NOTES for Luk 10:25-42

These two stories must again overturn our ideas of "what is good and what is bad." Both of these stories are about serving people. Jesus tells a parable, and then, in the house of His acquaintances, He Himself ends up at the heart of the parable. For the first listeners of the parable about the wounded man and the Samaritan, perhaps the most shocking point was the person of the Samaritan: in the view of observant Jews, Samaritans were heretics and half-pagans, yet he turned out to be the nearest and most important person for the unfortunate man whom the priest and the Levite did not pity. But if you are used to the thought that all people are equal before God, or at the very least before the law, does the thought not shock you that the person dearest to us turns out to be not the one who helped us, but the one whom we helped?

If you love helping people, then the story of Martha and Mary is for you. Jesus saw more love in listening to Him than in preparing dinner for Him. But do not many others, for whom personal attention is far more important than even the most self-sacrificing service performed somewhere off to the side, think the same way?

Today I want to draw attention not to the parable of the Good Samaritan itself, about which very much has already been said and written, but to how Jesus answers the question. In the text we read that the lawyer asked the first question in order to test Jesus, and the second in order to justify himself. When we are asked about something and we see that the question is dishonest, insincere, do we answer in this way? First, unlike the Lord, we do not always perceive things correctly (and the Lord certainly knew whether the lawyer was sincere). Second, even if we are right, if we are asked insincerely, we either answer in the same spirit, formally, or refuse to answer at all. We deny the person the possibility of changing while listening to the answer; we deny God the possibility of putting into our mouths the answer that will return sincerity and truth to the conversation.

In this conversation we can see, as it were, three steps. First: the lawyer asks a provocative question, most likely carrying out someone else's will rather than his own. He is not very interested in the answer. Jesus answers as if the question had been asked for real. Second: the lawyer is stirred by the answer, feels guilty, and asks a question in order to justify himself, since he knows there is something for which he needs justification. The question is sincere, but not very honest. Jesus answers in such a way that He brings the lawyer to the level of real dialogue, and He Himself asks a question. The lawyer answers sincerely, and after this Jesus gives him a commandment, that is, establishes a relationship with him. The lawyer is now ready not only to hear, but also to fulfill the commandment: "Go and do likewise."

God trusts us so much that even when we lie to those around us, to ourselves, and to Him, He gives us a chance to become sincere and follow Him.

The chief commandment is not far from us, says the book of Deuteronomy. And Jesus' conversation with the lawyer in the Gospel of Luke confirms this: the lawyer knows this commandment. But for it to stop being mere words, someone must come down from heaven and reveal it.

And so Jesus "brings this commandment to life" with the famous parable of the merciful Samaritan, in which all the familiar stereotypes are overturned: the priest and the Levite are wrong, the half-pagan Samaritan is righteous, and the neighbor becomes not the one who showed mercy to you, but the one to whom you showed mercy. That is how life changes when Christ enters it.

The parable of the Good Samaritan is usually read as a story about how we should treat those who need our help. It follows, then, that a neighbor is the one who has come into our field of vision with his problems. Yet Jesus puts the question somewhat differently, saying, "Who was a neighbor to the man who fell among robbers?" They answer Him, "The one who showed him mercy," that is, the one who was able to come to his aid at the needed moment, who shared his burdens and gave his time. It is interesting that the Savior sees this story not from the side of the good passerby, who actively shows himself when he encounters misfortune, but from the side of the victim, passively receiving care from the first person who happens along.

We rarely allow that we are weak and helpless; it is far more natural for us to see ourselves on horseback and fully armed. Against this background, how expressive is the example of our Lord's amazing humility.

The lawyer’s question is perfectly lawful (perhaps even too much so): if loving my neighbor is required of me in order to inherit eternal life, it would be good to define the terms of the contract and determine who exactly my neighbor is. Personally, I am not sure that he understood Jesus’ answer (v. 37): it turns out that the terms of the contract are entirely undefined, and your neighbor is the one to whom YOU yourself have become a neighbor. Such an approach, of course, requires of me not a legalistic stance at all, but genuine mercy—frightening as it is to say—toward everyone I encounter. Perhaps this is what it means to enter eternal life.

