Homily 9 — John 1, verse 11

“He came to his own, and his own did not receive him.” [a]

If you remember what we said before, we will go on all the more eagerly to build up what remains, since we do it for great gain. For then our teaching will be easier for you to understand, since you remember what has already been said, and we will not need much labor, because your great love of learning lets you see more clearly into what remains. The man who is always losing what he is given will always need a teacher and will never know anything. But the man who keeps what he has received, and so takes in what remains besides, will soon be a teacher instead of a learner, and useful not only to himself but to everyone else as well. And judging from your great eagerness to listen, I expect that this assembly will be exactly that. Come, then, let us store up the Lord’s money in your souls, as in a safe treasury, and let us open up the words set before us today, as far as the grace of the Spirit gives us the power.

John had said, speaking of the old times, that “the world did not know him.” Then he comes down in his account to the times when the good news was proclaimed, and says, “He came to his own, and his own did not receive him.” By “his own” he now means the Jews, as his own special people — or perhaps even all humankind, as made by him. Earlier, bewildered at the folly of the many and ashamed for our common nature, he said that “the world was made through him,” and that, once made, it did not recognize its Maker. So here again, troubled beyond bearing at the stupidity of the Jews and of the many, he sets out the charge in a still more striking way: “his own did not receive him” — and that when “he came to them.”

And not only he: the prophets too said the very same thing in wonder, and so, later, did Paul, amazed at the very same things. The prophets cried aloud, speaking in the person of Christ: “A people I did not know has served me; as soon as they heard me, they obeyed me. The children of strangers have lied to me. The children of strangers have grown old and limped away from their paths.” And again: “Those who were not told about him will see, and those who had not heard will understand.” And: “I was found by those who did not seek me; I was made plain to those who did not ask for me.” And Paul, in his Letter to the Romans, said, “What then? Israel has not obtained what it is seeking, but the chosen have obtained it.” And again:

“What shall we say, then? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have attained righteousness; but Israel, who pursued the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness.”

It is truly a thing to amaze us. They were brought up on the books of the prophets. They heard Moses every day telling them countless things about the coming of the Christ, and the other prophets after him. What is more, they saw Christ himself working miracles among them daily and giving his time to them alone. He did not yet allow his disciples to go off on the road of the Gentiles or to enter a town of the Samaritans, nor did he do so himself, but everywhere he declared that he had been sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. How, I ask, could they see the signs, hear the prophets, and have Christ himself constantly reminding them, and yet make themselves once and for all so blind and dull that none of these things brought them to faith in Christ?

Meanwhile the Gentiles had enjoyed none of these things. They had never heard the words of God, not even, so to speak, in a dream. They were forever wandering among the fables of madmen — for that is what pagan philosophy is — with the silliness of their poets always in their hands, nailed to blocks of wood and stones, and with nothing good or sound either in their teachings or in their way of life. (For their way of life was even more impure and more cursed than their teaching. That was to be expected. When they saw their gods delighting in every kind of wickedness, worshiped with shameful words and more shameful deeds — which they counted as festival and praise — and honored besides with foul murders and the slaughter of children, how could they not imitate these things?) Yet though they had fallen to the very depth of wickedness, suddenly, as if by some machine, they have appeared to us shining from on high, from the very summit of heaven.

How, then, did this come about, and where did it come from? Listen to Paul telling you. That blessed man searched into these things closely and did not stop until he had found the cause and made it known to everyone else. What is it, then? Where did such blindness on the Jews come from? Listen to the man who was entrusted with this stewardship declare it. What, then, does he say to settle this question that troubles so many? “For they,” he says, “not knowing the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.” That is why this has happened to them. And again, explaining the same matter in other words, he says: “What shall we say, then? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have attained righteousness, the righteousness that comes from faith; but Israel, who pursued the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. Why? Because they did not seek it by faith. For they stumbled over the stumbling stone.”

His meaning is this: “These men’s unbelief has been the cause of their misfortunes, and their arrogance was the parent of their unbelief.” For before this they had enjoyed greater privileges than the pagans: they had received the law, they knew God, and they had the rest of what Paul lists. But after the coming of Christ they saw the pagans and themselves called on equal terms through faith, and saw that, once faith had come, a man of the circumcision had no advantage over a Gentile. Then they fell into envy, stung by their own arrogance, and could not bear the loving-kindness of the Lord, beyond words and beyond measure. So this has happened to them from nothing else than pride, and wickedness, and unkindness.

