This supper is prepared daily, and we are all called to the Kingdom which God prepared for people even before the creation of the world (Matt. 25:34). But we are not deemed worthy of it—some because of curiosity for wisdom, others because of love for material things, and still others because of love for the flesh. And the love of God for mankind grants this Kingdom to other sinners who are blind in their rational eyes, who do not understand what the will of God is, or even if they understand, are lame and immobile toward fulfilling it, and poor, as having been deprived of heavenly glory, and maimed, as not manifesting in themselves a blameless life. To these sinners, wandering along the wide and broad paths of sin, the Heavenly Father sends an invitation to the supper through His Son, who became a servant in the flesh, who came to call not the righteous but sinners (Matt. 9:13), and He abundantly feasts them in place of those who are wise and wealthy and who indulge the flesh. Upon many He sends diseases and calamities, and through this involuntarily compels them to renounce such a life, by judgments that He alone knows, and brings them to His supper, turning the infliction of calamities into a motivation for them. There are many examples of this.
In a simpler sense, the parable teaches us to give to the poor and maimed rather than to the rich. What the Lord was urging a little earlier, to that very thing, it seems, He also spoke this parable, affirming all the more that one ought to feast the poor. We are taught by this parable yet another thing as well, namely: that we ought to be so zealous and generous in receiving the brethren (the least), that we should persuade them to partake of our goods even when they do not wish to. In this there is a powerful admonition for teachers, that they should instruct their disciples in what is proper even when they do not wish it.
Lk. 14:25. A great multitude was going with Him; and He turned and said to them:
Lk. 14:26. If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, and wife and children, and brothers and sisters, and moreover his own life also, he cannot be My disciple;
Lk. 14:27. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.
Since many of those who followed Jesus did not follow with complete zeal and self-denial, but had a very cold disposition, He, teaching what His disciple should be like, expresses His thoughts on this matter, as if portraying and painting him, affirming that he must hate not only those close to him outwardly, but also "his own soul." But look, in your simplicity and inexperience, do not be scandalized by this saying. For the Lover of mankind does not teach inhumanity, does not suggest suicide, but wants His sincere disciple to hate his relatives only when they hinder him in the matter of worshipping God and when in his relations with them he finds difficulties in the accomplishment of good. On the contrary, when they do not hinder this, He teaches to honor them even to one's last breath. And how does He teach? By the best teaching, that is, by His own deeds. For He obeyed Joseph (Lk. 2:51), despite the fact that he was not His father in the proper sense, but only His supposed father. And He always had great care for His Mother, so that even while hanging on the cross, He did not forget Her, but entrusted Her to His beloved disciple (Jn. 19:26–27). How then would He, teaching one thing by deed, suggest something different in words? No, as I said, He commands us to hate our parents only when they threaten danger to the worship of God. For then they are no longer parents, no longer relatives, when they oppose us in such a beneficial matter. What we affirm is also evident from the fact that we are commanded to hate "our own soul." For by this commandment, without doubt, we are not ordered to kill ourselves, but to abandon the desires of the soul that separate us from God, and not to care about the soul (life) if torment is to come, so long as eternal gain lies ahead. And that the Lord teaches this, and not suicide, He Himself shows, first, by the fact that when the devil, tempting Him, suggested that He throw Himself down from the pinnacle of the temple, He rejected the temptation (Mt. 4:5–7), and second, by the fact that He did not deliver Himself to the Jews (each time), but withdrew and, passing through their midst, hid from the murderers (Lk. 4:30). Therefore, whoever has relatives that harm him in the matter of worshipping God, and yet gladly continues his attachment to them, placing it above pleasing God, and sometimes out of love for life, in the face of threatened torment, inclines toward renouncing the faith — that one cannot be a disciple of Christ.
Lk. 14:28. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has what is needed to complete it,
Lk. 14:29. lest, when he has laid the foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him,
Lk. 14:30. saying: this man began to build and could not finish?