"Go and do likewise," the Lord says today. Likewise as the merciful Samaritan, for what are you if not a Samaritan? You are a mixed person; there is no purity of faith in you. You seem to believe in God, but what God, how you worship Him, what rituals you invent for yourself or copy thoughtlessly from others. Of course, you are only a Samaritan. But let us look at these words in another translation. In the translation of one of the greatest philologists of our day, Sergei Sergeyevich Averintsev. "Step forth and act likewise." Our attention was caught by the fact that this great philologist, in his Russian translation, suddenly seems to violate the law of literary text about the inadmissibility of such close repetition of one root: "stupai" ("step forth") and "postupai" ("act"). But of course this was done by God's instruction to him, because it gives an abundance of new meanings. "An act is a step along the vertical. It has no other meaning and no other consequences"; these are the remarkable words of another philologist of our day, Olga Sedakova. An act is a step. Here is the same connection with walking. What did the Lord say to Sergei Sergeyevich, and through him to us, in these words that are so "unsounding" yet in fact amazingly resonant? Every day we take thousands, sometimes tens of thousands, of steps, but it is good if between confessions we have managed to make even one real act. Such close roots, and such mathematical divergence. An act is a step along the vertical. It is clear that this is only a poetic image, though a very strong one. But here is "it has no other meaning and no other consequences." And what about the Samaritan? What consequences does he have? If a Jew helped a Jew, he did a God-pleasing deed; for him the consequence was God's mercy. So people thought. But the Samaritan... he saved a stranger, one who would later thank God "not the right way," and therefore He might not hear. You may say that we are reading too much into this. But we are only trying to sweep away from ourselves the Christian-cultural gestalts contemporary with us. This correlation is absent: the God of my people, the person of my people, and I enter into this bond, I join myself to their wholeness. Instead there is the God of my people and a stranger; they are not connected in any way, and there is no wholeness to which I can join myself. I must join myself to the rupture, and this threatens to tear me apart as well. This is what a "step along the vertical" looked like to us today: a step across a crack in the earth that is rapidly widening. Therefore: step forth and act, join these numbers that stand so far apart on the scale of numbers: 1000 steps a day and 0.001 acts a day.

The image of Martha and Mary has become a classic in Christian tradition, symbolizing two kinds of Christian service—the active and the contemplative—and at the same time establishing their priorities, for the Savior speaks quite unambiguously about what matters most in service. His words are usually understood as pointing to what Mary was doing as she listened to Jesus' words without being distracted for even a minute. Yet “one thing” and “many things” also allow a somewhat different interpretation. It is no accident that Jesus speaks of the “many things” as something that causes a person anxiety and distress—at least, that is what follows if the Greek text is read literally.

Martha busies herself with many things; she is constantly thinking about something that troubles her and deprives her of peace. She has no time to listen, not because she is occupied with household tasks, but because of this constant anxiety that robs her of inner peace. Her many tasks worry her precisely because she is wholly immersed in them: inwardly she rushes from one task to another, anxious that she will not have enough strength for everything she thinks she must do. It is her anxiety, not the number of tasks, that exhausts her so completely that she no longer has the strength to listen to the Savior.

There is only one way out, and Jesus points to it: leave the many for the one, for the central thing that sustains a person—a relationship with Him, with Jesus. When this relationship becomes the center and focus of a person's inner life, all outward affairs are also arranged around that center. The person is no longer scattered or fragmented into a multitude of self-projections connected with everyday tasks, but remains inwardly whole and gathered around the one thing that truly fills both the person and all his work with life.

Martha's irritation is understandable. It often happens that one person has to work long and hard, while, as it looks to us, another does nothing. Then we begin to grumble and even demand that the other person do at least a little work too.

