NOTES for Eph 3:14-21; Luk 12:49-53

Paul considers the Christian's main task to be a qualitative change in spiritual life. There is, of course, nothing new in this appeal itself: the path of righteousness has always presupposed such a change. But now this change is achieved through complete trust in Christ and with His direct participation. Christian life is the life of the Kingdom and life in the Kingdom, which is unthinkable without daily, direct fellowship with Christ as its King.

It is in this context that the apostle speaks of the "inner man," as if developing the theme of the inner Torah - a concept that in his day was well known to any Jew who took spiritual life at least somewhat seriously. But the inner Torah meant first of all the presence in a person of an inner spiritual and moral imperative that determined his whole life and was itself determined by God's inner presence and God's will, which the person understood as part of his spiritual space and as an inseparable element of his spiritual life.

The inner Torah presupposed a definite dynamic connected with the duality of fallen humanity, so that the inner imperative demanded from a person something different from, and often opposite to, his own nature. The appearance of the "inner man," however, meant that human nature itself was beginning to change. It was no longer merely raw material that had to be shaped by deliberate spiritual influences; from it something had already been built that was, to a certain extent, fit for life in the Kingdom.

Of course, the process is still far from complete, and full transformation is still far away. But the foundation of a new, transformed humanity has already been laid, and it is based on the presence of Christ, who has "dwelt" in the hearts of those who have trusted Him. From now on, all further spiritual work will take place with His direct participation - until the moment of the full triumph of the Kingdom and the full transformation of human nature.

There is an interesting paradox in the apostle Paul’s words today: he prays that the Ephesians may “know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.” To know something that surpasses knowledge! In modern terms, he wants them to understand what cannot be understood! But is that possible? It is. There are simply different kinds of knowing and understanding. Paul, it seems, is saying that Christ’s love cannot be grasped by reason, but it can be known through God’s grace. He grants understanding, including understanding at the rational level, but it comes from God rather than from our intellect.

From speaking about God's new people, Paul turns to spiritual life. It is, of course, no accident that he calls the Church the body of Christ and speaks of Christians as parts of that body. Clearly, this is neither an allegory nor a unity of ideas. The faithfulness of the faithful makes possible that essential, organic unity of Christians with Christ which the apostle describes as Christ's “dwelling” in His followers' hearts. This image recalls another, associated with the prophetic tradition: the prophets also often spoke of God's breath, or spirit, entering a person's heart. For Paul, Christ's dwelling in the hearts of the faithful is evidently inseparable from their life in the Kingdom, in which they cannot otherwise take root (vv. 14–19).

Of course, the apostle does not raise this subject by chance in the context of his reflections on God's new people: it is precisely the living spiritual bond of the faithful with the risen Christ that makes them a new people. There is nothing fundamentally new in this approach. God's people have always been God's people not because of their particular religiosity or spiritual stature, but because of God's presence among them since the Exodus, the covenant at Sinai, and the giving of the Torah. Only the quality of these relationships is new. Previously, God's presence was an objective reality that shaped and spiritually renewed the lives of those ready to follow God by following the Torah.

Now Christ's presence in the hearts of the faithful depends only on the faithful themselves, not merely renewing their spiritual life but transfiguring them completely, so that at the end of time, when the Kingdom is revealed in all its fullness, they can become a full part of it, as far as transfigured human nature allows. For Paul, the messianic people are not simply a people who have accepted the Messiah. In the apostle's view, only a people sharing one life with the Messiah can become a messianic people: the life of the Kingdom, which neither Jew nor Gentile can attain without Him.

It is not surprising that the main activity of the Church, according to Paul's words, is the glorification of God through Jesus Christ. But what it really means? And what is in general the glorification, which was known to the people of God several centuries before the arrival of Christ? Is it the witness of faithfulness to God? Is it story to the world about His greatness? Of course and this also. But the story about God and the witness of the faithfulness to Him are only a consequence. And where is thus the base? God from the beginning wanted to see His people as a people-community. And of course the divine service had to be the spiritual center of the life of the community. But indeed, the divine service had never been an only human affair, God always participated in it, and not only in the sense that by His presence He blessed and sanctified the assembly of the faithful.

The divine service was even always inseparable of the sanctification of the world, in which the people of God lived. This sacred space, where takes place God's meeting with the community of the faithful, changes completely really the world, by making it different, not such as it was before. Of course it did not come to talk about the sanctification and the transformation of all the creation before the arrival of the Christ, but the presence itself in the world of the sacred space, as an alternative of the existing of the non transformed order of things, changed fundamentally the spiritual situation in it.

