In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit!

Brothers and sisters! Today in the Gospel reading we heard a parable about those invited to the supper, which expresses the idea that God calls everyone equally to enjoy the blessings of the Kingdom of Heaven, and if some do not receive them, it is only through their own fault, namely through addiction to worldly goods .

The holy apostle and evangelist Luke says that a certain man held a great supper, and the apostle and evangelist Matthew speaks somewhat differently about the same thing: “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who held a wedding feast for his son...”(Matthew 22:2).

This supper was precisely the wedding feast of the Son of God, and God the Father Himself arranged this great supper. Bulls and rams were slaughtered, everything was prepared for the wedding feast of the Son of God, whom Luke hid under the guise of a certain man. And when everything was ready, when the time had come, he sent a slave to say to those invited: “Go, for everything is ready.”

Some chosen ones were invited in advance, called in advance to the wedding feast. Who was the first to be called by the Lord to the wedding supper of His Son? Who are these chosen ones? These are the leaders of the people of Israel, these are their teachers - the high priests, scribes, Pharisees, elders of the people - the Lord first of all called them to His feast. He didn’t even limit himself to a one-time invitation: when everything was ready for the feast, He again sent a slave to say that everything is ready, go to the feast. And how did these chosen ones respond?

“And everyone, as if by agreement, began to apologize. The first one said to him: I bought land, and I need to go and see it; please forgive me"- we read in the Gospel. And in Slavic it will be: “I pray you, have me renounced”, i.e. - I renounce your supper.

He bought land and therefore considered the wedding feast of Christ, the supper of the Son of God, completely uninteresting. The land he bought was dearer to him, since he placed all his hope on earthly things, and all his aspirations and thoughts were directed only towards earthly goods. Why does he need supper in the Kingdom of God?

“Another said: I bought five pairs of oxen and am going to test them; I pray you have me renounced.”

He bought five pairs of oxen, which means he was not a poor man: he was rich, and because of these five pairs of oxen he refused to sup in the kingdom of God. Under the guise of this man, we are once again shown how our hearts become attached to wealth, to earthly goods.

After all, we know that those who at least once embark on the path of covetousness will never leave it, because covetousness completely takes possession of a person’s heart, and the more a person acquires, the more his passion for acquisitions flares up, the more insatiably he wants new riches.

“The third said: I got married; and that’s why I can’t come.”

The first two at least somehow apologized, but this one didn’t even apologize, he simply and even rudely says: I don’t need your supper. I got married, I have a young wife, who is much dearer to me than your evening. Have me renounced.

“And when that servant returned, he reported this to his master. Then, angry, the owner of the house said to his servant: go quickly through the streets and alleys of the city and bring here the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind. And the servant said: Master! it has been done as you ordered, and there is still room.”

Who are these blind, lame, poor and wretched whom the host of the supper gathered through the streets of the city? These are the ones about whom the Apostle Paul speaks in his letter to the Corinthians: “God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the strong things; God has chosen the base things of the world and the base things, and the things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are...”(1 Cor. 1:27–29).

These were poor in both body and spirit, they were humble, simple people who did not boast of their wisdom, since they did not have book wisdom, they were uneducated people.

After all, we know that the Lord chose the apostles precisely from such people, from those who knew nothing of science, of human wisdom, simple fishermen. Crowds of people followed Christ who had a completely different attitude than the leaders of Israel, who hated Christ out of envy of Him. Christ was surrounded by simple people, although sinful and gravely sinful, like publicans and harlots, but who washed His feet with their tears and wiped them with their loose hair. These were not wise people, not noble people - they were humiliated people. They felt in their hearts, although sinful, but retaining sensitivity, the holiness of the Lord, they felt a huge contrast between Christ and themselves, since they were vessels of sin and uncleanness.

It was their beggars and poor - those who were not carried away by worldly gains, who suffered shortcomings and deprivations, the blind - uneducated and unlearned, the lame - who did not abandon serving the world and the flesh, but, at the same time, wanting to serve God - the master's servant gathered them along the streets of the city. But there's still room left.

And then “The master said to the servant: go out along the roads and hedges and persuade them to come, so that my house may be filled.”(Luke 14:17–24).

Whom did He order to look for along the country roads, along the country paths, along the hedges, to fill his house?

These are the pagans, among whom the word of the Gospel spread so quickly, these are the pagans who lived far from Jerusalem, the pagans of that great Roman Empire, which conquered the entire world of that time.

The pagans, conquered for three centuries by preaching about Christ, who shed so much blood in the process of knowing Christ, wandered at crossroads. They are also called by the Lord, equally. Over the course of three centuries, the Gospel of Christ conquered the entire pagan world of that time. This is who filled the upper room prepared for the feast.

