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(St. Nikolai Velimirovich - Excerpt from the Homily on the 16th Sunday after Pentecost (Matthew 25:14-30 - The Parable of the talents)
God creates inequality; men murmur against inequality. Are men wiser than God? When God creates inequality, it means that inequality is wiser and better than equality.
God creates inequality for the good of men; yet men cannot see their good in inequality. God creates inequality for the beauty of inequality; yet men cannot see beauty in inequality.
God creates inequality for the sake of love, which is kindled and sustained by inequality; yet men cannot see love in inequality.
This is the age-old human rebellion: blindness against vision, folly against wisdom, evil against good, ugliness against beauty, malice against love. Eve and Adam, giving themselves over to Satan, sought only to be equal with God. And Cain slew his brother Abel because their offerings were not equally accepted before God. From that time until now, the struggle of sinful men against inequality has continued. And even before that, God created inequality, for He created even the angels unequal.
God wills that men should be unequal in all external things: in wealth, power, rank, learning, position, and so forth—and He does not recommend any rivalry in these. “Do not seek the first places,” commands the Lord Jesus. God wills the rivalry of men in multiplying inner goods: faith, kindness, mercy, love, meekness and gentleness, humility and obedience. God has given both outward and inward goods. Yet outward goods He considers cheap and insignificant compared with inward goods. Outward goods He has given to animals as well as to men. But the rich treasury of inward, spiritual goods He has scattered only among human souls. God has given man something more than the animals, and therefore He requires more of man than of animals. This “something more” consists in spiritual gifts.
Outward goods God has given man to serve the inner man. For all that is outward serves as a means to the inner. All that is temporal is ordained for the service of the eternal; and all that is mortal is ordained for the service of the immortal. The man who walks the opposite path—who spends all his spiritual gifts solely on acquiring external, temporal goods, wealth, power, rank, worldly glory—is like a son who inherits much gold from his father, and then spends all that gold to buy ashes.
For men who have felt within their souls the divine gifts, all external things become of little importance: like elementary school to one who has entered the great academy. Only for outward goods do the ignorant strive, but not the wise. The wise wage a harder and more useful struggle—the struggle to multiply inner goods.
For external equality strive those who cannot or dare not look within themselves, nor labor upon the inner, the chief field of their human being.
God does not look at what a man is in this world, or what he has, or how he is clothed, fed, educated, and honored by men—God looks at the heart of man. In other words, God does not look at the outward state and position of a man, but at his inner progress, growth, and enrichment in spirit and in truth.
This is what today’s Gospel, the parable of the talents—that is, of the spiritual gifts God has laid in the soul of every man—teaches. It reveals the great inner inequality of men by their very nature. But it shows even more. With its eagle’s sweep, this parable flies over the whole history of the human soul, from beginning to end. Whoever truly understood this one parable of the Savior and fulfilled its message in his life would gain eternal salvation in the Kingdom of God.
God creates inequality; men murmur against inequality. Are men wiser than God? When God creates inequality, it means that inequality is wiser and better than equality.
God creates inequality for the good of men; yet men cannot see their good in inequality. God creates inequality for the beauty of inequality; yet men cannot see beauty in inequality.
God creates inequality for the sake of love, which is kindled and sustained by inequality; yet men cannot see love in inequality.
This is the age-old human rebellion: blindness against vision, folly against wisdom, evil against good, ugliness against beauty, malice against love. Eve and Adam, giving themselves over to Satan, sought only to be equal with God. And Cain slew his brother Abel because their offerings were not equally accepted before God. From that time until now, the struggle of sinful men against inequality has continued. And even before that, God created inequality, for He created even the angels unequal.
God wills that men should be unequal in all external things: in wealth, power, rank, learning, position, and so forth—and He does not recommend any rivalry in these. “Do not seek the first places,” commands the Lord Jesus. God wills the rivalry of men in multiplying inner goods: faith, kindness, mercy, love, meekness and gentleness, humility and obedience. God has given both outward and inward goods. Yet outward goods He considers cheap and insignificant compared with inward goods. Outward goods He has given to animals as well as to men. But the rich treasury of inward, spiritual goods He has scattered only among human souls. God has given man something more than the animals, and therefore He requires more of man than of animals. This “something more” consists in spiritual gifts.
Outward goods God has given man to serve the inner man. For all that is outward serves as a means to the inner. All that is temporal is ordained for the service of the eternal; and all that is mortal is ordained for the service of the immortal. The man who walks the opposite path—who spends all his spiritual gifts solely on acquiring external, temporal goods, wealth, power, rank, worldly glory—is like a son who inherits much gold from his father, and then spends all that gold to buy ashes.
For men who have felt within their souls the divine gifts, all external things become of little importance: like elementary school to one who has entered the great academy. Only for outward goods do the ignorant strive, but not the wise. The wise wage a harder and more useful struggle—the struggle to multiply inner goods.
For external equality strive those who cannot or dare not look within themselves, nor labor upon the inner, the chief field of their human being.
God does not look at what a man is in this world, or what he has, or how he is clothed, fed, educated, and honored by men—God looks at the heart of man. In other words, God does not look at the outward state and position of a man, but at his inner progress, growth, and enrichment in spirit and in truth.
This is what today’s Gospel, the parable of the talents—that is, of the spiritual gifts God has laid in the soul of every man—teaches. It reveals the great inner inequality of men by their very nature. But it shows even more. With its eagle’s sweep, this parable flies over the whole history of the human soul, from beginning to end. Whoever truly understood this one parable of the Savior and fulfilled its message in his life would gain eternal salvation in the Kingdom of God.
