"Blessed are Those Who Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness”
26th Sunday
Ephesians 5:9-19; Luke 12:16-21
On the 26th Sunday after Pentecost, a passage from The Gospel of Luke is read at the Liturgy, which tells about a rich farmer who harvested a good harvest. He decided that he would build new, spacious barns, collect all the grain there, and say to his soul:
“Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.”
(Luke 12:18-19).
So, as we can see, he was a short-sighted, very limited man. He apparently believed that having acquired material wealth, there was no need to worry about anything, but only to eat, drink and be merry. It did not enter his consciousness that the Creator had given him material wealth so that he could do good deeds for his neighbours, to show mercy.
This is a man from a parable, not a specific person, but we know from life experience that there are many people who are happy that they have acquired material wealth and do nothing wiser than use their wealth for their own pleasures, and in many cases, people get drunk and destroy their health, leave this world without having done anything good for their Church or their people.
Just like the man in the parable, there are people in our modern life who live and die as spiritually dead, because they direct their greatest efforts and aspirations towards the acquisition of material gain and bodily pleasures, and all of this is known to be temporary.
Here is a concrete example from life: a woman was married to a doctor, had four children; it seemed she had married and lived for love; no one forced her into marriage. Although she was materially well-off, she was tempted through the courtship of a very rich man, a multi-millionaire, and obtained a divorce from her husband and married that wealthy man. But God punished her, probably even in this world, for she had to undergo serious surgeries and was transformed from a physically beautiful woman into a person undesired by anyone. Now she is a physical and spiritual ruin. Her children, who have grown up, will never respect their mother. And we can state in the words of Christ:
“So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.” (Luke 12:21)
When a person possesses bodily perfection, when someone is endowed with certain talents and abilities, when someone achieves material gains, we must accept all of this as gifts from God, as a manifestation of His mercy toward us. And out of gratitude to the Creator, we should strive to use these gifts honestly, not only for personal benefit but also for the good of our neighbours. Then we will always feel alive in God, and in the works of our hands we will reveal the beauty of our soul; and, living on earth, we will be storing up “treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal.” (Matthew 6:20).
We can affirm here that just as there is no uniformity among people in possessing various abilities and talents, there is also no equality among people in possessing material goods. While the first we always receive from birth, the second may sometimes be acquired, hostile relations between people can arise because of one or the other of these inequalities.
Jealousy and pride, and sometimes hatred, are fed by these inequalities. Let's not forget that Jesus told the parable of the farmer who received a good harvest because a man would not share his inheritance with his brother. That man wanted Jesus to tell his brother, "to divide the inheritance with me." (Luke 12:13)
As we can see from the Gospel story, the Lord refused to divide the brothers' inheritance between them:
“Man, who made Me a judge or an arbitrator over you?”
And He said to them:
“Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.” (Luke 12:14-15).
This is a very important counsel and teaching from Christ: when people are not covetous and unjust, when they understand that people's lives do not depend on the abundance of their worldly goods, they, and especially their brothers, will always share material possessions.
In the parable, Christ showed that even if a person is not obliged to share with someone, yet lacks the understanding of how to make use of material possessions, his material acquisitions can bring him harm. A person must first of all get rid of himself of covetousness and take care of his or her soul, of those values that never disappear, that no one can ever steal.
Life convinces us that the children of millionaires, rich Hollywood artists, who often inherit large estates, are mostly the most unhappy people, because they cannot inherit virtues and truth; they do not have families where people are united by the love of father and mother.
Human happiness cannot be built without God and His truth, regardless of whether people base their lives on material wealth and carnal passions, or on misleading theories of social justice, of godlessness (Marxism).
Regarding the former, we have already spoken, and as regards the latter, it is enough to recall the example of the construction of socialism and communism under Stalin with terrible cruelties: even his children, a son and a daughter, could not live happily in that society. His son died of alcoholism, and his daughter fled to live in capitalist America.
A happy human life cannot be built by cruelty. Equality cannot be achieved by seizing estates and redistributing them equally among people, because having received them equally, people use them in different ways, and some multiply them, while others waste them.
It is generally impossible to “equalize” people with material goods, but people should be aware, according to the teachings of Christ, that happiness in human life does not depend on wealth, and, thus, that they should not be greedy. Human happiness can be built only by practising brotherly love, only by living in truth, only in unity with God and our Lord Jesus Christ, Who commanded us:
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.” (Matthew 5,6)
Amen.
Very Rev. Fr. Taras Slavchenko
Taras Slavchenko was born on March 8, 1918 in Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk region in Ukraine. After graduating from school and the Pedagogical College, he entered the language and literature faculty of the Scientific Pedagogical Institute. Having successfully completed it in 1938, he served as a teacher in a secondary school.
