Homily 10 — First Thessalonians 5, verses 12 to 18

“But we beg you, brothers and sisters, to acknowledge those who labor among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you; and to esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake. Be at peace among yourselves.” [a]

A ruler cannot help having many occasions for making enemies. Physicians are forced to give the sick a great deal of trouble, prescribing diets and medicines that are not pleasant, though they do good; and fathers often annoy their children. Teachers are in the same position, and much more so. For the physician, even if the sick man hates him, still has the man’s relatives and friends on good terms with him, and often the sick man himself. A father, too, holds authority over his son with great ease, by the force of nature and by the laws outside the home as well. If he punishes and scolds his son against the son’s will, no one stops him, and the son himself will not dare even to raise his eyes against him.

But with the priest there is great difficulty. In the first place, he ought to be ruling people who are willing to obey and who are grateful to him for his rule, and that cannot quickly come about. For whoever is exposed and rebuked, whoever he may be, is sure to stop being grateful and to become an enemy. The same goes for the one who is advised, the one who is admonished, and the one who is urged on. So if I say, “Empty out your wealth on the needy,” I say something offensive and burdensome. If I say, “Punish your anger, put out your rage, check your unruly craving, cut off a small part of your luxury,” it is all burdensome and offensive. And if I should punish someone who is lazy, or remove him from the church, or shut him out from the public prayers, he is grieved — not because he is deprived of these things, but because of the public disgrace. That is what makes the evil worse: when we are barred from spiritual things, we grieve not over losing these great blessings but over our disgrace in the eyes of others. The thing itself we do not shudder at or dread.

That is why Paul, from beginning to end, speaks at length about these men. And Christ made subjection to them so strict a necessity that he says, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat. So whatever they tell you, do it and keep it; but do not do as they do” (Matthew 23, verses 2 and 3). And again, when he healed the leper, he said, “Go, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them” (Matthew 8, verse 4). [b]

“And yet you say, ‘You make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves’” (Matthew 23, verse 15). His answer is: “That is why I said, ‘Do not do what they do.’” So he has left the one under authority no excuse at all. In his letter to Timothy, too, this apostle said, “Let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honor” (First Timothy 5, verse 17). And in his letter to the Hebrews he said, “Obey those who rule over you, and submit to them” (Hebrews 13, verse 17).

And here again: “But we beg you, brothers and sisters, to acknowledge those who labor among you, and are over you in the Lord.” He had said, “Build each other up,” and he added this so that they would not think he was raising them to the rank of teachers: “Notice, though: I did give you leave to build one another up as well, for a teacher cannot say everything.” [c]

“Those who labor among you,” he says, “and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you.” “How is this not absurd? If someone stands up for you before a man, you will do anything for him and confess yourself deeply in his debt. But this man stands up for you before God, and you do not acknowledge the favor.” “And how does he stand up for me?”

Because he prays for you; because he ministers to you the spiritual gift that comes through baptism; he visits you, he advises and admonishes you, he comes at midnight if you call for him. He is constantly on your lips, and he puts up with your insults. What need did he have to do it?

Has he done well or badly? You have a wife, you live in luxury, you have chosen a life in trade. But the priest has kept himself from all this by his calling; his life is nothing else than to be busy with the church. “And to esteem them,” he says, “very highly in love for their work’s sake; be at peace with them.” Do you see how well he knows that bad feeling arises? He does not simply say “love,” but “very highly,” as children love their fathers. For through them you were born with that eternal birth; through them you have obtained the kingdom; through their hands everything is done; through them the gates of heaven are opened to you. Let no one stir up divisions; let no one be quarrelsome. [d]

Whoever loves Christ will love the priest, whatever he may be like, because through him he has received the awesome mysteries. Tell me: if you wanted to see a palace gleaming with much gold and radiant with the brilliance of precious stones, and you found the man who had the key, and at your call he opened it at once and let you in, would you not prefer him above everyone? Would you not love him as dearly as your own eyes? Would you not kiss him? This man has opened heaven to you, and you do not kiss him or show him honor. If you have a wife, do you not love above everyone the man who arranged the marriage for you? So if you love Christ, if you love the kingdom of heaven, acknowledge the one through whom you obtained it. That is why he says, “for their work’s sake, be at peace with them.”

