Obstacles on the Way to the Kingdom of God
30/35th Sunday after Pentecost
Colossians 3:12-16; Luke 18:18-27
The Lord said: "How difficult it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God!"
Accordingly, in this Gospel account, wealth, or rather, attachment to material wealth, prevented a man from entering the path to the Kingdom of God. Jesus Christ called that young man to be his disciples to follow him (Luke 18,32), but before that he had to rid himself of his possessions: "Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor…." (ibid.).
The young man, as can be seen from the complete story, wanted to be with Jesus Christ, wanted to inherit "eternal life" (Lk.18,18), wanted to be in unity with God; but, as it turned out, he loved his estates more than unity with God. Therefore, when he heard about the prerequisites, when he learned that the estates had to be lost, he left, "sorrowed" (Lk. 18:23). The young man thought that he was obeying all the Commandments of God from an early age, but it turned out that he had not obeyed the first and most important Commandment of God: to confess the One God. That is, mentally, theoretically, he recognized that Commandment, but practically in his life, estates, attachment to material goods, and not God and His will, took precedence in his life.
When God occupies a secondary role in a person, when something else is in the first place, then that person does not properly profess the One God. True confessors of God must have Him only in the first place and love him "with all their heart, and with all their soul, and with all their strength, and with all their mind" (Lk. 10,27). There can be no half-heartedness in relations with God, love for Him; readiness to fulfill His will must be absolute. When we have gained such feelings towards God, such faith in Him, then the road to the Kingdom of God is open to us - here on earth, and then in eternity - to the Kingdom of Heaven.
Wealth may not necessarily be an obstacle to follow that path of salvation; there are people who are indifferent to all material possessions, but they are slaves to alcohol - they cannot do without it, so they are actually slaves to sin (Romans 6,17), and not slaves-servants of God. Sin possesses such people.
There are people who are slaves to other passions, who are bound by those passions and therefore cannot follow Christ, just as the aforementioned rich young man could not follow Jesus. Each of us can examine ourselves, our faithfulness to God: are we ready to give up any pleasures of this world and follow Christ? Let us put that question before our conscience and we will have a true answer; our conscience will not deceive us - it is from God. It is the radar of our soul.
But we can also ask the question in relation to other Commandments of God, for Jesus Christ testified that the prerequisite for inheriting eternal life, life in God, is to obey the Commandments (Lk. 18,19). Undoubtedly, the first and most important Commandment is the first - about the recognition of the One God. The second Commandment actually complements the first. However, let us consider the other commandments.
Many of us can say that we do not kill. But many of us do not reflect on the fact that a person can be killed or seriously injured with a word. Yes, in a word from human lips. False reproaches and accusations can hurt sensitive people to the core. I personally had to hear the confession of one woman that she, along with her other brothers and sisters, falsely accused her stepmother in front of her father of bad deeds that she had never committed. And the same woman thinks that with false accusations, they prematurely brought her own mother, who was an honest person, to the grave.
The same applies to other Commandments of God. Here, as I am writing these lines /August 1982/, we read a news item in the newspaper that a man spent 11 years in prison in vain, because two false witnesses testified against him, who falsely claimed 11 years ago that they saw him kill a man. False testimony against one's neighbour is a great sin. It was like that thousands of years ago, and it remains so, now.
The commandment of God - "Honour your father and mother" - we must also put before our conscience. In the Old Testament code, given through the prophet Moses, there was an emphatic explication that
"Whoever strikes his father or his mother shall be put to death." (Exodus 21,15)
Of course, in the New Testament no one applies such a severe punishment, but in the New Testament Christ reminds us that honouring father and mother remains binding. We do not honour father and mother under the threat of punishment, but out of love and gratitude for them. However, we must always remind ourselves that honouring our parents is God's will.
Therefore, when we love God and respect His will, we also do His will for our parents.
In the countries where we live (Canada, the USA), fathers and mothers usually are assured of minimal financial support; but for those who have had the opportunity to visit numerous so-called "nursing homes", "rest homes", or chronic departments of many hospitals, we will see for ourselves that there the available material support takes the form of caring for the physical needs of the elderly and infirm. Although, those homes also testify to little or no love and respect by children for their fathers and mothers.
There, those elderly are looked after by younger people, but only for a fee. Love is almost not felt there, therefore, from a spiritual and moral point of view, those homes for the care of elderly and infirm people are very cold. Many of those people should not be in those homes; after all, they have children, most of whom have enough space in their houses for their father or mother. There is enough space in their houses, but there is obviously not enough space in their hearts, in their feelings; that is why many fathers and mothers live in those soulless, cold homes.
Of course, parents themselves may be to blame. We do not place ourselves in the role of judge. But children must always take care not only of the material and physical needs of their parents-mothers, but also of their spiritual needs.
Expression of love for father and mother - warms their sensibilities, creates mental warmth, which further heals their bodily infirmities. Also, children should always make sure that their parents, as soon as possible, are placed among people of their nationality, their faith, even when they are infirm. That they might have the printed word and the Word of God in their native language.
But first of all, children should ensure that their fathers and mothers are in unity with God through the Church of their people. It must be appreciated that an Orthodox Ukrainian can never be fully contented with ministrations of a Romanian or Greek priest. The faith may be the same, but our nation has its own spirituality, which was and is different from the spirituality of other nations.
It would be erroneous and unfair if we thought that God's Commandment to respect one's father and mother only binds one party. The Apostle Paul teaches us from God:
"Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ‘Honour your father and mother’ (this is the first commandment with a promise)....” (Ephesians 6:1-2)
For, at the same time, Apostle Paul also gives instructions to parents:
“do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” (Eph. 6:1-4)
Parents who did not raise their children accordingly, who did not instill God's instructions in them, can complain only about themselves. Let us not forget the righteous words of the same apostle:
"For whatever a man sows, that he will also reap." (Galatians 6.7)
Let us endeavour to fulfill the Commandments of God and Christ. They are instructions on the road of our life; fulfilling them will lead us to union with Christ and our God, to the inheritance of eternal life in God, about which the young man mentioned in The Gospel was so concerned.
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.