Notes for  22 June 2026

Childlike naivete can at times be very sincere, especially when it concerns one's relationship with God. Here is a typical episode: a girl of about four is walking with her mother, who is scolding her for bad behavior. The girl wants to say something in reply, but holds back. Her mother insists: "Well, say it, say what you think!" The girl brushes it off: "Later, in the underpass!" They both come to the pedestrian underpass and go underground. There the girl declares to her mother: "You are nasty!" Her mother is surprised: "Why couldn't you say that to me up above?" The girl answers: "Up above God will hear!"

The four-year-old girl's answer would be amusing and naive, if we ourselves were not so much like her when it comes to our relationship with God. The fall, this distancing of the human being from God, does not begin by chance with a person trying to hide from Him, hiding in order to conceal sin. Perhaps not because of fear of punishment, but because one does not want to admit one's own failure either to oneself or to Him.

Deep down, the overwhelming majority of us believers would like God never to see our sins. We would like Him to be near and look at us when, as it appears to us, we are good and ready to meet Him: for example, during prayer or when we are doing something good. But it is better to sin somewhere in a dark corner, in an underpass, in the desert, in the forest - in short, far away from altars and churches.

It appears to us that if God is far away, then He neither sees nor knows, and that in this respect He is like us: after all, we too know little or nothing at all about those who are far from us at a given moment. With God everything is different, and through His prophet He reminds us of this. His nearness does not mean that He learns something new about us that He did not know before; it means that we have come into the center of His attention, have somehow drawn that attention, and now He is going to intervene directly in our life, to enter it in order to change something in it.

And here, quite naturally, we want to look better than we really are. But God does not need us to "look" like anything; He needs us simply to be. To be as we are, and to let Him into our life as it is, so that we may give Him the chance to make it, with our participation of course, what it ought to be according to His design and plan.

We may already have grown used to the idea that everything in the world depends on God. And this is truly so: the Lord Himself tells us that all the hairs of our head are numbered, and not one of them will fall without His will (Matt. 10:29-31).

But here, as often happens in Christianity, there is a paradox: we are free. God does not force us to be dependent on Him. One may say that He is "unable" to prevent us from going toward what we very strongly want. Each of us is the prodigal son, and He is the Father who, with immense patience, love, and pain, allows His children to make mistakes (see Luke 15:11-32). And we may be aware as much as we like that God holds everything in His hand, that He sees everything, that everything depends on Him, but at times this cannot move our stubborn will even a single step...

Yet the Lord still waits for this step from us, even if it is a timid one. We can make the effort of which Christ speaks, we can submit to God (James 4:6-7), we can overcome our pride, for God has promised to give us strength for this. And every time we take this step toward Him, and not toward the place where our desires, often opposed to God, lead us, we win, solely by God's power, a small victory that is nevertheless the most important one in life.

Jesus' urgent counsel, "Do not judge, so that you may not be judged," can be paraphrased this way: "Be merciful toward others, so that mercy may also be shown to you." Yet the apparent simplicity of this thought is complicated by the fact that the second part of the saying speaks not of human judgment, but of God's judgment. At the same time, it is clear that in life those who show mercy rarely receive it in return, and even when they do, there is little reason to look here for a direct connection between one person's kindness and the kindness shown to that person by third parties, so to speak.

It is another matter that Jesus does not call His followers to seek any indulgence for themselves. Christians are simply required to remember how deeply tangled worldly life is: relationships, actions, disputes, conflicts, and everything else that fills human existence, and under no circumstances to pass final judgments, still less verdicts, about what we dislike or what at times truly breathes malice and sows destruction. This is not worth doing if only because every person is merely "a reed shaken by the wind," capable of great nobility, great folly, and even desperate madness...

For this reason, the words about the speck and the log follow in today's passage. Jesus is not simply advising us to be more modest or humble, and certainly not to try to convince ourselves that "I am worse than every creature." In His words one hears a simple friendly wish for every listener or reader: evaluate yourself soberly, and do not indulge in self-abasement. More than that, there is a call to action here: there is no need to pick over other people's bones, and no need for self-digging either; nothing is gained that way. Just wash the eye into which something has come from outside, and look at God, at His generous and understanding attitude toward people; imitate Him, and there will be no need to teach anyone, rebuke anyone, or grumble at anyone. What will remain is only love that persuades without words and builds everyone up...

Assyria, which crushed the Northern Kingdom of Israel, also threatens the Southern Kingdom. But for the prophet it is clear: although Asshur has become the instrument of God's wrath against Israel, his days are numbered. Nevertheless Judah too is threatened with collapse, for failure to fulfill God's will, expressed in the Law, takes the people out of relationship with God. Trust in God becomes the criterion by which the Remnant will be chosen: the small part of the people that has preserved faith.

Trust will show itself with special force in the hour of trial, during the Assyrian military raids and the unrest in the kingdom. But those who believe in the Creator of heaven and earth know that He will not abandon His people. How terrible that the remnant will be so small! Yet in the end everything depends on each individual heart.

Before us is a prophecy about Edom, a pagan people, yet closely related to the Israelites. Edom appears before us as an example of treachery and cunning, and for these evil deeds it will receive the punishment it deserves. We hear another prophecy about the inevitability of retribution for lawlessness.

But why does Obadiah address Edom? Why does he need to address his prophetic word to an audience very different from the one to which Israel's prophets usually spoke? After all, other prophets, when setting out what the Lord revealed to them about the ways of neighboring nations, still directed their main speech to their own countrymen. Here too there must be a lesson for his compatriots: in speaking about Edom, the prophet intended to warn them against repeating the sins of their neighbors. The sins of Edom can be repeated by inhabitants of other lands too, and in fact they have been repeated many times. This means that the universal character of prophetic preaching is shown here once again, for among all people, whatever nation they belong to, there exists a real interconnection, even if they do not always recognize it. Therefore what was said many centuries ago for a concrete reason that seemed important to only a few can also matter for those who happen to live in other lands and in other times.

It turns out that even a prophet can learn much from his own donkey! For Balaam, as a prophet, should have been especially sensitive to God's will as it was revealed to him. It would seem that at first God permits Balaam to go with Balak's messengers, but then the Angel blocks his way. How should this be understood? If the prophet had always honestly sought God's will, or simply looked before him with spiritual eyes, sincerely turned toward his God, he would not have been exposed to such danger and would not have been sarcastically compared to a donkey.