Water Poured on Fire

He urges strongly that faith be shown in works, and presses home the wisdom of offerings to the church, and of generosity to the poor, as the best investment of a Christian’s estate. This he proves out of many Scriptures.

Many and great, dear brothers, are the gifts of God — the gifts through which the wide and abundant mercy of God the Father and of Christ has worked, and is always working, for our salvation. The Father sent the Son to keep us safe and give us life, so that he might restore us. The Son was willing to be sent, and willing to become the son of man, so that he might make us sons of God. He humbled himself, to raise up a people who were lying face down. He was wounded, to heal our wounds. He served as a slave, to bring out into freedom those who were slaves. He went down into death, to set immortality in front of mortal men. These are many and great gifts of God’s compassion. [c]

But there is more. What foresight it is, and how great a kindness, that a plan of salvation provides for us so that greater care still is taken to keep a man safe after he has already been bought back! When the Lord came and cured the wounds Adam had carried, and healed the old poisons of the serpent, he gave a law to the man now made well and told him to sin no more, in case something worse should happen to him. The command to stay innocent had fenced us in and shut us up in a narrow space. And human frailty, weak and sick as it is, would have had nothing at all to fall back on, if God’s mercy had not come to our help once more and opened a way of securing salvation by pointing out works of righteousness and mercy — so that by giving to the poor we may wash off whatever filth we pick up afterward.

The Holy Spirit speaks in the sacred Scriptures and says, “By giving to the poor and by faith sins are cleansed away.” He does not mean the sins contracted before that; those are cleansed by the blood of Christ and by his making us holy. And he says again, “As water puts out fire, so giving to the poor puts out sin.” Here too it is shown and proved that just as the fire of Gehenna is put out in the bath of saving water, so the flame of sins is put down by giving to the poor and by acts of righteousness. And because in baptism the forgiveness of sins is granted once and for all, steady and unceasing work, following the pattern of baptism, wins God’s mercy again. The Lord teaches this in the Gospel too. When his disciples were pointed out as eating without first washing their hands, he answered and said, “The one who made what is inside made what is outside as well. But give to the poor, and see — everything is clean for you.” By this he teaches and shows that it is not the hands that are to be washed but the heart, and that the dirt inside is to be got rid of rather than the dirt outside; that whoever has cleaned what is within has cleaned what is without as well; and that if the mind is clean, a man has begun to be clean in skin and body too. Then, warning us and showing us where our cleansing and purging come from, he added that gifts must be given to the poor. He who is full of pity teaches and warns us that pity must be shown; and because he wants to save the people he bought at such a price, he teaches that those who have become dirty after the grace of baptism may be washed clean once more. [e]

So let us acknowledge, dear brothers, the healing gift of God’s mercy. None of us can be without some wound on his conscience; let us heal our wounds with the spiritual remedies that cleanse and purge our sins. And let no one flatter himself that his heart is pure and spotless, and so, leaning on his own innocence, decide that the medicine need not be put on his wounds. It is written, “Who can boast that he has a clean heart, or who can boast that he is pure from sins?” And John lays it down in his letter and says, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” But if no one can be without sin, and anyone who claims to be faultless is either proud or a fool, then how badly we need — and how kind it is — that God’s mercy, knowing that some wounds are still found in people who have been healed, even after their healing, has given wholesome remedies to cure and heal those wounds again. [h]

In the end, dear brothers, the divine warning in the Scriptures, the old as much as the new, has never failed and never fallen silent in urging God’s people, always and everywhere, to works of mercy. In the whole strain and appeal of the Holy Spirit, everyone who is being trained in the hope of the heavenly kingdom is ordered to give to the poor. God commands and prescribes to Isaiah: “Cry out with strength, and do not hold back. Lift up your voice like a trumpet, and announce to my people their crimes, and to the house of Jacob their sins.” And when he had ordered their sins to be charged against them, and had set out their wrongdoing with the full force of his anger, and had said that not even by using pleadings and prayers and fasts would they be able to make up for their sins — nor, if they dressed in sackcloth and ashes, would they be able to soften God’s anger — in the last part, showing that God can be won over by giving to the poor and by that alone, he added: “Break your bread for the hungry, and bring the poor who have no home into your house. If you see someone naked, clothe him, and do not despise the household of your own family. Then your light will break out in its season, and your clothes will rise quickly, and righteousness will go before you, and the glory of God will surround you. Then you will call, and God will hear you; while you are still speaking he will say, Here I am.” [i]