By the parable of the tower, the Lord teaches us that, having once resolved to follow Him, we should preserve this very intention and not merely lay "a foundation" alone — that is, begin to follow but not follow through to the end, as those who lack sufficient preparation and zeal. Such were those of whom the evangelist John says: "many of His disciples went back from Him" (John 6:66). And every person who has resolved to practice virtue but has not attained to Divine knowledge, since he began virtue imperfectly and unwisely, builds imperfectly, for he cannot reach the tower of lofty knowledge. Therefore he becomes a laughingstock to the people and demons who look upon him. And in another sense: by the foundation you may understand the word of teaching. For the word of a teacher discoursing, for example, on temperance, cast upon the soul of a disciple, is like a foundation. Upon this word, as upon a foundation, there must also be "building" — that is, the accomplishment of deeds — so that the "tower," that is, the virtue which we have intended to practice, may be completed by us, and moreover may be strong before the face of the enemy. And that the word is the foundation, while the deed is the building, the apostle teaches us sufficiently when he says: "I have laid the foundation," Jesus Christ, "and another builds upon it" (1 Cor. 3:10), and further enumerates various buildings (1 Cor. 3:12–15), that is, the accomplishment of deeds either good or evil. Therefore, let us fear lest the demons begin to mock us, of whom the prophet says: "children shall rule over them" (Isa. 3:4) — that is, over those rejected by God.
Lk. 14:31. Or what king, going to war against another king, does not sit down first and take counsel whether he is able with ten thousand to meet the one coming against him with twenty thousand?
Lk. 14:32. Otherwise, while the other is still far away, he will send a delegation to ask for peace.
And this parable teaches us not to be double-minded, not to be nailed to the flesh while cleaving to God, but, if we intend to wage war against the evil powers, to advance against them as against enemies and to oppose them by deed itself.
Sin also becomes a king, reigning in our mortal body (Rom. 6:12), when we allow it. But our mind too was created as a king. Therefore, if it intends to rise up against sin, it must wage war against it with all its soul, for its soldiers are strong and terrible, and appear greater and more numerous than us; since the soldiers of sin are demons, who against our ten thousand direct, it seems, a force of twenty thousand. And they, being bodiless and contending with us who live in the body, appear to have greater strength. Nevertheless, we can fight against them, even though they seem stronger than us. For it is said: "Through God we shall do valiantly" (Ps. 60:12) and "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?... Though a host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear" (Ps. 27:1, 3). Moreover, God, who became incarnate for our sake, gave us "authority to tread... over all the power of the enemy" (Luke 10:19). Therefore we, though in the flesh, yet have weapons that are not carnal (2 Cor. 10:3–4). Although by reason of our bodily nature we constitute, it seems, ten thousand against their twenty thousand, by reason of their bodiless nature, nevertheless we must say: "The Lord God is my strength" (Hab. 3:19)!
Lk. 14:33. So every one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be My disciple.
And they must never be reconciled with sin, that is, be enslaved to the passions, but with special force resist them and must conceive an irreconcilable hatred toward them, desiring nothing passionate in the world, but leaving everything. For he cannot be a disciple of Christ who does not leave everything, but has an attachment to something in the world that is harmful to the soul.
Lk. 14:34. Salt is a good thing; but if the salt has lost its strength, how shall it be restored?
Lk. 14:35. It is fit neither for the land nor for the dunghill; they cast it out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!
A disciple of Christ must be "salt," that is, he must not only be good in himself and free from evil, but must also communicate goodness to others. For such is salt. It, itself remaining unharmed and free from corruption, preserves from corruption other things to which it imparts this property. But if salt loses its natural power, it is of no use for anything, "it is fit neither for the land nor for the dunghill." These words have the following meaning: I desire that every Christian be useful and able to edify, not only the one entrusted with the gift of teaching, such as the apostles, teachers, and pastors, but I require that the laypeople themselves also be fruitful and useful to their neighbors. But if the one who is supposed to serve for the benefit of others is himself worthless and falls from the condition befitting a Christian, then he will be able neither to give benefit nor to receive benefit. "It is fit neither for the land nor for the dunghill," it says. The word "land" hints at receiving benefit, and the word "dunghill" at giving benefit. Therefore, as one who neither serves for benefit nor receives benefit, he must be rejected and cast out.
Since the speech was obscure and parabolic, the Lord, rousing the listeners so that they would not take what He said simply about salt, said: "He who has ears to hear, let him hear," that is, he who has a mind, let him understand. For by "ears" here one must understand the perceptive faculty of the soul and the capacity for understanding. Thus, every one of us believers is salt, having received this property from the Divine words and from grace above. And that grace is salt, listen to the Apostle Paul: "Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt" (Col. 4:6), so that speech, when it is without grace, may be called unsalted. Therefore, if we neglect this property of the Divine words and do not receive it into ourselves and do not make it our own, then we shall be foolish and senseless, and our salt has truly lost its strength, as not possessing the property of heavenly grace.