The Apostle and Evangelist Matthew adds something more important that the Apostle Luke kept silent about: “The king, coming in to see those reclining, saw a man there, not dressed in wedding clothes, and said to him: friend! How did you come here not wearing wedding clothes? He was silent. Then the king said to the servants: having tied his hands and feet, take him and throw him into utter darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."(Matt. 22:11–13).

And who is this: not dressed in wedding clothes? This is one of those, of which there are many even among today's Christians, one of those who do not understand that “The Kingdom of God is in need, i.e. is taken by force, and only those who use force delight, i.e. inherit it."

This is the one who believed that having received remission and forgiveness of sins in the Sacrament of Baptism, he was already clean; one of those who think that the kingdom of God can be earned only by external observance of rituals, by external piety alone.

Some do not want to see the dirt that is so much in their hearts, they do not want to realize that they are dressed in dirty rags woven from their sins, and they dare to come to Christ’s supper.

You and I see that the parable of Christ applies not only to those ancient people, the leaders of the people of Israel, the wicked scribes and Pharisees.

The words of Christ are eternal, they have not lost their meaning and relevance, and have deep meaning for us, living two thousand years later.

Are not all the people whom He redeemed with His Divine Blood on the Cross called to supper in the kingdom of God? Of course everything!

How many people respond to the call? Aren't we afraid to renounce the Supper of Christ? Unfortunately, a huge number of people continue to renounce: they do not care about the Kingdom of Heaven, they do not believe in an eternal afterlife, they do not believe in God; going their own way, recklessly relying only on their own strength...

But there are others. Among those who rejected Christ’s supper, there are many who believe in God and would like to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but they do not go to the supper, and to Christ calling them they answer: "Have me renounced."

Why don't they come? They answer in embarrassment: how should we go, because they will laugh at us and mock us. Can we go against the flow, can we not live the life that everyone else lives? Can we stand out from the people around us? After all, we depend on them in many respects, we are afraid of losing what we have if we go against them.

We are sometimes afraid of the ridicule and bullying of people around us, why are we not afraid of the words of the Lord Himself: “Whoever is ashamed of Me before men, I will also be ashamed of him before My Father who is in heaven.”. It’s very scary when the words of Christ matter less than the opinions of others...

We all need to realize that we will deserve the renunciation of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself if we dare to say to Him: “have me renounced,” if we do not think about how we live and do not decide to change our lives, if we do not put the commandments of Christ above all else, afraid of what other people will say about us.

How one would like not to be expelled from Christ’s supper for crawling there in the dirty clothes of sin.

Brothers and sisters! Let us not forget the words of Christ: many are called, but few are chosen.

Earthly life is sometimes too short, no one except the Lord knows how much is measured out to us, we must remember that the days of our earthly life must be used to cleanse our hearts and become worthy participants in the great and eternal supper of Christ.

May the Lord help us all! Amen.

Great Lent has arrived - a time of special services, readings and chants. One of them is the Passion - a service performed on Sunday evenings, during which the Gospel conceptions are read...

“Be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).

Christian perfection is not achievable without the all-saving grace of God. To achieve the ideal set by the Lord...

Orthodox Christians celebrate Epiphany, or Epiphany, on January 19. On this day, the Church remembers the gospel event - how the prophet John the Baptist baptized the Lord Jesus Christ in the river...

The Council of the Holy Seventy Apostles was established by the Orthodox Church in order to show the equality of each of the seventy and thereby prevent disagreements in their veneration. 70 apostles...

Peace to you, Alexey!

The Gospels brought to us 3 versions of the parable of being chosen.

About a vineyard owner who hired workers morning, noon and evening

About a king who invited people to a wedding feast arranged for his son.

About a rich man who threw a feast and invited everyone to rejoice with him.

All three parables end with the idea that many are called, but few are chosen. All three were told by the Lord Jesus as an illustration of what the Kingdom of Heaven is like, or even more simply put: who can be saved. It turns out that salvation for Eternal Life is offered to all people about whom it is said: “many are called.” The only problem is that not all of them agreed to respond and come to the call. According to the logic proposed by the parable, those who came are called chosen.

It turns out that God gave people the freedom to choose whether they will become chosen for salvation. God called everyone, prepared a path and a spiritual meal for everyone along this path, and gave everything necessary so that any person could be saved and become a citizen of His Kingdom. Now it's up to each person individually. Will you respond and come? You will be the chosen one. The last book of the Bible says about these:

...The Lamb... is Lord of lords and King of kings, And those who are with Him , essence invited And favorites And faithful.

Blessed decisions to you, may they be made under the guidance of God’s Holy Spirit for the salvation of you and your loved ones!

Sasha.