The Lord answers this indignation with unexpected severity, as if devaluing our earthly cares, saying: "You are worried about many things, but only one thing is needed." This sounds like a call to abandon everyday tasks, although another meaning can also be seen here. Does Jesus not wish to reproach Martha for having her own path and bearing her own cross, yet beginning to interfere in the life of her sister, who has chosen another calling?

Reflecting on this, it is fitting to remember the words from the last chapter of the Gospel according to John, where Christ says to Peter, who is concerned about the question of the martyrdom of Jesus' beloved disciple: "What is that to you? You follow Me."

The traditional interpretation of this episode about Mary and Martha is a moral lesson about leaving earthly fuss over many things for the sake of attention to the one Truth, which will not be taken from us once we have entered this path. This meaning shines directly through the text, leaving no doubt about itself. And perhaps this is so.

But let us think about something else as well. If not for Martha, who would have given the Savior something to eat? Let us think once more about these two sisters. To understand their images fully, let us remember that we meet them again on the pages of the Gospel according to John, when their brother Lazarus dies. It is Martha who then proves able to overcome grief and go out to meet the Savior with such remarkable words of confession of faith, while Mary remains at home weeping. Perhaps Martha, busy Martha, turns out to be spiritually stronger than her sister, because her busyness is not empty.

How can these two irreconcilable meanings be joined? Perhaps there are different types of people: there are the somewhat detached, people of prayer; there are people who radiate the joy of being from far away; there are those immersed in themselves; there are extroverts... We are all very different, but if the center of our thoughts is Christ, we choose the good portion, and it will not be taken from us.

How many reasons there are for people to be divided... The Gospel of Luke speaks of two sisters, Martha and Mary, receiving Christ in their home. Christ loves both of them; both are dear to Him (cf. John, chs. 11-12). But even between them division arises, and Jesus has to intervene to reconcile them.

Only Christ gives unity to people. This is also the mystery about which the apostle Paul writes to the Colossians: every person reaches perfection in union with Jesus Christ, and through Him in such unity with all, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, where everything in heaven and on earth is united under Christ as head.

Today we read a composite passage from the Gospel according to Luke. The second part of the reading tells how "a certain woman from the crowd lifted up her voice and said: Blessed is the womb that bore You and the breasts that nursed You." These words, like Peter's words near Caesarea, are a form of confessing Jesus as the Christ, the promised Messiah from the line of David.

Later, when the Pharisees demand that the Lord stop those crying out "Hosanna to the Son of David," He will say: "If they keep silent, the stones will cry out." In exactly the same way, if this woman had kept silent, the stones would have cried out, because if we believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the incarnate Son of God, then we cannot fail to glorify the One through whom this incarnation took place.

Her blessedness as the Mother of Her Creator is the pledge and condition of our salvation; without Mary's Son we would still remain in hell. Eastern hymnographers of the first millennium often speak of the All-Immaculate One as the new Eve, whose obedience corrected Eve's sin, just as the obedience of Her Son healed Adam's sin. And it is important for us, with reverence and love, to remember two more things. First, standing at the foot of the Cross, the Most Holy Virgin gives Her Son to God and to us, so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. And second, in establishing the New Covenant with us, the Lord Jesus gives us as food and drink His Flesh and Blood, which He received from the Most Holy Virgin.

Jesus' answer to the woman's exclamation is astonishing. In the Synodal translation ("But He said: blessed are...") this is not visible at all, and in Slavonic ("He said: therefore blessed are...") only partly. The point is that He says: "menoun makarioi..." The Greek menoun is an expression of agreement, used in the sense of "of course," "without doubt," "truly." That is, He says: "Of course blessed are those who hear the Word of God and keep it." In this form, these are precisely words about the Most Holy Virgin: "Without doubt, She is blessed, for She heard the word of God and fulfilled it." And this is not only a statement of fact, but also an indication of the path for us.