Metropolitan Luke (Kovalenko) of Zaporozhye and Melitopol
Christ is in our midst, my dear readers!
In today’s Gospel reading, the Lord teaches us to love our enemies by doing good to them. And the Apostle Paul complements this reading with a call to live in such a way that we do not become a stumbling block for our neighbor. It often happens that the people who wish us harm and cause all kinds of trouble become our best spiritual teachers. After all, it is thanks to them that we come to know our own shortcomings. They make us reflect on our behavior and look at ourselves from the outside.
A Christian is called to live in such a way that people, seeing his virtuous life, glorify the Heavenly Father. But sometimes the opposite happens. Seeing someone’s ungodly life, people turn away from God, saying: “If believers behave like this, what good can I learn in their Church?”
Jesus Christ said about this: It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones (Luke 17:2).
This warning applies to the clergy, as well as any Christian. For it is by our behavior, by our life, that people judge the Orthodox faith.
To avoid being a stumbling block to anyone, we need to learn meekness and humility. But whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant (Matt.20:26–27), the Lord teaches us. By washing the feet of His disciples, the Savior showed the true example of serving one’s neighbor. How far from this are those who, calling themselves Christians, allow themselves to beat other people, break church doors, and seize what does not belong to them! Do they really believe that such actions are pleasing to God? But what can we say about ordinary Christians, when even the one who out of his duty in service should be by his own example a model of meekness and humility, tries to usurp power in the Church, making himself the first and sole ruler, to whom the heads of other Churches must submit? Does such behavior not directly contradict what Christ teaches in the Gospel?
Everyone will give an account to God for how he lived in this world. As for us, we must strive to live in such a way that our lives point others toward the path of salvation.