Read more on the topic “Interpretation of Scripture”:

AND the picture that is given to us in today's Gospel, so simple and tactfully describes all the states of our soul, all the reasons why we have no time for God, no interest in eternity.

The Lord has prepared a feast of faith, a feast of eternity, a feast of love, and He sends for those whom He warned long ago that there would be such a feast and to be ready for it. One answers: I bought a piece of land, I need to survey it, I need to take possession of it; after all, the earth is my homeland; I was born on earth, I live on earth, I lay my bones in the earth, how can I not make sure that at least some piece of this earth is mine? Heaven is God's, and let the earth be mine...

Don’t we act this way, don’t we also try to take root on earth so that nothing can shake us, so that we can provide ourselves with land and on earth? And we think that we are about to provide for ourselves; that the time will come when everything earthly will be done, and then there will be time to think about God.

But here we hear the second example that the Lord gives us: He sent His servants to other called ones, and they answered: we bought five pairs of oxen, we need to test them - we have a task on earth, we have work, we we cannot remain idle; It’s not enough to belong to the earth—you have to bear fruit, you have to leave a mark behind you. We have no time to feast in the Kingdom of God, it comes too early with its call to eternal life, to the contemplation of God, to the joy of mutual love - we need to finish something else on earth...

And when everything is done, when only the pitiful remnants of the human mind, body, strength, and abilities remain for God, then let Him take what remains of the earth for Himself; but now we are talking about the land - our own, our own, which bears fruit, on which we must leave an eternal mark: as if anything will remain of us in one or two decades after our death!

And the Lord sends to the third, and these answer Him: earthly love has entered our lives; I got married - should I really tear myself away from this love in order to enter the kingdom of another love?.. Yes, heavenly love is more spacious, it embraces everyone more deeply; but I don’t want this all-encompassing love, I want personal affection, I want to love one person so that no one and nothing on earth would mean as much as this person means to me. Now I have no time to enter the eternal palaces: there is love boundless, all-encompassing, eternal, of God, - and here is love on the scale of my human heart: leave me, Lord, to enjoy my earthly love, and when there is nothing else left, then accept me into the palaces Your love...

And we do this: we find such urgent work for ourselves on earth that there is no time for God’s work, for life with God. And we find such love for ourselves on earth that we don’t care about God’s love. “When death comes, then we will have time”: this is still the same answer to God’s love. Christ says: Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest... I will give everything, I will give love: you, people of God, will meet face to face - not like on earth, seeing each other vaguely, not understanding each other, perplexed, hurting each other. You will stand in the Kingdom of God - and everything will be transparent: the understanding of the mind, and the knowledge of the heart, and the aspiration of the will, and love: everything will be clear, like crystal... And we answer: No, Lord, this will have its time: let the earth be exhausted , on which we live... And we draw, and we live, and it ends with the fact that, according to the word of God in the Old Testament, having given us everything that it could give, the earth takes back everything that it itself gave and that the Lord gave: you are the earth, and to the earth you will go...

And then the purchased field turns out to be a burial field, then the work that tore us away from God, from living relationships with people, from living relationships with God, dissipates even in people’s memory; then earthly love, which seemed so great, appears to us, when we stand in eternity, as a narrow prison cell... But for the sake of all this, we said to God: No! It is not You, Lord, who we want to experience the land, labor, and earthly love to the end!..

Few are chosen, not because God strictly chooses, not because He finds few worthy of Himself, but because few find God worthy of sacrificing a piece of land, an hour of labor, a moment of affection... A lot of called - we are all called: which of us will respond? It is enough to respond to love with love in order to enter the feast of eternity, into life. Shall we not respond to God’s love with one word: Love you, God!.. Amen.

The Call of God and the Path of Salvation

Every year it seems more and more difficult for me to say something new at our meetings; We have been living one common church life for so many years, we have been sharing feelings and thoughts for so many years, we have been hearing the same Gospel readings for so many years and growing into them together, that it seems that I can only repeat what has been said so many times.

And at the same time, if we think about what fruit we have brought over the years of our lives because we heard the words of God Himself, who became Man, then we have to admit: No! Necessary say the same thing again and again about the same thing!.. And we must speak, and especially we must accept into our own hearts, that the Lord calls, prays, convinces, demands - and we remain so insensitive and deaf.

We are even accustomed to such terrible things as the story of the crucifixion of Christ: when we hear it, in the depths of our souls something tells us: Yes, but He is risen!.. - and therefore the horror of this event, the darkness of the terrible night of Good Friday, barely barely reach our consciousness, our feelings.

When I say “us,” I think about all of us and about myself first. When I first read the Gospel, I was shocked to the depths of my soul, to the very depths of my being; it seemed: now that I I know- all life must become different; It’s impossible to live like everyone else lives! And looking back at my life, I am painfully aware that although this feeling has not extinguished, life has not changed to the absolute extent that it could and should have changed.