And with the coming of Christ it changed even more, changed fundamentally: because with His coming, into the world also entered the Kingdom, so now the prospect of the full transformation of the creation becomes completely real. But now also one of the main tools of God's action in the world remains the divine service, only that now it is for the Church inconceivable without the participation of the Risen One. His presence becomes a major theophany, completeness surpassing all which was before. And God is now glorified in Him through His Church. Because it is particularly like that the world is attached to the Kingdom, finding in it its salvation.

For us, as for the disciples of Jesus who heard the terrible words of today's reading, it is hard to accept such a prospect. They were waiting for a Messiah who would come as a liberator and bring triumph to Israel. The Romans would fall, Israel would be free, and the world at last would be wonderful and good. But Jesus, by His perfection, by the fact that He is the Truth, became a stumbling stone for everyone and for each person. His very presence becomes a cause of division. No one remains on the sidelines; everyone has to decide Who has come.

But even if one accepts Jesus as the Messiah, the division does not end there. Children and parents, brothers and sisters - all of us stand on different sides of Him; all of us see different things and try to consider what we ourselves have seen as the most important thing. Some see wrath, some mercy, some love, some light. Each considers it necessary to secure the primacy of his own view of God. This is how our damaged humanity shows itself when it comes into contact with His perfection. The apostles faced this, and it continues to this day. On the other hand, we have already been warned of the danger. And the one who is warned is armed: he can keep himself from becoming a conduit of division.

"I came to cast fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!" These words from today's Gospel reading can be very hard to understand and accept for people accustomed to finding in their religiosity only comfort in life's sorrows, peace, and rest. But the world of church hymns pleasant to the heart, the world of vigil lamps, candles, and icons, is not the whole of faith. Faith is continuous struggle, an unending battle against sin.

We often get used to the fact that sin is present in our lives and stop noticing it. But there is also a special state, when the heart burns. Then every sin, even the smallest, touches the soul like a burned wound. It is the state when grace descends and you stand like Moses at the burning bush, and the Spirit of God scorches your face. It is the state when there is so much warmth in you that you simply cannot help sharing it. It is the state when not a single minute can be empty, because then the fire begins to consume you yourself. Do you remember the wonderful meeting on the road to Emmaus? "And they said to one another, Did not our heart burn within us while He spoke to us on the road and while He explained the Scriptures to us?" (Luke 24:32). This is the kind of fire the Lord is speaking to us about.

How polysemous are the evangelical images; cut from their context, they put out of countenance. Isn't in this same Gospel we read that the followers of Jesus wanted to make fire to come down from heaven, and Jesus prohibited them (see Luke 9:54-56)? It is then about another fire here, serving not to destroy, but to save people. May be it is about the fire of Pentecost (See Acts of the Apostles 2:3), or about the fire of purification (Is 4:4; Rev 3:18); or may be about the fire of faith in our hearts, of which mother Mary (Skobtsova) remarkably said: "Christianity is fire, if not, it does not exist ". Is this fire burning in us, are we hot or simply lukewarm (to see Rev 3:15-16)? As our heart burned when The Lord offered us the first meeting with Him (see Luke 24:32)! Haven't we cooled down, haven't we abandon our young love (see Rev 2:4)? It is indeed our responsibility to preserve this fire, which Jesus made come down on earth.

These words of Jesus about the division He brought into the world trouble some readers of the Gospel, especially today. Unity seems more appropriate to us now than division; we would like every division between people to disappear, and unity seems to us better than division by definition. And so it is when secondary matters are concerned. From the Gospel's perspective, as from the perspective of spiritual life in general, all our divisions—cultural, linguistic, racial, even religious—are essentially secondary and do not touch what matters most: our relationship with God and its dynamics. It is the dynamics of our relationships with God and with our neighbors that matter most; everything else is secondary. In this respect, people are divided into only two categories: those whose lives contain a relationship with God and the dynamics associated with it, and those whose lives do not.

A complete absence of relationship with God naturally means the complete destruction of the human personality, often followed by physical destruction as well. Yet one can also speak of this relationship being formed and strengthened, or of its gradual degradation and tendency toward total destruction. Ultimately, in the context and prospect of the Kingdom entering the world, the question must be one of striving toward the fullness of the Kingdom's life or of self-isolation: an attempt to shut oneself off, create one's own little enclosed world, and become its king, its sole master and ruler. The fallen world exists precisely in such isolation, and therefore the fundamental Christian division is the division between those who seek the life of the Kingdom and those who are content with the life of this world, the fallen world.

Here division really is absolutely inevitable. The two spiritual vectors just described are incompatible—not because some people are “spiritual” and others are not, but because some seek life and move into life, while others are content with a life-that-is-dying, a gradual descent into the death that reigns in the fallen world. These are not different views or convictions but opposite directions of spiritual movement, which inevitably divide those who choose them. People moving in different, mutually opposite directions cannot, after all, remain united.

