ACC ~ Matthew 4 v20

NO MIDDLE WAY

ANONYMOUS: Someone may ask, “So I cannot love riches and please Christ?” The apostles gave us a lesson in leaving behind their nets immediately, for no one can own earthly things and completely attain to heavenly things. Notice how, between the earth and the sky, there is an intermediate layer that separates both creations. This shows that between the heavenly and earthly bodies there can be no commingling. The heavenly bodies are spiritual and light, and naturally they always tend upward. The earthly bodies are heavy, and they always hang downward. So, if you hold onto spiritual things, they will bring you up; if you hold onto earthly things, they will bring you down. Therefore they left behind their nets, lest these things become more of an impediment to them than an added benefit. INCOMPLETE WORK ON MATTHEW, HOMILY 7. [1]

[1] PG 56:675.

JESUS CHOOSES THEM FOR WHAT THEY CAN BECOME

ANONYMOUS: Before he says or does anything, he calls the apostles so nothing may be concealed from them as to Christ’s words or works and they may later say in confidence: “For we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.” [1] He sees them not bodily but spiritually, regarding not their appearance but their hearts. And he chooses them not as apostles but because they could become apostles. Just as an artist who sees precious, and not rough-hewn, stones chooses them—not because of what they are but because of what they can become. Like the sensitive artist who does not spurn the unshaped good—so too the Lord, upon seeing them, does not choose their works but their hearts. INCOMPLETE WORK ON MATTHEW, HOMILY 7. [2]

[1] Acts 4:20.

[2] PG 56:674.

Mt