Gospel events often seem distant, almost ghostly to us; and at the same time they are addressed to each of us at every moment. We look for consolation and encouragement in the Gospel - and we pass by the severity, inflexibility of the Gospel word, how the Lord calls us. Now we are before Christmas. What could and should be for us joy- that God So loved the world that he entered this world, became incarnate, So loved humanity that he became One of us!..

But since He became One of us, we should be so similar to Him! We should strive with all our being so that He would not be ashamed, it hurts because He is akin to us, His own... When in our family there is a person whom we revere, whom we marvel at - he is so wonderful that we would like to bow before him - how we try not to disgrace him in the face of the people around us! And not even in front of others - we try so that he himself does not feel ashamed that we are not like him, do not strive for the same thing that he strives for, and that the high ideal, beauty, meaning by which he lives are indifferent to us .

Probably each of us knows how painful it is when something deeply touches us and worries us; We’ll tell our close friend about this, and he’ll shrug his shoulders, because he’s simply not interested in it, he doesn’t care about it, and he’ll move the conversation to another topic. The theme of Christ is His love for us, God's love for us, God's love addressed to to each from U.S. This theme is why He became a man and why He All endured silently and for which He died, saying: Forgive them, Father, they don’t know what they are doing...

And in the face of this we live as if Nothing from this never didn't happen; as if there was no Incarnation, as if God’s love on the cross had not revealed itself to us. It’s as if we are telling Him: we are not interested in this; We have other concerns, our own; we are interested in our earthly life as it is, we are attached to it; don’t tell us that it can open up and embrace heaven, earth, and eternity, and that its name should be “love”... Moreover, love is not the kind that is concentrated on me or in me, but spacious, capable love cover ever wider circles of people, events, things.

And so, during the weeks leading up to the Nativity of Christ, we read the Gospel story about those invited to the feast. Let us read it in the words of the Gospel itself:

When you make a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed that they cannot repay you, for you will be rewarded at the resurrection of the righteous. Hearing this, one of those reclining with Him said to Him: Blessed is he who eats bread in the Kingdom of God! He said to him: one man made a large supper and invited many, and when the time for supper came, he sent his servant to say to those invited: go, for everything is already ready. And everyone, as if by agreement, began to apologize. The first one said to him: I bought land and I need to go and look at it; please forgive me. Another said: I bought five pairs of oxen and am going to test them; please forgive me. The third said: I got married and therefore cannot come.

And, returning, that servant reported this to his master. Then, angry, the owner of the house said to his servant: go quickly through the streets and alleys of the city and bring here the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind. And the servant said: Master! done as you ordered, and there is still room. The master said to the servant: go along the roads and hedges and persuade them to come, so that my house may be filled. For I tell you that none of those who are called will taste my supper, for many are called, but few are chosen.(Luke 14:13-24).

Isn't this an accurate picture of what I was talking about? We are called to God's feast. This feast should have begun on earth if man had not betrayed himself and betrayed God. When God created the world, He created it beautiful, in complete harmony with Himself and in the harmony of all creatures among themselves. And this world could have stood in its pristine beauty, could have grown from the beauty of innocence into the harmonious and already unshakable beauty of holiness - but man betrayed both himself and God. He was called to be the leader of the whole world from innocence to holiness; but he himself retreated from this path, and the whole world wavered and became the way we see it. And so at the beginning of this parable we are given three images that apply to each of us in this fallen world, which we have chosen as our homeland, while our homeland is the Kingdom of God, which could be earth and heaven at the same time, but remains only heaven until God wins the final victory over evil, over discord, over sin.

The first of those invited says to the messenger from the owner of the house: “I acquired a piece of land for myself; I need to examine it, master it; he is mine”... This is what I just talked about: we chose the land and said: I want to develop it, it is mine; I want to possess her to the end; I want her to be what I am... And we don’t notice that, trying to hold on to the earth, to make it ours, we ourselves become its slaves, we belong to it. We cannot tear ourselves away from it, we are completely immersed in it; We grow our roots into it, we no longer look up, but look only at this earth: so that it is fruitful. And in the end, we belong to this earth so much that we lie down in it with our bones, we are buried in it, our body dissolves in it; what we thought was ours now possesses us. We have no time to go to the feast of God, to the feast of faith, to the joy of meeting, to the Divine harmony of everything, because we want to conquer the earth; and as a result it consumes us.

Another says: “I bought five pairs of oxen - I need to test them! I need to check their performance! And besides, I didn’t buy them so that they would stand in a stable, they must endure labor and bear fruit”... Isn’t that how we talk – each in our own way, but all the same – about the fact that we have tasks before us! We must accomplish something, do something on earth! How can we live without leaving a trace?.. And everyone tries, to the best of their ability, to work. Some of the ancient fathers see the image of these five pairs of oxen as a symbol of our five senses.