Verse 14: “And we urge you, brothers and sisters, admonish the disorderly, encourage the fainthearted, support the weak, be patient toward all.” [f]

Here he addresses those who rule. “Admonish the disorderly,” he says — not rebuking them in a domineering way or on your own whim, but with admonition. “Encourage the fainthearted, support the weak, be patient toward all.” For the man who is rebuked harshly despairs of himself and grows bolder in his contempt. That is why the medicine must be made sweet by admonition.

But who are the disorderly? All who do what is against the will of God. For the order of the church is more closely knit than the order of an army. So the abusive man is disorderly, the drunkard is disorderly, and the greedy man, and everyone who sins; for they do not march in order in their rank, but out of line — and is that not why they are overthrown? But there is another kind of evil too, not like this one, yet still a vice: smallness of soul. This is as destructive as laziness. The man who cannot bear an insult is fainthearted. The man who cannot endure a trial is fainthearted. He is the one sown on the rock. And there is still another kind, that of weakness.

“Support the weak,” he says. Weakness here has to do with faith. But notice how he does not allow them to be despised. Elsewhere in his letters, too, he says, “Receive the one who is weak in the faith” (Romans 14, verse 1). For in our bodies, too, we do not let the weak member perish. “Be patient toward all,” he says. “Even toward the disorderly?” Yes, certainly. There is no medicine to equal this, especially for the teacher; none is so suited to those under authority. It can utterly shame and disarm the man who is fiercer and more shameless than anyone.

Verse 15: “See that no one repays anyone evil for evil.”

If we ought not to repay evil for evil, much less evil for good; and much less still to do evil when no evil has been done to us first. “So-and-so is a bad man; he has hurt me and done me a great deal of harm.” Do you want to take revenge on him? Do not retaliate. Leave him unpunished. Well, is that the place to stop? Not at all.

“But always pursue what is good, toward one another and toward all.” [g]

This is the higher philosophy: not only not to repay evil with evil, but to repay evil with good. For this is true revenge — it brings harm to him and benefit to you, or rather great benefit to him too, if he is willing. And so that you would not think this was said only about the faithful, he said, “both toward one another and toward all.”

Verse 16: “Rejoice always.”

This is said with the trials that bring distress in mind. Listen, all of you who have fallen into poverty or into painful circumstances. For joy is born out of these very things. When our soul is such that we take revenge on no one, but do good to all, tell me, how will the sting of grief be able to get into us? For the one who so rejoices in suffering evil that he repays even with kindness the one who did him evil — how can he afterwards suffer grief? “And how is this possible?” It is possible, if we are willing. And then he shows the way as well.

Verses 17 and 18: “Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God.” [h]

To give thanks always is the mark of a soul that lives by philosophy. Have you suffered some evil? If you are willing, it is no evil. Give thanks to God, and the evil is changed into good. You too should say, as Job said, “Blessed be the name of the Lord forever” (Job 1, verse 21). For tell me, what has happened to you that is so great? Has disease come upon you? That is nothing strange, for our body is mortal and liable to suffering. Has a loss of possessions overtaken you? But these are things that are gained and lost again, things that stay here. Is it the plots and false accusations of enemies?

But it is not we who are harmed by these; it is those who carry them out. “For the soul that sins,” it says, “will itself die” (Ezekiel 18, verse 4). And it is not the one who suffers the evil who has sinned, but the one who has done it.

So you ought not to take revenge on one who is dead, but to pray for him, that you may deliver him from death. Do you not see how the bee dies on its sting? Through that creature God teaches us not to hurt our neighbors, for we ourselves suffer death first. By striking them we have perhaps caused them pain for a little while, but we ourselves will live no longer, just as that creature does not. And yet Scripture praises it, saying that it is a worker whose work kings and ordinary people use for their health (Proverbs 6, verse 8, in the Greek Old Testament). But this does not save it from dying; it must perish. And if its other excellence does not rescue it when it does harm, much less will ours rescue us.

