Monday, November 15, 2004 Nativity Fast Begins
Venerable Paissios Velichkovsky
Kellia: Judges 18:14-31 Epistle: 2 Thessalonians 1:1-10 Gospel: St. Luke 12:13-15, 22-31
Judges 18:14-31, especially vs. 27: "And taking what Micah had
made, and the priest who belonged to him, the Danites came to Laish, to a people quiet and
unsuspecting, and smote them with the edge of the sword, and burned the city with fire." When
the strands of a social order unravel and lawlessness prevails, the normal bonds which unite
humanity soon shred, unleashing every form of sin and depravity. Such is the hard, predictable
reality of anomie, which the present reading reveals graphically in a story of theft, ingratitude,
and ravage. Beloved of the Lord, bear in mind that the marauders in this account were a tribe of
the People of God, that their heritage included Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and Joshua, the
Law of God, the Covenant given at Sinai, the abundant promises of God and the gift of freedom.
How quickly even those blessed of the Lord can descend into savagery and rapine! Lord save us!
The blessed Gospel, when its truth is embraced, is a pearl of great price (Mt. 13:46), for it has the
power to snatch us back from the precipice of anomie and from plunging down into self-destruction and inhumanity. The word of God, when it is welcome, alive, and active in our
hearts, as the Apostle teaches, is "sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of
soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart"
(Heb. 4:12). As we read this account, let us pray for the word of the Gospel to pierce our souls,
unmask "the thoughts and intentions" of our hearts, chasten, purify, control, and adorn us.
"The five men who had gone to spy out the land went up, and entered and took the graven image,
the ephod, the teraphim, and the molten image, while the priest stood by...." (Jdg. 18:17). The
five, who earlier had received hospitality, stole Micah's valuables, and the priest, who might have
called to their minds the saving Law of the Lord, became their accomplice. St. John of the
Ladder comments on the famous observation of the Apostle that the love of money is the root of
all evils (1 Tim 6:10), "because," he says, "it produces hatred, thefts, envy, separations, enmities,
storms, remembrance of wrong, hard-heartedness, murders." Which of these products is not
found in this brief account? Beloved, two things can save us from such a perverted love: "a taste
of God and concern for the account to be given at death."
The five men asked the priest, "Is it better for you to be priest to the house of one man, or to be
priest to a tribe and family in Israel?" And the priest's heart was glad; he took the ephod, and
the teraphim, and the graven image, and went in the midst of the people" (Jdg. 18:19, 20). What
ingratitude! He had been fed, housed, welcomed, and provided for in every way by Micah the
Ephraimite, yet with a single word he left with those who were robbing his host. The antidote for
such grave sickness is very simple. In the words of St. Theophan the Recluse: "remind yourself
often, that [God] has granted you many favors in the past and has shown you His love. He has
created you out of nothing in His own likeness and image....He has delivered you from your
slavery to the devil, sending down...His only-begotten Son to redeem you. Having done all this
He protects you, every hour and every moment, from your enemies."
The destruction of Laish by the Danites is recorded bluntly in one sentence quoted above (vs. 27).
The tendency to violence is in us all, having its roots in anger and self-will (Mt. 5:21-26). To
help us defeat anger at its source in our hearts, the Lord reveals the beatitude: "Blessed are the
merciful" (Mt. 5:7), to which St. Gregory of Nyssa adds: " If, therefore, the term 'merciful' is
suited to God what else does the Word invite you to become but God?" May He so help us!
O Lord, direct our hearts and wills toward what is good and the love of virtue, so that in our
ignorance of the good and our obsession with passion we not be carried headlong into sin.