We are given five senses - sight, hearing, smell, etc.: how can all this not be applied to earthly life? But the five senses apply only to the ground; you cannot catch the sky either by sight, or by hearing, or by smell; the sky is perceived with a different sense. Even earthly love is not covered by five senses - what can we say about Divine love, about eternity? We, as it were, put these five senses of ours into bargaining and acquire what we can - but only earthly things...

Sometimes through these feelings something more is revealed to us: earthly love. And so the third of those invited says to the servant: “I got married, I have my own joy, my heart is full to the brim - I have no time to come to the feast of your master, even my master - can’t he understand this himself? I have my own joy, how can I accommodate someone else’s joy?”

Affection, love that on the verge eternity, on this or the other side of eternity, depending on how we treat it, again becomes a barrier: it keeps me on earth, I have nowhere to escape from it. Eternity - later, once upon a time; now - I would like to fill the time with this joy, this amazement, this happiness, and it is enough that my happiness is my, I don’t need someone else’s... And the third person invited also does not go to God’s feast, because he is afraid that temporary joy will leave him, drowning in eternity, in the eternal.

So what remains? What remains is the man who lives by clinging to the earth, which will swallow him up; the whole meaning of its existence relies on doing something with this earth and on this earth - temporary, which will also pass: people’s memory passes, buildings collapse, the whole world is covered with the remains of outdated, dead, collapsed civilizations. And a person still builds a new one - which also will not stand, temporary, aimless - because there is no goal in itself, no further goal. AND Instead of opening up through love, a person often closes himself in love: ours - and others... And this is very scary. Oh, these “others” and “ours” can be distributed very differently, there can be a lot of “ours”; but it still remains one"other", the Kingdom of God not only does not exist, it denied.

I want to give you two images. The first is a story about a real person whom I remember, whose family I knew. A scientist, creative, gifted person died; he was buried. He had a son in a madhouse, a young man not yet twenty years old. His mother informed him of his father's death. He laughed and replied: “That’s not true! He couldn't die! Having exhausted all her explanations, his mother brought him to me so that I could explain to him that his father had actually died.

Before I said anything to him, I asked the young man: “Why do you think that your father is not dead, when the witnesses of his death tell you that he died, the people who saw his dead body, who took part in his funeral, who saw how was his coffin lowered into the ground and covered with earth? Why do you deny his death? “Because,” he answered, “he never lived and, therefore, could not die...” And he explained to me that his father existed only by attachment to his car, to his television, to his collection of precious stones, to his books. As long as these things exist, said this boy, my father is as alive or as dead as he was before...

Only a young man who had lost the habit of thinking, as we would say, “reasonably,” that is, in an earthly way, could express himself this way; but he saw things as they were. This man, his father, did not live: he reflected the surrounding reality, was ignited by some kind of interest, moved from experience to experience; but experience is not life; it is an instant event that goes away like a candle goes out...

How similar we are all to this! He is rooted in the earth; his only interests were earthly, but he was dehumanized, there was no man left in him, because he was completely absorbed in objects. And now each of us faces the same question: do I exist? Is there someone in me - or is there emptiness in me? or I, according to St. Theophan the Recluse about a person who is focused on himself - like wood shavings curled around his own emptiness? Whether there is a Is there anything in me that can go into eternity? Of course, neither the land that the first called one bought, nor the oxen that the second one bought, nor the work that the oxen did on this land will go into eternity. What will remain?..

And if we talk about love, then, again, what will remain if it is all reduced to the standards of earthly life, if there is nothing behind them, if it is as small, insignificant as our earth in this endlessly opening space, in which we live: a speck of dust - and in this speck of dust is a person with his feelings, thoughts. Yes, a person is more than a speck of dust, but only if he does not relate himself to this speck of dust, if he finds in himself a magnitude, a depth that only God can fill, a depth that can contain the entire universe and still remain empty, because that there is infinity in it and it can only be the place of indwelling of God Himself...

Love should open us up like this; if it does not achieve this, then it becomes small, like a speck of dust. Of course, we don’t know how to cover everyone, we don’t know how to cover everything; But we must open up more and more, and not close, close, narrow. We cannot and do not know how to love everyone; But Do we know how to love those we love? Is our love for those we love a blessing, freedom, fullness of life for them, or a prison in which they sit like captives in chains?.. The prophet Isaiah has a word: "set the prisoners free".

