“The commandment of love is a priority for Ukrainians in times of war. In his Sunday sermon, Metropolitan Epifaniy emphasized the relevance of the commandment of love today, as a full-scale war is raging in Ukraine.
This is the full text of the sermon of the OCU Primate:
The parable of the Good Samaritan, which we hear today in the Gospel reading, reminds us of at least three things that every Christian should firmly remember and implement in his life.
The first of them is a reminder of the commandment of love, as the highest and most important. Fulfillment of this commandment opens the way to eternal life. And vice versa: as the apostle John the Theologian testifies, “he who does not love has not come to know God, because God is love” (1 John 4:8).
However, it should be emphasized that the commandment of love has two inextricably linked components, which the Savior points to: it is love for God and love for one’s neighbor as for oneself. Now, we have to pay special attention to this commandment. Namely, that love for God comes first. Why so? Because it is the source of love for one’s neighbor, and it gives the latter true meaning and significance.
Often among people there is a certain misunderstanding of the meaning of the words of Scripture about love, or even a deliberate distortion to justify sins.
The same apostle John testifies: “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God and God in him” (1 John 4:16). However, these words do not mean at all that every feeling and every action, which among people is called “love”, actually has a divine origin and the Lord’s blessing.
A greedy and stingy person is called money-loving. But is greed a virtue? Not at all, on the contrary, it is one of the gravest and most common sins against true love for one’s neighbor. The love of wealth and money stands in the way of charity and righteous deeds.
A drunkard likes wine, vodka or other such drinks. But is this really the love that the Lord teaches?
A proud and selfish person loves himself. But doesn’t the Divine revelation condemn such love not simply as a sin, but as its original source, because Lucifer fell from pride and became Satan?
A fornicator indulges in carnal pleasures, as did the prodigal son in the parable. But doesn’t God’s commandment clearly and directly forbid adultery and fornication, calling them a sin?
From these and many other similar examples, we can see that not everything that people call love really is love.
Therefore, the Lord does not just command us to love, but gives a more extensive and specific interpretation, indicating that the top for us should be love for God. It is in the light of this love, in the light of devotion to the Lord, in the light of His commandments that we can distinguish true love from delusion, tell between righteousness and sin.
“If you love Me,” says the Savior to us, “keep My commandments” (John 14:15). Apostle John the Theologian also teaches the same way, saying: “This is love for God, so that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not grievous” (1 John 5:3). Therefore, everything that contradicts the commandments of God is not true love, but is a sin that disguises itself, using only the name of love, but violating its essence.
Teaching to love God, the Savior also teaches us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. After all, our neighbor is the image of God, he is our brother or sister, God’s beloved child. Therefore, everything that we do to our neighbors, good or bad, the Lord, as the Scriptures tell in the story about the end of the world and the Last Judgment, sees as done to Him.
Love has two sides – internal and external. As a feeling, it remains invisible. But when love really exists, it is necessarily manifested in deeds. And one of the acts of love for God bequeathed to us is love for one’s neighbor, which is manifested, in particular, in acts of mercy.
God is an invisible spirit. And our neighbor is a visible person, made of flesh and blood. Therefore, although the love of God, as it was said before, is rightly put in the first place, it is possible to check its authenticity through love for one’s neighbor. This is what the Apostle John teaches us, having testified in his epistle: “Whoever says, ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother, is speaking a lie: for he who does not love his brother, whom he sees, how can he love God, whom he does not see?” (1 John 4:20).
And here we come to the second truth, which Christians should firmly remember, namely: who our neighbor is. After all, this is exactly the question the jurist asked, wanting to justify himself. Who is our neighbor? Is it just someone related to us by family ties? Is this someone of the same ethnic origin as us? Of the same faith? Is it only someone whom we know or someone who knows us?
The Lord, through the parable we are discussing today, indicates that our neighbor is every person who has come across us on the path of life. Neither family ties, nor language, nationality, religious belief, or anything else that distinguishes people in this world is a reason not to consider someone as a neighbor.
The Lord does not demand from us the impossible. Now there are 8 billion people in the world, and most of them we don’t know and we will never cross with them on the road of life. Therefore, God does not demand the impossible from us, that we love those whom we do not know and do not see. But whom we know, whom we see, with whom we interact in our life, that is, those who are close to us – we must show love to them because they are our neighbors.
The third truth that the Gospel parable teaches us is the importance of the virtue of mercy. The nature of mercy is sacrificial love. And it appears not by prescription or out of obligation, but precisely as an internal voluntary urge. And this is what makes mercy different from other types of love.
Parents have a duty to love their children, and children – to love their parents, and this imposes on them a mutual duty of care. In the same way, husband and wife have an obligation to love each other.
And mercy is a manifestation of love not out of obligation, but only because someone needs our attention, support, and help, even though they may not deserve it. A Samaritan who saw a man wounded by robbers was not obliged to take care of him. Because that person was a stranger to him – he was neither his relative nor even an acquaintance, he was a person of a different religious faith and nationality. But precisely because there was no external connection between the traveling Samaritan and the victim of robbers, except for the fact that both of them are people, children of God, the virtue of mercy that the Samaritan showed is great.
He had no reason to expect a reward for his care from the wounded man. Even more, he himself paid the owner of the inn to take care of the wounded man. He did not expect the gratitude that the wounded man might not express to him as a stranger. But in his actions, he was guided by the “golden rule”: “As you want people to do to you, do to them” (Lk. 6:31). He put himself in the place of the wounded man because he too could be assaulted by robbers and he himself could find himself in such a difficult situation. Would he like to be taken care of, to be helped? Of course, he would. So, motivated by love for his neighbor, he showed mercy to him and through his deeds, showed us how to act. And through the parable, in which Christ gives us the image of the Good Samaritan for follosing, God teaches each of us to be merciful and to express proactive love to everyone who needs it.
So, dear brothers and sisters, as we conclude our consideration of the parable, let us take to heart the three things that have just been said. The first is love for God and for neighbor, as the main commandment of God, the fulfillment of which opens the door to eternal blissful life. The second thing is that our neighbor, whom the Lord commands us to love, is everyone who comes across us on the path of life. And the third thing is that the virtue of mercy, that is, gratuitous, sacrificial love, is an important component of the Christian life and everyone, as much as possible, should cultivate it in themselves.
Amen.
