Which St John? – John Chrysostom
This Sunday (9th June 2019), Pentecost, we will have a poll to see which St John feels like the inspiration for us, St John’s, for the coming years. Which saint’s story resonates with us, calls to us, inspires us, guides us as a community into the future God is calling us into? Each day this week we will revisit one of the five Saints John we have learned about this Easter season.
Option 2
John Chrysostom was born to a wealthy family around 345CE in Antioch, Syria. His father, a commander of imperial troops in Syria, died at an early age. John felt a call to monastic life early but stayed with his mother, acting as a caregiver. When the time came for his education, John was sent to study with the great pagan orator Libanius. John excelled in his education. (Later, at the time of his death, when asked who should succeed him in the leadership of his school, Libanius is reported to have said, “John, had not the Christians stolen him.”) John would ultimately use his intellect to become one of the great doctors of the church.
Around 373, John became a hermit and took to an ascetic life, continually standing, scarcely eating, and reading the Bible constantly. Like so many at this time, his asceticism would later impact his health. John was made a deacon in 381 and a priest in 386. From 386-398, eloquent and uncompromising preaching was typical of John and earned him the name history would remember him by: Chrysostomos—”golden mouth.” His sermons lasted between 30 minutes and 2 hours, and were mainly about the practical application of scripture to everyday life, especially about the necessity of sharing wealth with the poor.
John spoke boldly, encouraging his congregants to give particular attention to those who were poor and vulnerable. “It is foolishness and a public madness to fill the cupboards with clothing,” John exhorted the congregation, “and allow men who are created in God’s image and likeness to stand naked and trembling with the cold so that they can hardly hold themselves upright.”
He encouraged his listeners to be generous, often extolling the virtues of giving alms. Moreover, he would assert that our giving should have no boundaries: “When it comes to doing good, let every human be your neighbour.” Giving was not to be occasional but a habit, akin to the washing of one’s hands.
In his sermons there is also a real sense of the gritty realities of economics. In one sermon he notes how “Countless poor people have to go hungry so that you can wear a single ruby.” In another sermon Chrysostom allows for the fact that sometimes wealth is ill-achieved. Such should not, he argues, preclude generosity: “Have you gained ill? Spend well. Have you gathered riches by unrighteousness? Scatter them abroad in righteousness.”
His sermons stress mutuality. In one sermon he boldly asserts, “The poor are the doctors of our soul, our benefactors and patrons.” In another he makes clear that those who are poor are not to be looked down upon but seen as Christ: “Let this then be your thought with regard to Christ also, when he is going about a wanderer, and a stranger, needing a roof to cover him; and you, neglecting to receive him, decorate a pavement, and walls and capitals of columns, and hang up lamps by means of silver chains, but himself bound in prison you will not even look upon?”
His concern for those who were poor and vulnerable was not limited to his sermonising. When he was elevated, against his wishes, to the Bishop of Constantinople in 397, he cut the Bishop’s household budget and used the funds to support one of the hospitals.
His focus on reform and care for those who were poor and vulnerable won him a good deal of respect and admiration. But Chrysostom was often blunt and tactless and did not shy away from criticising people with incredible power. He was also blunt in his assessment of people of other religions, particularly of Jews, and this assessment was not complimentary, to put it mildly—his writings on the subject of people of other religions were often wrongly appropriated by later people who used them to promote an anti-Semitic agenda. His lack of tact and political skill made him many enemies—in the imperial family and among fellow bishops. After a trial for trumped up charges of heresy, John was deposed from office and sent into exile.
By this time, he was in poor health from his years of asceticism. He was nonetheless forced to march across the plains of Asia Minor in extreme summer heat, and almost immediately his health began to fail him. In September 407, on the eastern shore of the Black Sea, at the edges of the empire, his body gave out and he died.
John’s Easter sermon is still read from pulpits around the world today. You can read it (it isn’t long!) here: http://