And each of us will say: “I have no slaves, I hold no one captive, I have no power over anyone,” and this is not true! How we hold each other captive as we enslave each other! Which We make life narrow for each other, and it’s scary to say how often this happens because we seem to “love” a person and know better than him what constitutes his happiness and goodness. And no matter how much he strives for his happiness, no matter how much he strives to open up, like a flower opens in the sun, we throw our shadow on him and say: “No, I know better than you, what are your paths, what is your happiness...”. How often do you hear - maybe not in these words, but in essence: “God, if this person stopped loving me, how free I would be! I could live, the chains would fall off me, life would begin..."

The second image is a story from a French book about how a man wanted to create an earthly paradise. A certain Cyprian, having lived for many years among the savages on the islands of the Pacific Ocean, passionately loved the earth, nature, life, the creative forces of this nature and learned from the locals how to use the witchcraft of love to call to life all the living forces of the sometimes parched land. He returns to his homeland, buys a piece of rocky, lifeless soil and, as it were, envelops this soil with his love, calling into it and from it all the living, creative forces. And the soil, which has been dead for centuries, begins to come to life, to grow herbs, trees, flowers, it becomes, as it were, an earthly paradise. And in this insight, in this light of love, animals begin to gather, because there love conquers their enmity, their mutual malice, their habits, instincts; they live as if in paradise. Only one animal remains outside this paradise - the fox. She doesn't want to join others, she stays outside.

Cyprian at first thinks about her with compassion: poor beast, he doesn’t understand where his happiness is! - and in every possible way calls on this fox: Come! This is paradise!.. But the fox doesn’t come. Then he starts to get annoyed with her; love for her begins to fade, and gradually indignation and hatred are born in him, for this fox is a witness that his paradise is not a paradise for everyone, not everyone wants to live in this paradise. And he decides to kill the fox, because when she's gone, All animals, all plants will be united in the paradise that he artificially created with his love. And he kills the fox... He returns to his plot - all the grass has dried up, all the flowers have died out, all the animals have fled...

And so This we must remember: we are called to create the world and embrace it wider and wider with love, but not the kind that makes us slaves to an artificial paradise, but a love that can stretch further and further, leaving freedom to those who do not want to enter our paradise. This relates to our churchliness; this applies to our families, to our friendships, to our social aspirations. This poses before each of us the question of how, in what way, he is connected with those who surround him and with life. Again, we cannot embrace everyone with love, but those few whom we love, we must love with a different love than the love of an artificial paradise of enslaved beings.

"Jesus, continuing to speak to them in parables, said: The kingdom of heaven is like a man king, who held a wedding feast for his son and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast; and they did not want to come. Again he sent other servants, saying: Tell those who were invited, Behold, I have prepared my dinner, my bullocks, and what has been fattened has been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding feast. But they, despising this, went, some to their field, and some to their trade; but the rest, seizing his servants, insulted and killed them. When the king heard about this, he was angry, and, sending his troops, destroyed their murderers and burned their city. Then he said to his servants: The wedding feast is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy; therefore go to the crossroads and everyone you find , call to the wedding feast. And those servants, going out onto the roads, gathered everyone they found, both evil and good; and the wedding feast was filled with people reclining. The king, going in to look at those reclining, saw a man there, not dressed in wedding clothes, and said to him: “Friend, how did you come here not in wedding clothes?” But he was silent. Then the king said to the servants: “Binding his hands and feet, take him and throw him into outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth; For many are called, but few are chosen." (Gospel of Matthew, chapter 22, verses 1-14)

I want to draw your attention to two aspects of the very rich content of today's Gospel. Firstly, the Lord called for marriage - that is, for the deepest, most perfect joy - the people closest to Him, those who were always around Him in moments of joy, those who knew how to share everything bright that happened in His life. But when it came to the last joy, to the joy of the Lord, to the marriage of His Son, when the joy turned out to be such that it was necessary to partake of His joy, and not just share the joy with Him - then everyone began to refuse this wedding feast.

Some bought land and had to survey it, some bought oxen and had to try them, some got married and had no time for the joy of another marriage...

Doesn’t this often happen to us both in relation to God and in relation to each other? When we can share someone else's joy - be it God's, be it human - so that it becomes our joy, not only partake of someone else's joy, but appropriate at least some share of it for ourselves - we readily go. But when we only need to rejoice in someone else’s happiness, when, in the end, the joy turns out not to be ours, but his - God’s or human - we have no time, we are busy with the earth, we have our own joy, our own marriage; We have our own land, our own work, we don’t have time to just go and rejoice, because someone else is rejoicing...

We sometimes - not always - somehow know how to share grief; and sharing joy can be very difficult.

It takes a lot of detached, generous love to be able to rejoice in that joy, which, in the end, will remain the property of another, not mine. And at the same time, if we cannot rejoice like this, then it means that we have very, very little love for man - or for God; and it turns out that we know how to rejoice only when we expect that the joy will be ours, that we will be able to appropriate it.