For it belongs to the fiercest wild beasts to start doing harm when no one has harmed you — or rather, not even to wild beasts. If you let them feed in the wilderness, and do not corner them and drive them to desperation, they will never harm you or come near you or bite you; they will go their own way. [i]

But you, a rational being, honored with so much authority and honor and glory, do not even imitate the wild beasts in the way you treat your fellow human being. You harm your brother and devour him. How will you be able to excuse yourself? Do you not hear Paul saying, “Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be cheated? But you yourselves do wrong and cheat, and that to your own brothers” (First Corinthians 6, verses 7 and 8)? Do you see that being harmed lies in doing wrong, while to suffer wrong unjustly is to receive a benefit?

For tell me: if someone reviled his rulers, if he insulted those in power, whom does he harm — himself, or them? Plainly himself. So the one who insults a ruler insults not him but himself. And does not the one who insults a Christian insult Christ through him? “Not at all.” What are you saying? The one who throws a stone at the images of the emperor — at whom does he throw it? Is it not at himself? Then if the one who throws a stone at the image of an earthly king throws it at himself, does not the one who insults the image of God — for a human being is the image of God — harm himself?

How long will we love riches? I will not stop crying out against them, for they are the cause of everything. How long will we not have our fill of this insatiable appetite? What good is gold? The thing astonishes me! There is some sorcery at work in it, that gold and silver should be so highly prized among us. For our own souls we have no regard, but those lifeless images take up all our attention. How did this disease invade the world? Who will be able to destroy it? What reasoning can cut down this evil beast and destroy it utterly? The craving is sown deep in people’s minds, even in those who seem to be devout. Let us be put to shame by the commands of the good news. The words only lie there in Scripture; nowhere are they shown in deeds.

And what is the plausible excuse most people give? “I have children, and I am afraid I may be brought to the extreme of hunger and want, and have to depend on others. I am ashamed to beg.” Is that why you make others beg? “I cannot bear hunger.”

Is that why you expose others to hunger? Do you know what a terrible thing it is to beg, how terrible to be dying of hunger? Spare your brothers and sisters too! Tell me, are you ashamed to be hungry, and not ashamed to rob? Are you afraid of dying of hunger, and not afraid of destroying others? And yet to be hungry is neither a disgrace nor a crime; but to throw others into that state brings not only disgrace but the harshest punishment.

All these are pretexts, words, trifles. That it is not for your children’s sake that you act this way is proved by those who have no children and never will, yet toil and wear themselves out and busy themselves getting wealth, as if they had countless children to leave it to.

It is not concern for his children that makes a man greedy, but a disease of the soul. That is why many who have no children are mad for riches, while others who live with a great many children despise even what they have. They will accuse you on that Day. For if children’s needs forced people to pile up riches, these too would have to feel the same longing, the same craving. And if they do not, then it is not the number of our children that makes us mad this way, but the love of money.

“And who are these people who have children and yet despise riches?” Many, and in many places. And if you allow me, I will speak of examples among the ancients too. [j]

Did Jacob not have twelve children? Did he not live the life of a hired hand? Was he not wronged by his kinsman, and did that kinsman not cheat him again and again? And did the number of his children ever drive him to any dishonest scheme? And what about Abraham? Besides Isaac, did he not have many other children too? What then? Did he not hold everything he had for the benefit of strangers? Do you see how he not only did no wrong, but even gave up his possessions — not only doing good, but choosing to be wronged by his nephew? For to bear being robbed for God’s sake is a far greater thing than to do good. Why? Because doing good is the fruit of the soul and of free choice, and so it is easily done; but the other is ill-treatment and violence. A man will more easily throw away ten thousand talents of his own free will, without thinking he has suffered any harm, than he will gently bear being robbed of three pennies against his will. So this is rather the philosophy of the soul.

And this, we see, happened in Abraham’s case. “For Lot,” it says, “looked at the whole plain, and it was well watered, like the garden of God, and he chose it” (Genesis 13, verses 10 and 11).

And Abraham said nothing against it. Do you see that he not only did not wrong him, but was even wronged by him? Why, my friend, do you accuse your own children? God did not give us children so that we would seize what belongs to others. Be careful that in saying this you do not provoke God. For if you say your children are the cause of your grasping and your greed, I am afraid you may be deprived of them, since they are harming you and trapping you. God has given you children so that they may support you in your old age, and learn virtue from you.

