Notes for  23 June 2026

When parents impress on children, "Help Grandma, sweep the floor," or "You may not play until you have done your homework," they are hardly trying to turn sweeping the floor or doing homework into the child's main daily occupation. That is not their goal at all. The main thing they want to pass on to their children is a system of priorities, an understanding of what is less important and what is more important: in particular, that sweeping the floor is one way to help Grandma, and that studying is more important than having fun, since education will help them in the future to feed their own children. Ideally, we hope that our grown children, having absorbed the system of values they receive from our prohibitions and encouragements, will learn to determine for themselves exactly how best to help someone who needs help right now. And not even because someday we will not be there with them, but simply because we want their personhood to grow in the fullness of freedom and responsibility.

Now imagine this situation: a grown grandson comes to his grandmother, who is waiting for him eagerly, but instead of sitting down and talking with her, listening to her health complaints and telling her about his life, he starts washing dishes, cleaning up, and so on. One cannot say that this is wrong; it appears that he is helping her. Yet in reality, the importance and value of his visit for her do not lie in this at all. She expected something completely different from him: involvement and support. And what is the result? An upset grandmother and a grandson offended by her ingratitude.

And here we see how an important and correct rule, intended to strengthen the bond between generations, becomes a blank wall between them. In a certain sense this is what the apostle Paul means when he says that "sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me." This does not in essence cancel the holiness of the commandment itself, but it shows us how easy it is, by distorting its essence, to turn what is holy into something sinful.

The Pharisees refused to recognize either John the Baptist or the Lord Jesus Himself as messengers of God. Each of them, despite all their differences, displeased the Pharisees in some way. John the Baptist displeased them with his asceticism and his call to renew faith. The Lord... The Lord pleased them in nothing, in particular because He did not reject the repentance of sinful people whom the Pharisees considered doomed to perdition.

In reality, of course, behind this stood an unwillingness to accept the Good News, first of all because the Pharisees most wanted to look better than everyone else in their own eyes. The Gospel gives neither them nor anyone else such an opportunity. The Lord applies to them the image of children who do not weep at sad songs and do not rejoice at joyful ones. God, the Lord is saying by this, tries to communicate His word, His will, the Good News to the Pharisees in this way and that, by many different paths. But they react to nothing, and this reveals precisely their unwillingness to respond to God's call.

The point is not what John the Baptist is like or what Jesus Himself is like. Those who seek the Word of God will in one way or another be able to find and accept it, the Lord concludes with His words, "wisdom is justified by her children": some came to Christ through the Baptist's preaching, others recognized the Savior in Him for themselves... Whoever has ears and wants to hear will hear.

In our time this Gospel fragment remains exceptionally relevant. People often say: "I would believe, but..." Something is always unsatisfactory to the person who does not want to believe. Either there is too much bad in the Bible, since the truth about history is written there, or Christians are bad, or the commandments are strange... Christ's words apply precisely to such a position.

Most Christians usually understand the question of the narrow and broad way in the context of everything Jesus said about persecutions against His followers and, more generally, about resisting the evil in which the world lies. Meanwhile, this image also has a wider semantic context. Indeed, any road, whether a multilane highway or a narrow path, always and by definition involves limitation. The absence of "narrowness," and therefore of boundaries, can mean only one thing: complete tracklessness, the absence of a way. And this is true not only of a physical way, but also, and even more, of a spiritual way. Choosing a certain spiritual path and stepping onto it, we thereby cut ourselves off from the possibility of taking some other path at the same time. It is impossible to walk two paths at once. And the path becomes narrower the more clearly its spiritual quality is defined.

Here the matter is not so much external as internal. The quality of a person's life, of that person's existence, becomes more and more definite; in other words, the quality of the person's soul in the biblical sense of the word. The soul is that stream of life that flows through us and in which we ourselves abide. The quality of this stream determines what our life will be: how much of it will be spiritual and how much natural; how much will be our will following God's commandments, and how much will be chance and automatism, inevitable where there is no awareness of one's own intentions, decisions, and actions, and no relating of them to the commandments given by God. And if a person walks the way of the Kingdom, sharing more and more in its life, then the quality of that person's soul becomes more and more spiritually defined.

And along with this, the way becomes narrower and narrower. For in gaining definiteness and form, it inevitably gains clear boundaries. Inner quality is unthinkable without form, and form does not exist without limits. The absence of boundaries and form also means the absence of quality, and without it life in the Kingdom is impossible, for there everything is utterly clear and distinct, just as God's will is clear and distinct. And everything is present in fullness, in the same fullness in which the breath of God abides, penetrating the Kingdom.

The Lord promises His people peace, and this is not merely the end of the war with Assyria. When the Messiah reigns, the shoot from the root of Jesse, David's father, peace will become all-embracing: it will extend to all nations and transform all nature. Animals will stop destroying one another and human beings, an infant will be able to play with a snake, and enmity between Israel and the Gentiles will cease.

When will these fairy-tale times come? The New Testament tells us of reconciliation with God through the death of Jesus Christ. Is this not the beginning and root of peace on earth, the beginning of the realization of His Kingdom?

Before the inhabitants of Judah, and before us as well, stands a question of priorities, and it is neither simple nor unambiguous. Those who think that the time has not yet come to build the temple have their arguments. After all, the people have only recently begun returning from exile: life interrupted by an enemy invasion has only begun to revive, not all the houses have been rebuilt, and the losses have not been made up. Where can strength and resources be found to restore the temple?

Such is the logic of human reasoning. It appears correct, but once again it demonstrates its limitation. Those who think this way are counting on themselves, on their own labor and abilities, and this would be wonderful if behind hope in their own strength one did not see yet another attempt to get along without God. And although the voice of the prophets had already sounded more than once, even today, after the bitter lessons of invasions and exile, not everyone draws the proper conclusions: it is impossible to gain anything without Him.

In recent years one increasingly hears complaints that times are changing, while troubles around us only multiply. It would be worth asking ourselves: how often do we compare our desires with His will? Are we ready to begin with the restoration of temples, the nearest of which we ourselves are called to become?

Despite all King Balak's desire, and perhaps his own as well, Balaam cannot curse Israel. God remains unchanged in His blessing. But this is only the outer side. Within Israel, as we read in other chapters, God reproaches His people for unbelief and punishes them. Yet such is the nature of God's love: despite all our sins and unfaithfulness, He is unchanging. And however zealous Balak may be, the prophet utters not curses but blessings. God proves His love once again, and far from the last time, for those whom He has chosen.