Notes for  6 August 2022

The question of payment for those who carry out church ministries has never been simple. It would seem that if we are speaking precisely about a calling, it would be natural to expect from a person that he not demand money for what is an integral part of his life.

Indeed, genuine Christian ministry is never simply external activity, action, work. Of course, there are ministries that require careful thought and even planning, but inwardly for the minister himself any ministry, even one carefully thought through and planned, proves to be derivative of his spiritual life, one of its external manifestations, as natural and free as that life itself. It would seem strange to pay a person simply for living, and living in accordance with his true nature, not forcing himself into anything, but on the contrary unfolding in all fullness.

And yet Paul says that such ministry too deserves, if not payment, then at least material support. This is understandable: Christianity has never been marked by a spiritualism that denies the world to the point of complete disregard for it. The Kingdom, of course, is not of this world, but it enters this world, transforming it, and this entry takes quite concrete forms in the life and activity of quite concrete people.

If the Kingdom is not of this world, this does not mean that it is immaterial and that its inhabitants have no concern for material things. Insofar as the world is material, God is concerned with matter and with the material as well. Speaking of the Kingdom, Jesus calls His followers to seek first the Kingdom and its righteousness, saying of everything else that it "will be added." It is precisely this "everything else" that the Gentiles seek, and Christians differ from Gentiles not by denying "everything else," but by the system of priorities that determines their life.

The material component of a Christian's life obviously cannot stand in first place, but it would be strange to expect Christians to reject it completely and consciously. Of course, there are people who consciously choose the path of complete poverty, complete refusal of any property, even the minimum necessary for socialization, people who deliberately step to the roadside of life and become marginal in it. But such a choice is not the only possible one for a Christian.

Of course, this world is hardly going to allow Christians to be successful in the traditional worldly sense, and usually a normal Christian does not need this. Most often Christians who remain faithful to themselves and to Christ end up in second or third roles in this world. But this does not mean complete refusal of property, and therefore of money. And the apostle understands perfectly: ministers of the Church need material support, earnings, just like anyone else. For to those around him, his activity is work, and the worker is worthy of sustenance.

The feeding of five thousand people with five loaves is a very vivid event. Of course, it anticipates the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper; it anticipates and is a type of every Eucharist celebrated by the Church. Today one detail seems important. In order for the miracle to take place, those poor five loaves and two fish were needed, most likely dried fish. The disciples had clearly already found out who had how much bread with him, and they had counted everything. Surely there was nothing else; these crumbs were the only thing found in that whole crowd, but in Christ's hands there comes from them food not merely sufficient but abundant. Yet those loaves did belong to someone. Someone unnamed, when the disciples asked, "Who has food?" answered, "Here, I have bread; take it." One would hardly think that these prudent listeners themselves had no need of bread.

Christians of the first centuries called what we bring to God in the sacrament of the Eucharist the "firstfruits" of creation. The firstfruits are a kind of pledge and sign that we bring to God everything created by Him. With them begins the miracle of multiplication, which makes something more out of created matter. By contrast, without the offering of these firstfruits, the abyss that separates God's world and this world remains impassable. We bring the firstfruits of the world and, in the words of St. Irenaeus of Lyons, receive from Christ's hands the firstfruits of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Each of us has something that can be brought to God, like those five loaves, or can be kept for ourselves. This is what the Lord is speaking about: "...whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it" (Matt. 16:25).

In the account of the Transfiguration, the themes of Christ's glory and His suffering merge into one. On the mountain He speaks with the prophets about His "exodus"—about Golgotha. Coming down from the mountain, Jesus foretells to the disciples what awaits Him in Jerusalem. Interestingly, the disciples prove unable either to see the glory of the transfigured Jesus or to hear His words about the Cross. Perhaps these things are also connected. We can judge this from our own experience: the less we see the Lord's presence in our lives, the less we know what glory is, the less well we understand the words about the cross. The cross appears to us as our ordinary daily troubles rather than the path of faith and self-denial. We can acquire this new understanding of the cross only by seeing the Glory, the living presence of God—openly, as the Apostle Paul did, or in a hidden way, by discerning His action in the circumstances of life.

Compared with the Gospel according to Mark that we have already read, this Gospel brings entirely new information: Jesus did not come down from heaven already an adult and immediately begin preaching; He was BORN into this world as every human being is born. The Son of God truly became man and took human flesh upon Himself in exactly the same way as we receive it. That is why everything He later accomplishes will concern all of us, because it will all be accomplished in human nature. And His name—Jesus—means God's salvation for all humanity. To illustrate and explain this complete humanity of Christ, the apostle Matthew presents His genealogy, constructed from several groups of seven—the number of fullness—and placing Him within the context of all Sacred History, the entire chain of covenants between God and humankind. The quotation from Isaiah adds the context of all Old Testament prophecy as well.

With each new word, the denunciation of the scribes and Pharisees becomes harsher, and now Christ reproaches them not only for hypocrisy and sinfulness; He accuses the religious leaders of the people of resisting God. Every sin leads away from God, but here sin is made worse by an unwillingness to repent, and enmity with God becomes conscious resistance to His will.

An unwillingness to repent can be covered by pseudo-pious self-deception, when a person does not want not only to admit his own sins but even to see them, while at the same time very much wanting to look respectable. If that is so, then denunciation of other people's sins and outward reverence for righteous people of former years become a very convenient way to show off one's imagined righteousness.

But Christ sees more deeply and directly shows us that both the long-ago crimes themselves and today's loud condemnation of them can be links in one and the same chain. How often His words about the tombs of the prophets and the monuments of the righteous have been remembered in recent years, when the names of the tortured were invoked in vain and their memory was exploited. If there is no true repentance, but only a replacement of it with outward forms, then there is always the danger that, when circumstances change, new Pharisees will again be ready to become persecutors.