For this is why God willed that humankind should be held together in this way, providing for two most important things: on the one hand he appointed fathers to be teachers, and on the other he planted great love. For if people merely came into being, no one would have any bond with anyone else. Even now, when there are the bonds of fathers and children and grandchildren, many have no regard for many; how much more would that be so then! That is why God has given you children. So do not accuse your children.

But if those who have children have no excuse, what can those say for themselves who have no children and wear themselves out getting riches? They do have a saying to offer for themselves, though it has no excuse in it at all. And what is it? “So that instead of children we may have our riches as a memorial.” This is truly ridiculous.

“Instead of children, my house becomes the immortal memorial of my glory.” It will not be the memorial of your glory, my friend, but of your greed. Do you not see how many people now, as they pass the magnificent houses, say to one another: “What frauds, what robberies that man committed to build this house! And now he has become dust and ashes, and his house has passed to others by inheritance!” So it is not a memorial of your glory that you leave behind, but of your greed. Your body is hidden in the earth, but you do not let the memorial of your greed be hidden, as it might have been with the passing of time; you have it dug up and brought to light again through your house. For as long as the house stands, bearing your name and called So-and-so’s, everyone’s mouth must open against you. Do you see that it is better to have nothing than to bear such an accusation?

So much for things here. But what will we do there? Tell me: if, with so much at our disposal here, we have shared our possessions with no one, or only a very little, how will we rid ourselves of our dishonest gains? For the one who wants to rid himself of ill-gotten gain does not give a little out of a great deal; he gives back many times what he has robbed, and he stops robbing. Listen to what Zacchaeus says: “And whatever I have taken wrongfully, I restore fourfold” (Luke 19, verse 8). But you take ten thousand talents wrongfully, and if you give a few drachmas, you think you have restored the whole, and you feel as though you had given more. And even that grudgingly! Why? Because you ought both to have given this back and to have added more from your own private possessions. The thief is not let off when he gives back only what he stole; often he has paid with his life besides, and often he settles the matter by restoring many times as much. So it should be with the greedy man. [l]

For the greedy man is a thief and a robber too, far worse than the other, as much worse as he is more high-handed. The thief, by hiding and making his attack at night, takes away much of the boldness of the attempt, as if he were ashamed and afraid to sin. But the other has no sense of shame: barefaced, in the middle of the marketplace, he steals everyone’s property, at once a thief and an oppressor. He does not break through walls, or put out the lamp, or open a chest, or tear off seals. What then? He does things more insolent than these. In full view of those he wrongs he carries things out through the door; he opens everything with confidence; he forces them to lay out all their possessions themselves. That is how far his violence goes. This man is more wicked than the thieves, since he is more shameless and high-handed. For the one who has been robbed by stealth is grieved, of course, but he has no small comfort: the one who wronged him was afraid of him. But the one who is despised along with the wrong he suffers will not be able to bear the violence, for the mockery is greater.

Tell me: if one man committed adultery with a woman in secret, and another did it before her husband’s eyes, which of them grieved the husband more and wounded him more deeply? The second, along with the wrong he did, also treated him with contempt. But the first, if he did nothing else, at least showed that he feared the man he wronged. So it is with money too. The one who takes it secretly pays his victim this much honor, that he does it secretly; but the one who robs publicly and openly adds shame to the loss. [m]

So let us all, poor and rich, stop taking what belongs to others. For my present words are not for the rich alone, but for the poor too. They also rob those who are poorer than themselves. Artisans who are better off and more powerful take advantage of the poorer and more hard-pressed in their trading; tradesmen take advantage of tradesmen, and so do all who do business in the marketplace. So I want to take away wrongdoing from every side. For the wrong does not lie in the size of what is plundered and stolen, but in the intention of the one who steals. And that those who do not scorn even small gains are the greater thieves and cheats, I know and remember that I have told you before, if you remember it too. But let us not be too exacting.

Let them be counted just as bad as the rich. Let us train our mind not to crave greater things, not to aim at more than we have. In heavenly things let our desire for more never be satisfied; let each of us always be longing for more. But on earth let everyone be content with what is necessary and sufficient, and seek nothing more, so that he may be able to obtain the true goods, by the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom be glory, strength, and honor to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, now and always, and forever and ever. Amen. [n]