Notes for  6 July 2026

These words of the apostle immediately make us come to our senses; they serve as an antidote to self-exaltation and to judging other people. If only we would always remember them!

My very existence is a gift, and how many beautiful things I have in addition to the bare fact of life! I have a heart, a mind, feelings, a will, a body, the love of parents and other people - for no reason at all! Simply because I am myself! I have the loyalty of friends and the love of animals, I have knowledge, a home, possessions, and many other things... I have the sun and stars, clouds and trees, I have heaven and earth, I have God! Everything I have has been given to me, and all of it was created by God for me!

Against this background, boasting before others, and all the more being proud, exalting oneself, and judging, is simply foolish. If one is to boast, then only in God, who gave me everything! The awareness that everything I have has been received as a gift not only helps me avoid self-exaltation, but also truly sets me free. For when I try to take possession of something - whether spiritual qualities or a material thing - I become unfree: what I have claimed is "clenched in the hand," and in that very way I "lose the hand," in the words of Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh. Life with such awareness gives true peace - humility - and gives rise to gratitude toward those through whom I received all this: toward God and people.

At a certain point the Lord, who had previously proclaimed clearly to the crowds, chooses the Twelve, sends them out to preach, and chooses to speak in parables. Even the disciples noticed this and asked Him directly: why do You speak to them in parables? Evidently, this was a rather sharp change in the Savior's way of acting. In answer Christ quotes Isaiah's bitter words that we see without seeing and hear without understanding. Then He lists the sad fates of the human heart, speaking of the word that Satan snatches away, that the cares of this age choke, or that our human immaturity ruins. Perhaps the Lord's parables also have a pedagogical purpose. They are indeed images impossible to forget. But why, then, is there such sorrow in His words?

Our faith is a very simple thing. It contains Mystery, but it contains no secret doctrine and no allegories hidden from the uninitiated. Yet the simple words "love your neighbor" or "seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness" turn out to be insurmountably difficult for us. We want something special, with mysticism and obscurity, with difficult exercises and, without fail, profound thought; or else, on the contrary, give us something visible, like a theocratic state and unbroken "victories over the adversaries," since we have many adversaries and still more people who simply annoy us.

And therefore this image of the sower, who sows most of the seed without result, is inexpressibly sad. Our happiness consists in this: any one of us would long ago have stopped sowing in such hopeless conditions. Any one of us would first have found a better plot and would not have sown just anywhere. But He is God, not man. And He does not stop giving us His word. If we do not want to receive His word in simplicity, He sows in parables, so that, having received the testimony in His Blood on the Cross, we may at last open our eyes and, seeing, see, and hearing, hear and understand and turn back, so that He may heal us.

In today's Old Testament reading the Lord says: "I will hear the heavens, and they will hear the earth." This is, of course, a special poetic biblical language, and these words can certainly be interpreted in many different ways. But one meaning that can be seen in them is this: we believe in the communion of saints. Perhaps this passage is speaking precisely about that communion. The heavens will hear the earth - the Church triumphant will hear the prayers of the pilgrim Church. And the Lord will hear the heavens - the prayers of the Church triumphant, of the angels and the saints.

In the mind of the ancient person, responsibility for one person's sin was borne by his whole clan and descendants. But the prophet proclaims something different to Israel: every person matters to God, and the way that person uses freedom will have decisive significance for that person. The one who commits sin separates himself from God and His life, while the one who fulfills His will becomes a member of His family.

Today's reading helps us better understand the essence of Jesus' conflict with that part of the Synagogue which rejected and condemned Him. He Himself speaks of this quite clearly: the chief problem of His opponents is that they never knew the real, living God (vv. 37-38). At first glance, such a statement can appear strange, since both supporters and opponents of Jesus were, for the most part, deeply religious people, familiar with Scripture and, at least in words, awaiting the Messiah and the Kingdom. Yet religion, as we can see, had turned for them from a means into an end in itself. The Savior characterizes this situation in one short phrase: you seek glory from one another, and not from God (v. 44).

Every religion is the work of human hands. Of course, the revelation given by God often needs a religious covering in order to be preserved and handed on to coming generations, but its role here is purely auxiliary; religiosity as such has no relation to revelation. Yet, like every human work, religion gives broad scope for creative self-expression, since such different forms of culture as science, art, and ascetic practice are united in it. And, like every human work, religion can capture a person completely. More than that, as nothing else can, it can influence the formation of the value system both of individuals and of entire communities.

It is no surprise that every religion, and especially one such as Judaism, whose foundation is a centuries-old tradition connected with revelation given by God, sooner or later closes itself within its own boundaries and becomes self-sufficient. Then its followers have to make special efforts to break through their religiosity toward God. But Jesus' opponents, as we can see, were not at all inclined toward such efforts. On the contrary, all their strength was directed toward maintaining the religious covering which, in principle, was supposed to protect the revelation once received from God, but in reality had long since ceased to fulfill that function. It is not by chance that Jesus says that the Torah itself, given through Moses, will become their judgment (v. 45): for keeping faithfulness to the Torah means keeping faithfulness to God and to the One whom He sends, not to religious tradition as such, even if that tradition owed its origin to the Torah (vv. 46-47).

And the point is not that the Lord is offended by those who do not receive Him: in general He cares little for glory or fame (v. 41). The point is that the time of Judgment is already near, and He wants everyone to enter the Kingdom (v. 34). For Judgment places everyone before the choice between life and death. And no religion can help anyone here. Only the One who brought the Kingdom into the world can help.

By settling the tribes of Israel throughout the land of Canaan and marking out its borders, God creates a large family of brothers and sisters (cf. Ps. 132/133 - "How good and how pleasant..."). This family, called to live according to the will of God revealed through Moses, is destined, many centuries later, to become the family of the One who will reveal God to it as His Father.