdom, but instead only leads them away from it.

Paradoxically, open conflict and even a break in this case can be more spiritually useful than a situation of ambiguous peace, full of things left unsaid and fraught with daily low-grade conflicts. Only when everyone living under one roof has made the Kingdom their chief goal can the situation change radically and family ties become part of the relationships of the Kingdom. But these ties will no longer be based on blood kinship, but on spiritual kinship.

In the passage from the Gospel according to Matthew that we read today, the Lord says two things that are important for our understanding of holiness. First, a disciple of Christ is someone for whom the Lord Himself and the confession of Him matter more than anything else in life; someone ready to lose everything, even his own soul—that is, his life—for Christ. Neither deeds nor spiritual or other achievements, nothing makes a person Christ's disciple except the concentration of his entire life around one center, the “one thing needful”—Christ.

No less important are the final verses of chapter 10: the Lord speaks of how the holiness of His disciples is expressed. It is the ability to receive other people and do good to them. The scale of the good deed is entirely unimportant—even if you can do nothing but give a cup of cold water to someone who is thirsty, you will not lose your reward. The holiness of Christ's disciples is expressed precisely in their attitude toward people; everything else is beside the point.

Of course, in today's Gospel reading, the words of Christ that draw the most attention are those saying that whoever loves his household more than God is not worthy of God. First, they concern everyone without exception, and second, one immediately wants to test oneself by them. Besides, these words often provoke a fairly decisive protest in us, because we are used to treating home as a fortress and considering close relatives the only safe and reliable circle. And Christ's words deprive us of this illusory security and call us to be open to the world. This is difficult, and therefore the human being does not like it.

But it is important to consider the Lord's words about relatives in the context of the whole Gospel passage, more precisely, of the whole second half of chapter 10. The Lord calls the disciples to confess their faith before people without fear. Then He says that in relationships characteristic of this world in its fallen state, the disciples' faith will inevitably meet resistance. This concerns relationships not only with authorities, but with people in general. This very resistance largely explains why the path of following Christ is the way of the cross. And this word of Christ ends with a call to the disciples to build their relationships with people not by the standards of this world, but to receive one another for God's sake.

"And whoever gives one of these little ones only a cup of cold water..." Only a cup of cold water... These are very important words. Goodness has no measure. "For God gives the Spirit without measure" (John 3:34). It is bitter for us to see how immeasurably smaller the good we do is than the burning of our heart, than our thirst to embrace the whole world with our love and make everyone happy. If we suffer too much over this, then our suffering is supplied by pride, which has pushed some people into terrible crimes in similar situations. And here before us there is only a cup of cold water...

To give, or more precisely to give a thirsty person water to drink each time, may be no less precious to God than all the apologetic theological treatises written over the past 2,000 years taken together. For goodness has no measure. Only evil has a measure.

It obviously results from these words that we should not love any Man more than God. Does it mean that we should love God more that Men? I don’t think so! I think these words are saying we should stop perceiving love as something we can talk in terms of “more-less”. Who do I really love more: my father, my mother or my daughter? Foolish question, because I love each of them differently. Here is one question again, who does he Heavenly Father love more: His only-begotten Son or me? His Son? Then why He sends Him to suffer and die for my salvation.

Whilst we use the logic “more-less”, we apprehend love as emotion, as feeling, that can really be stronger or weaker. But Love isn’t emotion; it is interpersonal relation, thus all these relations will be different and incomparable between themselves, just as “Soft” and “green” are incomparable. We draw near to the way God loves when we renounce from this logic of “more-less”, we have His method of love in the basis of our own love to any one. Love to God and love to the neighbor turn out then to be two sides of one and the same medal.

Can human life be considered an absolute value? This question follows from the phrase we have read, if we take into account that on Jesus' lips the word "soul" means not some immaterial component of our personality, but rather bodily life.

How often we think that life in itself is the greatest good, and death an irreparable and terrible loss. Fearing death, we are ready to do anything to preserve our life. And once again Jesus overturns all our ideas: the only life that has value is life filled with love and self-giving, and such a life, even if interrupted by death, does not cease.