The Saviour's words about the division He brings into the world may seem harsh to the point of cruelty: division means confrontation, and when matters are so serious, sooner or later it will inevitably lead to outright war. Yet evidently, where the Kingdom is concerned, confrontation is unavoidable. So is war, if we mean spiritual war. Spiritual, because what is at stake is the confrontation between the Kingdom, which, in Jesus' words, is ‘not of this world’, and this very world. The issue is not anyone's cruelty or intolerance, but the real incompatibility of the untransfigured world with the Kingdom. It is no accident that the Saviour points to the world's opposition to the Kingdom as a sign of the end of time: that end comes in such a frightening form precisely because the Kingdom and ‘this world’ cannot coexist in the same space.

Now the internal conflicts that arise in the fallen world because of its fallen condition cease to be fundamental: it is better to make peace with an adversary without taking the matter to court. Not because the adversary must always be right, but because times are coming when there will be more pressing concerns than lawsuits. And the issue, of course, is not that the very nature of the untransfigured world is utterly incompatible with the Kingdom. In its present form it is indeed incompatible, but it can be transfigured by God's breath, and then it will become a fully organic part of the new world.

But the Kingdom is indeed incompatible by definition with the evil in which, as the Gospel says, the fallen world lies. Hence the confrontation of which Jesus speaks. Over its two-thousand-year history, Christianity has often been accused of hating the world and opposing it. In reality, however, Christians—apart, of course, from religious extremes and spiritual abnormalities—have never opposed the world, never waged war on it, and certainly never wished for its destruction.

But the Church as a whole and individual Christians have always struggled for this world against the world itself: for the new world being transfigured by the Kingdom's power and breath, against the evil in which it lies. This confrontation must be regarded as the central confrontation of our age, the age of the coming Kingdom. And unlike conflicts that unfold within the untransfigured world and according to its laws, which can sometimes be quelled, the central conflict—the conflict between the Kingdom and the forces of evil at work in the fallen world—will end only on the day of the Kingdom's triumph and the complete defeat of those who oppose it.

In our stereotyped notions, Christianity is usually covered with a certain sugary coating. Psychologically, this rosy, sentimental stereotype is quite understandable, but it is nevertheless inadequate. That is precisely why the Lord’s words in today’s passage from Luke’s Gospel so often shock and frighten us. The fire he came to cast upon the earth, division among those close to one another—these are the last things we want. And when he says that his disciples, following him, will also be brought before kings and tribunals, we stop our ears altogether, just to avoid applying these words to ourselves. Yet faith is nothing like syrup poured over human life and the whole world. Faith concerns life and death, and there comes a moment when compromise is impossible for a believer. The Lord says that we are called to recognize in our hearts the time when our faithfulness to God is being tested. This can happen in very different ways, but in any case the preservation of everyday comfort is not guaranteed. We are called to cover the sins of the world with love and forgiveness, but not to consent to them. That is why the world hates Jesus’ disciples, just as it hates Jesus himself. The division he speaks of today results from a human choice: to be with him, or to remain in the rosy, conflict-free realm of death.

Jesus' words about the division He brought into the world trouble some readers of the Gospel, especially today. Unity seems more appropriate to us now than division; we would like all divisions between people to disappear. Unity seems better than division to us by definition.

And so it is when secondary matters are concerned. From the Gospel's perspective, as from that of spiritual life in general, all our divisions—cultural, linguistic, racial, even religious—are essentially secondary. They do not touch what matters most: our relationships with God and their dynamics. From the Gospel's perspective, as from that of spiritual life in general, it is precisely the dynamics of our relationships with God and our neighbors that are central; everything else is secondary. In this respect, people fall into only two categories: those whose lives contain a relationship with God and its associated dynamics, and those whose lives do not.

Of course, a complete absence of relationship with God means the complete destruction of the person, often followed by physical destruction as well. But we can speak of these relationships developing and growing stronger, or of their gradual deterioration, their tendency toward complete breakdown. Ultimately, in the context and perspective of the Kingdom entering the world, we must speak of striving for the fullness of the Kingdom's life or of self-isolation: an attempt to shut oneself away and create one's own small, closed world, becoming its king, its sole master and ruler. The fallen world exists in precisely this isolation. Thus the central Christian division is between those seeking the life of the Kingdom and those content with the life of this world, the fallen world.

Here division really is absolutely inevitable. These two spiritual directions are incompatible, not because some people are “spiritual” and others are not, but because some seek life and move toward it, while others are content with a life of dying, a gradual sinking into the death that reigns in the fallen world. These are not different views or convictions, but opposite directions of spiritual movement, which inevitably divide those who choose them. After all, people going in different, opposite directions cannot remain united.