For how, you most foolish of men, are you harmed by the care shown to others? How are your blessings made smaller because others share them? But truly, wickedness is blind and cannot easily see anything it ought to see. So, stung at the prospect of others sharing the same confidence, they drove a sword into themselves and threw themselves out of the loving-kindness of God. And rightly so. For he says, “Friend, I am doing you no wrong. I will give to these also, just as to you.” [g]

Or rather, these Jews do not deserve even these words. For the man in the parable, though he was discontented, could still speak of a whole day’s labor and weariness, its heat and its sweat. But what could these men have to tell? Nothing like that — only laziness and loose living and countless evils, for which all the prophets never stopped accusing them, and by which they had offended against God just as the Gentiles had. Paul makes this plain when he says, “For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being counted righteous freely by his grace.” He deals with this point profitably and very wisely all through that letter.

But in an earlier part of it he proves that they deserve even greater punishment. “For all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law” — that is, more severely, since they have the law as well as nature to accuse them. And not only for this, but because they have caused God to be blasphemed among the Gentiles:

“My name,” he says, “is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”

This was what stung them most. The thing seemed incredible even to those of the circumcision who believed. That is why they brought it as a charge against Peter, when he had come up to them from Caesarea, that he “went in to uncircumcised men and ate with them.” And even after they had learned God’s arrangement, they still wondered how “the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also,” showing by their astonishment that they could never have expected so incredible a thing.

Since, then, Paul knew that this touched them most closely, see how he has emptied their pride and let down their swollen arrogance. First he dealt with the case of the pagans. He showed that they had no excuse from any quarter and no hope of salvation, and he charged them outright both with the corruption of their teachings and with the uncleanness of their lives. Then he turns his argument to the Jews. He recounts all the sayings of the prophet in which he had said that they were polluted, treacherous and hypocritical, that they had “altogether become worthless,” that there was “no one” among them “who seeks God,” that they had “all turned aside,” and the like. Then he adds: “Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may become guilty before God.” “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

Why, then, do you exalt yourself, Jew? Why are you so proud? Your mouth too is stopped. Your confidence too is taken away. You too, with the whole world, have become guilty, and like the others you have been placed in need of being counted righteous as a free gift. Even if you had stood upright and had great confidence before God, you still ought not to have envied those who were to be pitied and saved through his loving-kindness. This is the height of wickedness: to pine away at other people’s blessings — especially when this was to come about with no loss to you. If the salvation of others had damaged your own advantages, your grief might have been reasonable — though not even then for someone who had learned true wisdom. But if your reward is not increased by another’s punishment, nor made less by his well-being, why do you lament because that other man is saved freely?

As I said, even if you were one of the approved, you ought not to be pained at the salvation that comes to the Gentiles through grace. But when you, who are guilty before your Lord of the same things they are, and have offended yourself, are displeased at the good of others and think great things of yourself, as if you alone ought to share in the grace, then you are guilty not only of envy and arrogance but of utter folly, and you may be liable to all the severest torments. For you have planted within yourself the root of all evils: pride.

That is why a wise man has said, “Pride is the beginning of sin” — that is, its root, its source, its mother. Through this the first man was banished from that happy home. Through this the devil who deceived him had fallen from that height of honor. And that cursed one, knowing that the nature of this sin was enough to throw someone down even from heaven itself, came this way when he worked to bring Adam down from such high honor. For he puffed him up with the promise that he would be like a god, and so broke him down and threw him into the very depths of hell. For nothing so cuts people off from the loving-kindness of God, and hands them over to the fire of the pit, as the tyranny of pride. When pride is present in us, our whole life becomes impure, even if we practice self-control, chastity, fasting, prayer, almsgiving — anything at all. For “everyone,” says the wise man, “who is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord.”

So let us hold down this swelling of the soul. Let us cut this growth of pride out by the roots, if we really want to be clean and to escape the punishment appointed for the devil. For that the proud must fall under the same punishment as that wicked one, listen to Paul declare: “Not a recent convert, or he may be puffed up with pride and fall into the judgment and the snare of the devil.” What does “the judgment” mean? He means into the same “condemnation,” the same punishment.

How, then, does he say a man may escape this dreadful thing? By reflecting on his own nature, on the number of his sins, on the greatness of the torments in that place, and on how passing are the things that seem bright in this world — no different from grass, and fading faster than the flowers of spring. If we keep stirring up these thoughts in ourselves, and keep in mind those who have walked most uprightly, the devil, though he tries in ten thousand ways, will not be able to lift us up, or even to trip us at all.

May the God who is the God of the humble, the good and merciful God, grant both you and me a broken and humbled heart. So we will be able easily to set the rest in good order, to the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom and with whom be glory to the Father and the Holy Spirit, forever and ever. Amen.