The remedies for winning God over are given in God’s own words; the divine instructions have taught what sinners ought to do — that God is satisfied by acts of righteousness, that sins are cleansed by earning mercy. In Solomon we read, “Shut your gift up in the heart of the poor man, and it will plead for you against every evil.” And again: “Whoever stops his ears so as not to hear the weak will himself call on God, and there will be no one to hear him.” For a man who has not been merciful will not be able to deserve the Lord’s mercy, and a man who has shown no humanity toward a poor man’s prayer will get nothing from God’s pity in his own prayers. The Holy Spirit declares this in the Psalms too, and proves it, saying, “Blessed is the one who gives thought to the poor and needy; the Lord will rescue him on the evil day.” Remembering these instructions, Daniel — when King Nebuchadnezzar was in distress, frightened by a hostile dream — gave him a remedy for turning the evils away and obtaining God’s help, and said, “So, O king, let my advice be acceptable to you. Buy back your sins by giving to the poor, and your wrongdoing by showing mercy to the poor, and God will be patient with your sins.” And because the king did not obey him, he went through the misfortunes and troubles he had seen — troubles he could have escaped and avoided if he had bought his sins back by giving to the poor. Raphael the angel bears the same witness, and urges that gifts be given to the poor freely and generously, saying, “Prayer is good, with fasting and gifts to the poor; because giving to the poor delivers from death, and it washes sins away.” He shows that our prayers and our fasts count for less unless giving to the poor comes to their aid; that pleadings by themselves have little force to obtain what they ask, unless they are filled out by the addition of deeds and good works. The angel reveals and makes plain and guarantees that our requests become effective by giving to the poor, that life is bought back from danger by giving to the poor, that souls are delivered from death by giving to the poor. [j]

And we are not putting these things forward, dear brothers, without proving what Raphael the angel said by the testimony of a fact. In the Acts of the Apostles the truth of the matter is settled, and it is shown by the evidence of a thing actually carried through and finished that souls are delivered by giving to the poor not only from the second death but from the first. Tabitha was much given to good works and to giving to the poor. She fell sick and died, and Peter was called to her lifeless body. He came in haste, with an apostle’s kindness, and around him stood widows weeping and pleading, holding out the cloaks and the coats and every garment they had been given before — praying for the dead woman not with words of their own but with her deeds. Peter felt that what was asked in such a way could be obtained, and that Christ’s help would not fail people who were asking, since it was Christ himself who had been clothed in the widows’ clothing. So he fell on his knees and prayed, and — a fit advocate for the widows and the poor — he brought before the Lord the prayers put into his hands. Then he turned to the body, which by now lay washed on the bier, and said, “Tabitha, in the name of Jesus Christ, get up!” And the Lord did not fail to bring help to Peter, since he had said in the Gospel that whatever was asked in his name would be given. So death is suspended, the spirit is given back, and, to everyone’s wonder and astonishment, the revived body is brought to life again in the light of this world. So powerful were the merits of mercy; so much did acts of righteousness accomplish. The woman who had given suffering widows the help they needed to live deserved to be called back to life by the widows’ prayer. [m]

So in the Gospel the Lord, the teacher of our life and the master of eternal salvation, brings the company of believers to life and then provides for them for ever once they are alive. Among his divine commands and heavenly instructions there is nothing he commands and prescribes more often than that we should devote ourselves to giving to the poor, and not lean on earthly property but store up heavenly treasure instead. “Sell what you own,” he says, “and give to the poor.” And again: “Do not store up treasures for yourselves on the earth, where moth and rust eat them away and where thieves break in and steal. But store up treasures for yourselves in heaven, where neither moth nor rust eats them away and where thieves do not break in or steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be too.” And when he wanted to set out a man complete and finished in the keeping of the law, he said, “If you want to be perfect, go and sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” In another place, moreover, he says that a merchant dealing in heavenly grace, a man out to gain eternal salvation, ought to buy the costly pearl — that is, eternal life — at the price of Christ’s blood, out of the whole of his inherited estate, parting with all his wealth for it. He says: “The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one costly pearl, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.” [o]

