!6th Sunday After Pentecost: A Sermon on Luke 6:31-6

Beloved of God, today I would like to concentrate upon the last two verses of the Gospel reading.  Our Lord said: “Love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.”

Let us first consider that last verse and the very last word, “merciful”.  If we were to translate this back into Greek we would immediately render it “eleos” which is the usual word in Greek for mercy.  This is what is used in response to petitions in the litanies which is “Kyrie eleison” and we render as “Lord have mercy”.  However the Greek word here is not a form of eleos rather it is “Oiktermon” which comes from the lamenting cry “oi” used in the Greek tragedies for deep pain which could be translated as feeling pity upon.  So this term “Oiktermon” can actually be thought of as a superlative of mercy.  That is how our Lord asks us to be.  We should feel deep pain for or feel pity upon all others, all of our fellow men and really all creation.  This “pain” or “pity” should proceed from the heart, so then, what we really need is to develop tenderheartedness as a primary state of being.  For if the heart is tender the aforementioned would be natural, yet, I am sure we all realize that this is far from easy to acquire. 

So now, let us move on to the words of our Lord just before this and the great command, that is, to love our enemies.  On a human level, with our own human powers can we acquire love of enemies?  Humanly speaking it is impossible even if we seem to be nice, kind, merciful and tenderhearted, adverse circumstances in life have proved that many such people cannot live up to the commandment of “love your enemies”.  However, what is impossible for men, is possible for God.  So if anyone desires to fulfill this commandment he must seek help from God.  He must seek to acquire the grace of the Holy Spirit, through the action of the Holy Spirit within a person this is possible.  It is not something that someone does of himself but it is something that one participates in.    

Archimandrite Zacharias of the Monastery of St. John the Baptist in Essex has written wonderfully about this as follows:  

“Love for enemies, which is active in the heart through the Holy Spirit, is well-pleasing to God as it embraces the whole Adam, the entire creation, even hell.  For this reason, only love for enemies can open the way for man to know and bear within himself the whole created being, as well as Divine Being according to grace.”

“Saint Silouan did not preach love for enemies naively.  He knew that save for the grace of the Holy Spirit it is unattainable.  He also knew that the fulfillment of the double commandment of love, of which the highest degree is love for enemies, attracts the grace of God.  For this reason, whoever loves his enemies will come to know the Lord in a perfect way through the Holy Spirit.  Saint Silouan teaches that love for enemies banishes all pride from the soul and brings into the heart the humility of Christ, which “passes description and is sweet”.  He determines that where there is love for enemies, there is also the Holy Spirit at work.  He discerns the authenticity of spiritual experiences according to the measure in which they are followed by prayer for the whole world and love for enemies. ‘And if…you yourself have compassion on all creation, and love your enemies, counting yourself the vilest of all, it is a sign of abundant grace of the Holy Spirit in you.’  Thus, for Saint Silouan, the criterion of the presence of the Holy Spirit and of true communion with God is prayer and love for enemies. Through love for enemies the believer acquires much grace from God and through prayer for enemies he is able to preserve it.” (The Engraving of Christ in Man’s Heart, Archimandrite Zacharias (Zacharou), pp 54-5)

This is the “kingdom of God within us” (cf. Luke 17:21), let us strive to enter it. Amen!