The theme of suddenness, of the unexpected, often appears in the Saviour's parables about the Kingdom. As with the master of the house who appears when his servants are not expecting his return at all. Such a sudden visit can serve as a kind of emergency drill: since one never knows exactly what to expect, one has to remain constantly ready for anything.

This is, of course, an important quality for spiritual life, and for life in general. But it is not only a matter of constant readiness. It is also a matter of the inward state that such readiness presupposes. Being ready for everything at all times is impossible in principle—at least in the sense in which we speak of readiness in relation to life in this world. In our world, readiness usually means responses planned in advance for particular situations that have likewise been anticipated.

These responses are set out in the relevant instructions, which those responsible for making decisions are required to follow. But anticipating every possible situation is an impossible task. This is not even because there are infinitely many of them, but because, at any given moment, we are capable in principle of forecasting only certain kinds of situation, related to what we know at that moment. In other words, at any given moment a situation can, in principle, arise that is absolutely unpredictable.

Absolutely unpredictable means impossible to predict not because of a lack of information or forecasting tools, but in principle—even if we had all the information existing in the world at that moment and every forecasting tool possible at that same moment within the limits allowed by the nature of our world.

In the development of any complex system, there are moments when its future development cannot, in principle, be predicted from its current state. Scientists call such moments bifurcation points. But the system remains unpredictable only when viewed from outside. From within, the situation looks different: everything depends entirely either on chance or on the choice of the person who finds themselves in such a situation.

The Saviour's return and the fullness of the Kingdom, revealed in its entirety, entail the world passing through just such a bifurcation point: a moment when nothing can be calculated or predicted in advance, and everything is determined by each person's concrete choice. If a person shares in the life of the Kingdom even before that moment comes, the moment itself does not take them completely by surprise, throw them off course or disorient them to the point of being utterly unable to make decisions. This is what it means to be ready to meet the returning master. The King. And the Kingdom in all its fullness.

Today's reading touches on another theme, one very important for understanding what life in the Kingdom is. But the meaning of what Jesus says becomes clear only in the context of the situation of that transitional era which began with the coming of the Savior and in which we live. It could be called the era of the advancing Kingdom, and it will be completed by Jesus' return. But since we do not know the exact timing of this return, readiness is required always, every day and every hour.

In fact, this is the meaning of the parables Jesus tells (vv. 36-48). When the Gospel speaks about the nearness of the Kingdom, what is meant is not the date of Christ's second coming, but the fact that the Kingdom has already entered the world, that its presence for us today is no longer future but present; and if we notice nothing of the sort, it is only because we do not want to notice. Of course, sometimes for those to whom God entrusts ministries connected with the Kingdom, the apparent remoteness of the time when the process will be completed has a relaxing effect, like the effect produced on the unrestrained servant in the parable by the thought that the master was far away (v. 45).

It is not surprising that those who knew everything and, despite everything, allowed themselves to relax are called to a more serious account than those who knew less (vv. 47-48). What is interesting is something else. In the world there are those who know more and those who know less, but, as one can see, there are none who know nothing. It is no accident that Jesus compares the signs of the advancing Kingdom to the signs by which people in those days recognized a coming change in the weather: they were just as obvious and just as understandable to everyone, so that it was simply impossible not to notice them at all and understand nothing (vv. 54-57).

That is why the coming of the Kingdom divides people, and the division, as one can see, does not run along any national, class, or religious border, but across all borders, separating those who accept the Kingdom from those who reject it, people sometimes living not only in one country and one city, but even in one house (vv. 51-53). And this happens not because God needs divisions, but because the Kingdom is an absolute reality; it is impossible to enter it partly or halfway, and even entering it "almost completely" will not work: one enters the Kingdom either to the end and without looking back, or one does not enter at all. That is why in the Church, according to the word of the Apostle Paul, there can be "neither Greek nor Jew": if the Church remains the Kingdom and does not turn into a religious organization, one among many, then only one division remains relevant for it: between those who accept the Kingdom and those who reject it. All other divisions are conditional and relative; this one is absolute, as absolute as the division between eternal life and eternal death can be.

The coming of the Kingdom of God is a mystery perhaps no less profound than the mystery of the Kingdom itself. The Lord therefore calls the disciples to keep watch, lest they miss or sleep through the Kingdom's coming into their lives. This probably does not refer merely to constant readiness for death or for Christ's Second Coming.

Christ also enters a person's life when that person least expects it: at any moment we may find ourselves facing a vitally important choice or a decisive encounter. Woe to the person who fails to notice Christ at the moment when he is called to take part in bringing about God's Kingdom. It is not that God will take offence and punish him, but that, by passing this Kingdom by, he will miss the most important event and the most important encounter of his life. Therefore, as the final Encounter approaches, the Lord calls people not to miss His presence even now, here on the way towards the triumph of God's Kingdom.