Memra 8: On One Who Gives All He Has to Feed the Poor

Memra 8: On One Who Gives All He Has to Feed the Poor Because the Apostle said: "If I give all that I have to the poor, there will be no debt in me; I will not increase anything." But he who does not give much, increases. And the Lord said: "He who gives a cup of water will not lose his reward." And again he said: "Come, you blessed ones of my Father, because you were hungry and you fed my hungry ones, and you were thirsty and you gave my thirsty ones to drink, and you were strangers and you clothed my naked ones, and you were sick and you tended my sick ones, and you were in prison and you brought my prisoners to me; come, inherit the kingdom that was prepared for you." And to those who did not do these things, he said: "Go, you cursed ones, to that fire which is prepared for the Evil One and his angels; I do not know you. Go to your master, because you did not do these things for me, and because you served iniquity." And again the blessed Apostle said: "If I knew all the mysteries of heaven and all knowledge, there would be no debt in me; I would have nothing." And the Lord said: "If you know the truth, that truth will set you free." For even the imperfect are not liberators, but as soon as they know the truth, they are delivered from falsehood and from the servitude of sin, and they become free; and they do not come to judgment. But if they have time in the world, and they come before their own day from day to day, they reach perfection.

And as the Apostle said, "I have nothing." And again he said, "If I give my body to be burned, there will be no debt in me; I have nothing." How then is it that he who thus increases beyond everything that the Apostle gave? And the Lord said, "He who gives his work to him who strikes him and endures, comes to perfection, if he loves him who strikes him and prays for him." And perhaps the Apostle interprets the words of the Lord? Far from it. He does not interpret, but rather he inquires about them. It is not that the Apostle said something inappropriate, but rather he introduces something great, perfection.

He who gives all he has to the poor for God's sake, and is stripped bare, is like one who said: "What is mine is yours," and there is in him no debt. That humble one who loves his murderers and washes the feet of his enemies, and considers everyone as superior to himself, and gazes at the heavens and not at the earth, and longs for the Jerusalem above, serving his desire, and binds his desire to his Lord. And he goes to one lesser than himself, and bows his head before everyone, and his humility is made known to all the living. And when he is cursed, he blesses; and when he is struck, he worships them. And where they have stripped him, he enters among them as one whom they have clothed, and goes to one who has done him evil, as to one who has done him good. And he attained height and depth, length and breadth, and is humbler than everyone. And while he does these things and things like them, he thinks that sinners are more excellent than he, though he has no shame all day long, and though he has no support for his head on the earth. Not, therefore, that he who gives all he has to the poor has no profit; the Apostle said: "But that he who is stripped bare and in whom this debt exists, which does these deeds and this entire humility, is not in his eyes." But it is possible that they give to the living all that they have.

And there are those who are stripped bare on earth for the sake of the Lord and do not attain this humility; rather, they love as much as they love and humble themselves before each person and not before everyone. Because of this, many are small, from what comes to the debt of perfection, because what is thus not humbled is not completed, and what is not humbled is very small compared to the perfect. And there are some who gave for the sake of the Lord their flesh to the fire while they were in faith and in tears; and many who, when they had possessions and income and property and servants and maidservants, like Abraham and like Job—not that they had no wealth at all, the Apostle said, but that many are small compared to the martyrs who are stripped bare and humbled like the Lord and resemble the apostles and Stephen. Again, there are some whose sins are many and they believe in the Lord, and persecution comes in their days, and they say to them: "Deny the Lord and sacrifice to idols." And they do not know what the debt of perfection is, but only faith and confession. And they burn them and cast them to the beasts and to the mouth of the sword, and they endure and do not deny the Lord. Do they not have a reward? They do not attain perfection, however, and they are not at all in the eyes of Stephen and the apostles. But they are left in their deficiencies and do not come to the judgment.

But they are all stripped bare before the judgment seat of the Messiah, as the Apostle said: that we all have a place before the judgment seat of the Messiah. But there are those who come to judgment, and there are those who come to glory and sit upon thrones, as the Lord said to those who did His entire will completely: "You who left everything and came after me, on the day when I am revealed in my glory, you will sit upon thrones and judge the tribes of the righteous." See, then, that they come to glory, to the judgment seat, and not to judgment. As it is found, then, that a man on the day of his departure stands before the judgment seat on the day of judgment. Again, then, there are men who left all that they had for the sake of the Lord and love the Lord and are merciful to him, and there is not in them that love which loves God and the righteous. And because they loved the Lord, the mysteries of heaven and all the knowledge of faith are revealed to them, but they do not comprehend the truth of love; and the height, depth, length, and breadth that love comprehends, they do not comprehend; rather, they comprehend all the mysteries and all the knowledge that is in faith, which is smaller than love, that which encompasses all and completes all.

Faith, then, loves the Lord and his loved ones and the members of his household; but sin loves the Lord and his enemies and his murderers and the deniers and the terrors. As it is written: that every person, as one who is more prosperous than you, set his hope, and let your humility be known to all the people. And love the one who hates you, and be to me like your father in heaven, who makes his sun rise and brings down his rain upon the righteous and upon the wicked and upon the good and upon the evil. And thus let your love be more abundant for the members of the household of faith. Not, therefore, did the Apostle speak of advantage, that those who have known the mysteries of faith have nothing, but rather that they are not at all among those who have attained to love and perfection. The end of the homily on the one who gives all he has to the poor.