Jesus' words are very difficult for us. We would like things to be simpler... Is everything really so stark? Are His ways of ordering the world truly incompatible with ours, and does following Him necessarily require us to give up what seems right to us? On the way to unity, must we really pass through division; on the way to love, through hostility; on the way to glory, through the cross; on the way to true life, through death?

Christ brings not peace, but a sword into human society. For centuries many have tried to justify their own militancy with these words. True, in doing so, such would-be warriors did not want to notice that the word sword here is not a synonym for the word war. After all, Christ did not say, "I have brought not peace, but war." Let us not forget that a sword, or in the Slavonic translation a knife, is not only a weapon of killing but also a cutting tool. With this sword, ties between close people are cut when on the most important spiritual questions they can neither find agreement nor attain religious tolerance. But the choice that cuts old ties is often unavoidable when the old ties pull a person not simply toward old acquaintances and family relationships, but toward former sins.

It does not follow from this that Christians should start hostility. No, we are called to bring love into the world around us. But the reality is that it is not always easy for others to understand those to whom faith has opened another life. Therefore the break often happens without being initiated by Christians.

Many who read the Gospel find it hard to receive the words that whoever loves his relatives more than Christ is not worthy of him. Here one almost imagines despotism, the denial of all natural human ties... Thankfully, here we are dealing with that paradoxical quality of the Gospel which reveals to us the depth of Christ's love for us. For our "natural" love for those dear to us is, let us admit it, imperfect. But by placing Christ at the center of our heart, we can receive from him the resources for a love toward our relatives so strong that we could never give it to them by putting them first.

Sometimes the words of Jesus seem too harsh. What, in fact, does He mean when He says that one cannot love father or mother more than Him? And then comes the explanation: whoever wants to save his life (“soul”) will lose it, but whoever gives it up for Christ’s sake will save it.

At first glance it may seem that this is about some life after death, about the paradise that awaits martyrs. But in fact here too the point is the Kingdom. The Kingdom that is not somewhere “in heaven” and not later, but here and now. And not some other life that awaits the faithful in some other dimension, but that very life to which every Christian can and must, if he truly is a Christian, be joined already here and now.

But in order for participation in the life of the Kingdom to become possible, it is necessary to renounce one’s own life. Not because it is life, but because it is one’s own. And one’s own not in the sense of unique and unrepeatable, given by God to me and to no one else, so that no one but me can answer for it before God, but in the sense of belonging only to me alone: the life into which I will let no one and which I will share with no one, fearing to lose even a small portion of my so precious life. Such a desire to hold on to one’s own life, separate from the rest of God’s world and from the Kingdom, in the end inevitably turns into catastrophe: all attempts to preserve the little that remains to us in the fallen world from the fullness of the life once given us by God end with our losing even that little. Only by renouncing such spiritual and, in the language of modern philosophers, existential self-isolation can we receive the fullness of the life of the Kingdom that the Savior has prepared for us.

But then one will have to give up the small for the sake of the infinite, limitation for the sake of fullness. And not only with regard to one’s own life, but also with regard to relationships with people, even the closest. For relationships with them too must cease to be part of our small, isolated little world in order to become part of the Kingdom. Then there will no longer be those irrevocable losses to which this little world condemns us. For the life of the Kingdom is, according to the Savior’s word, “life in abundance.” And it is given to everyone who enters the Kingdom. The one who enters brings into it all the relationships that bind him to those close to him. Relationships that also become part of the Kingdom.

The distinguishing mark of Christ's disciples is that they are open to God and to the world. They carry the news of God's Kingdom, and at the same time they go to people; they hope only in God, yet they receive help from people; they address rulers and kings, yet they speak the words of the Spirit. Both are not simple: being open to God can be difficult and frightening; being open to people is always difficult and sometimes dangerous. The disciples will have to combine in themselves qualities that are hard to combine: to be lambs, wise as serpents and innocent as doves.

Nevertheless, this is the task of the disciples, each of whom is in some sense an apostle, that is, a representative, an ambassador of Christ in the world. For a messenger must in some way resemble his lord. So the disciples imitate the mission of the God-man Christ: belonging to God, they are turned toward the world and toward people, losing their connection neither with Heaven nor with earth.