And this is what the second feature of today’s Gospel speaks about. When all those close to him and those close to him refused, the Lord commanded to gather uninvited beggars, vagabonds, people who had never come close to Him before: Let My feast be filled... And so people gathered; everyone came unworthy of this feast and this joy; the beggars came, in beggar's rags, and the Lord received everyone, and He received each one with generosity and hospitality, which made them not beggars at His feast, but guests equal to Him; they were received and dressed, and washed, and brought into the royal palaces so that they did not feel out of place, beggars and destitute, who only for a moment received some share of the triumph...

But among them there was one who came not to share the joy, but to be satisfied with the Lord’s table; he apparently passed by those who wanted to wash him, and dress him, and prepare him for the feast: “I didn’t come to preen myself, I came to eat, to be satisfied...” and went straight into the feast.

And when the owner entered, he saw that there were beggars with a warm, affectionate, grateful heart, who wanted to be such guests that the owner would look at them and not be ashamed, so that he could rejoice that they were widely involved in this joy: not only full, but dressed, comforted, joyful... And among them he saw one who only came out of greed - and He did not recognize him as His guest; this man did not come to share joy with him, he did not come to rejoice in the joy of the Lord, but only to be satisfied with His bounties. And there was no place for such a thing at the feast.

Isn’t this how we often go to the Lord’s feast, isn’t this what we often expect from the Church, from God, from the Kingdom of God?.. The feast is prepared. The lamb is slain; but this Lamb is Christ, the Son of God... The joy of the Lord is that when we partake of the mystery of Christ, we become children of His own house; but do we come willingly to share with Christ all that He is?

Do we come willingly to commune with Christ in such a way that not only His eternal glory, but also His temporary feat, suffering, and cross become our property? Are we ready to go through the whole mystery of Christ, or is it enough for us that Christ died for us, and we want to live His life, without dying either to the world or to ourselves?

Are we not then like that only guest who entered only to receive, only to be satisfied, who only thought about himself, but did not want to partake of the very mystery of the feast, the very joy of the Resurrection on the Cross?..

Let's think about it - how often do we respond when the Lord calls us: “Come to Me”? Do we not answer: The earth holds me, my worries have enslaved me; my joy is sufficient even without You... And when we come - because we are not only called, but also laboring and burdened - do we go to become one life with That God Who loves us so much that He is His only begotten Son gave that we might be saved, that His life might become our life?

Do we want to partake of all His joy and love, or only His glory, only peace, only peace, only victory - which He can give us at the cost of the cross and death of the Only Begotten Son?..

Let's think about this, because the word of the Lord is not only a call to eternal life, but also judgment.

Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh

16 And he said to him, “A certain man made a great supper and invited many,
17 And when the time for supper came, he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited: Go, for everything is already ready.
18 And they all began, as if by agreement, to apologize. The first one said to him: I bought land and I need to go and look at it; please forgive me.
19 Another said, “I have bought five yoke of oxen and am going to test them; please forgive me.
20 The third said, “I am married, and therefore I cannot come.”
21 And the servant returned and reported this to his master. Then, angry, the owner of the house said to his servant: go quickly through the streets and alleys of the city and bring here the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind.
22 And the servant said: Master! done as you ordered, and there is still room.
23 The master said to the servant, “Go out along the roads and hedges and compel people to come, so that my house may be filled.”
24 For I tell you that none of those who are called will taste my supper, for many are called, but few are chosen.

Listen to the words of St. Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian, written by him in his great Apocalypse: And I heard as it were the voice of a great people, as the sound of many waters, as the voice of mighty thunder, saying: Hallelujah! for the Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give Him glory; For the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready. And it was given to her to be clothed in fine linen, clean and bright; The fine linen is the righteousness of the saints. And the Angel said to me: Write: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he said to me: these are the true words of God(Apoc. 19:6-9).

Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. About this wedding supper, the Lord spoke his great parable about those invited to the supper, which you heard in today’s Gospel reading.<…>This supper was precisely the wedding feast of the Son of God, and God the Father Himself arranged this great supper. What do we hear next? Bulls and rams were slaughtered, everything was prepared for the wedding feast of the Son of God, whom Luke hid under the guise of a certain man. And when everything was ready, when it was time for dinner, he sent a slave to say to those invited: Go, for everything is already ready.

Some chosen ones were invited in advance, called in advance to the wedding feast.

Who were these chosen ones, whom the Lord called first to the wedding supper of His Son?

These were the leaders of the people of Israel, these were their teachers - the high priests, scribes, Pharisees, members of the Sanhedrin, the elders of the people - the Lord called them first of all to His feast.<…>And how did these chosen ones, these leaders of the people of Israel, respond? And everyone, as if by agreement, began to apologize. The first one said to him: I bought land, and I need to go and see it; please forgive me. And in Slavic it is said much better: I pray you, have me renounced, - I renounce your supper.