In short, he calls those people the children of Abraham whom he sees working hard to help and feed the poor. For when Zacchaeus said, “Look, I give half of what I own to the poor; and if I have cheated anyone of anything, I pay him back four times over,” Jesus answered and said, “Salvation has come to this house today, since he too is a son of Abraham.” For if Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness, then certainly the man who gives to the poor as God commands believes God; and the man who holds the truth of faith keeps the fear of God; and the man who keeps the fear of God has God in mind when he shows mercy to the poor. He works like this because he believes — because he knows that what God’s word foretells is true and that holy Scripture cannot lie: that trees which bear no fruit, meaning men who produce nothing, are cut down and thrown into the fire, and that the merciful are called into the kingdom. In another place, too, he calls hard-working and fruitful men faithful, and he denies faith to the unfruitful and barren, saying, “If you have not been faithful with the mammon that is unrighteous, who will trust you with what is true? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to someone else, who will give you what is your own?” [q]

If you dread and fear that, once you begin to act on this scale, your inherited estate will be used up by your open-handed dealing and you may be reduced to poverty — on that score take heart, be free of worry. What supplies the service of Christ, what keeps the heavenly work going, cannot be used up. And I do not vouch for this on my own authority; I promise it on the trustworthiness of the holy Scriptures and on the authority of God’s own promise. The Holy Spirit speaks through Solomon and says, “Whoever gives to the poor will never be in need, but whoever turns his eye away will be in deep poverty” — showing that the merciful, the people who do good works, cannot come to want, but rather that the sparing and the barren come to want later on. Moreover the blessed apostle Paul, full of the grace of the Lord’s inspiration, says: “The one who supplies seed to the sower will also supply bread for your food, and will multiply your seed sown, and will increase the growth of the fruits of your righteousness, so that you may be made rich in everything.” And again: “The carrying out of this service will not only supply what God’s holy people need, but will also overflow in many thanksgivings to God.” For while thanks are being directed to God for our giving and our labor, the wealth of the man who gives is increased by God’s repayment, through the prayer of the poor. And the Lord in the Gospel, already weighing hearts of this kind and denouncing faithless and unbelieving men with a voice that knows what is coming, bears witness and says: “Do not worry, saying, What will we eat? or What will we drink? or What will we wear? The nations are after all these things. And your Father knows that you need all of them. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” He says that all these things will be added and given to those who seek God’s kingdom and righteousness. For the Lord says that when the day of judgment comes, those who have worked in his church are let in to receive the kingdom. [s]

You are afraid your estate might fail if you begin to act generously out of it — and you do not know, poor man, that while you are afraid your family property will fail you, life itself and salvation are failing; and while you are anxious that none of your wealth be reduced, you do not see that you yourself are being reduced, because you love mammon more than your own soul; and while you fear losing your inheritance for your own sake, you are the one perishing for your inheritance’s sake. And so the apostle cries out well and says: “We brought nothing into this world, and neither can we carry anything out. So, having food and clothing, let us be content with them. People who want to be rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many harmful cravings, which drown a man in ruin and destruction. For greed is a root of all evils, and some who have reached for it have made shipwreck of their faith and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” [u]

Are you afraid your inherited estate might run short if you begin to act generously out of it? Yet when has it ever happened that a righteous man ran out of resources, when it is written, “The Lord will not kill the righteous soul with famine”? Elijah in the wilderness is fed by the service of ravens; and a meal is made ready from heaven for Daniel in the pit, when he was shut in at the king’s order as prey for the lions. And you are afraid that food may be lacking to you, when you are working and deserving well of the Lord — although the Lord himself bears witness in the Gospel, to rebuke those whose minds waver and whose faith is small, and says: “Look at the birds of the sky. They do not sow or reap or gather into barns, and your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth more than they are?” God feeds the birds, and daily food is provided for the sparrows; and to creatures that have no sense of divine things there is no lack of drink or food. Do you think that a Christian — do you think that a servant of the Lord — do you think that a man given over to good works — do you think that a man dear to his Lord will lack anything? [v]

Unless you imagine that the man who feeds Christ is not himself fed by Christ, or that earthly things will be lacking to people who are given heavenly and divine things — where does this unbelieving thought come from? Where does this godless and sacrilegious idea come from? What is a faithless heart doing in the home of faith? Why is a man who does not trust Christ completely named and called a Christian? The name of Pharisee suits you better. For when the Lord in the Gospel was speaking about giving to the poor, and was faithfully and wholesomely warning us to make friends for ourselves out of our earthly profit by farsighted good works — friends who would afterward receive us into eternal dwellings — the Scripture went on to add and say, “But the Pharisees, who were very greedy, heard all this, and they sneered at him.” We see some like them in the church now. Their ears are shut and their hearts darkened, and they let in no light from spiritual and saving warnings. It is no wonder that they despise the servant when he speaks, when we see the Lord himself despised by such men. [x]