Metropolitan of Strumica Nahum: Now … do you want to have or to not have?
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” For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away.” (Matthew 25:29).
These words of Christ explain the whole Gospel reading of the talents. In short, the one who has and to whom more will be added and multiplied (both the spiritual and, if necessary, the material things), is the one who thanks God for everything, no matter whether what happens or what he receives it seems good or bad to him at that moment; the one who is merciful to the poor and afflicted people and the one who offers all his things to God – in the fulfilment of the commandments, for the salvation of the world.
There are a number of innate or inherent talents possessed by man; strengths, potentials, and opportunities available to him in order to perfect himself “to become a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ ” (Eph. 4:13). By working hard through his talents striving for perfection he is actually giving himself to God. Giving is gratitude.
Whereas, the one who does not have and to whom will be taken even what (he thinks) he has, is the one who does not thank God for everything that happens to him, and who lives selfishly. These are the ones who live according to their passions: vainglory, covetousness and love of pleasures.
The passions for power, money, and carnal pleasures are what leads man to entrapment (to be their captive). Thus he uses everything he enjoys and possesses only for his own needs (self-love) and all that he enjoys and possesses seems not to be enough to him. The feeling that he does not have and there is always something that he is short of is crucial for the ungrateful man.
Such is the very nature of passions: they are constantly seeking new and greater satisfaction, and after each satisfaction, they leave even greater need and an even greater emptiness. Certainly, God leaves everyone a time for repentance and then everything is taken away, and in the end, even the time itself which is given for repentance (change of mind) is taken away.
However the Lord wants to protect us from pride, from high opinion of ourselves, even if we fulfil what is right: “So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do. ‘”(Luke 17:10).
The words of the Lord refer only to those who would in case fulfil all that has been commanded to them. How can we who do not fulfil what we have been commanded to, humble ourselves? And if unprofitable servants are those who have fulfilled, what are we who have not fulfilled? We know what the Master said to the servant who did not use His talent to serve Him appropriately: “You wicked and lazy servant!” There is long way for the one to become unprofitable servant.
So, instead of judgment and condemnation and self-justification, Christ shows us the way of self-rebuking and self-condemnation, the way abandoned by almost everyone today; the path of humility.
The question is whether we can do what we are commanded to do, even if we try to do it. This question applies especially to all those who hold any of the three levels of the priesthood. To all of us who, by God’s permission, not by God’s will, carry the priestly order (rank), and even if we want to, we will not be able to fulfil what God expects of us. We simply have no inner spiritual captivity for the order we carry. For example, the word of an enlightened person has one strength, the word of the one who only builds himself morally and intellectually has another strength, and quite another is the “strength” of the word of the one who does not work on himself at all. Not to mention the wonderworking word of the deified.
Most-Holy Theotokos, save us!
Metropolitan of Strumica Nahum
(09.10.2021 16:00)