He bought land and therefore considered the wedding feast of Christ, the supper of the Son of God, completely uninteresting. The land he bought was dearer to him, for only on earthly things did he place all his hope, only on earthly things did he turn his heart, only on earthly goods were all his aspirations, all his thoughts directed, and therefore he did not want any supper in the Kingdom of God; uninteresting, what’s more important is the land you bought.<…>O accursed covetous! O unfortunate one, attached with all his heart only to wealth, only to earthly blessings. We know, we know that whoever once sets out on the path of covetousness never leaves it, for covetousness completely takes possession of a person’s heart, makes this heart insatiable by nothing, for the more a person acquires, the more his passion for acquisitions flares up, the more insatiable he wants he has new riches.

The third said: I got married; and that's why I can't come. The first two still apologized, but this one didn’t even apologize, he simply and rudely says: I don’t need your supper. I got married, I have the joys of marriage ahead of me, which are much dearer to me than your supper. Have me renounced. Again a man devoted with all his heart to earthly things.

And when he returned, that servant reported this to his master. Then, angry, the owner of the house said to his servant: go quickly through the streets and alleys of the city and bring here the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind. And the servant said: Master! done as you ordered, and there is still room.

Who are these blind, lame, poor and wretched whom the host of the supper gathered through the streets of the city? These are the ones about whom the Apostle Paul speaks in his Epistle to the Corinthians: God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the strong things; God chose the base things of the world and the base things, and the things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are.(1 Cor. 1:27-29).<…>But you know that the Lord Jesus Christ chose His holy apostles precisely from such people, from those who knew nothing of science, of human wisdom, simple fishermen. Then he elected 70 more.

They were among those who followed Him, and there were crowds of people with a completely different attitude than the leaders of Israel, who hated Christ out of envy towards Him.<…>They felt in their hearts, although sinful, but retaining sensitivity, the holiness of the Lord Jesus, they felt a huge contrast between Christ, the Most Holy of Holies, and themselves, vessels of sin and uncleanness. And this holiness of Christ attracted them to Him - all these lame people, stumbling in their sinful ways; all these blind people who saw nothing in their hearts that they should have seen, that they should have repented of. It was they - the poor, the lame, the blind, the wretched - it was they who turned their hearts to our Savior, they were gathered by the master's servant along the streets of the city. But there's still room left.

And then the master said to the servant: Go out along the roads and hedges and persuade them to come, so that my house may be filled. Whom did He order to look for along country roads, along country paths, along hedges? These are the pagans, among whom the word of the Gospel spread so quickly,<…>who shed so much blood in this process of their knowledge of Christ, the martyrs of Christ are they, the dark pagans who wandered at the crossroads. It was the Lord who called them. Do you know that the Gospel of Christ over the course of three centuries conquered the entire pagan world of that time. This is who filled the upper room prepared for the feast.

<…>Well, shall we say that the parable of Christ applies only to those ancient people, the enemies of Christ, the leaders of the people of Israel, and the wicked scribes and Pharisees?

We will not say, we will not say: the words of Christ are eternal, they have an eternal and unceasing meaning both in our days, and for us, living almost two thousand years later, they have a deep meaning. For truly, are not all the people whom He redeemed with His Divine Blood called to supper in the Kingdom of God?

How many people respond to the call?

Oh, how few of them, how few!

Oh my God! How terrible it is that Christ’s supper is being despised!

A huge, huge multitude of people do this: they don’t care about the Kingdom of Heaven, they don’t believe in an Eternal afterlife, they don’t believe in God and His Eternal Kingdom; they go their own way, rejecting the path of Christ. Well, let them go - their will, but let them look where they come. They will see, they will see, they will understand what they rejected, what they laughed at and mocked.

But not everyone in the human race is like that. Of those who rejected Christ’s supper, there are many, many who believe in God, who love Christ and would like to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. But they do not go to the supper, but to Christ, who calls him to the supper, they answer: Have me denied. Why, why don't you go?! They answer embarrassedly: “How should we go, because they will laugh at us, they will mock us. Can we go against the flow, can we not live the life that everyone else lives?<…>And they don’t want to go against the current... And they float with the flow... Swim, swim, just look where you swim - you will swim in complete despair. You were afraid of the ridicule and mockery of the people of this world, but weren’t you afraid of the words of our Lord and God Jesus Christ Himself: Whoever is ashamed of Me before men, I will also be ashamed of him before My Heavenly Father.<…>It is not in our power to restrain such people, but in our power to realize the horror of renouncing the Kingdom of Heaven, from the supper of Christ.