pointed to Herod or to the Pharisees in the first instance, but it was
of the nature of a seed, and its applications multiply a hundred times a
hundred fold down through the history of the world. We may find the rich
man in this land to-day as certainly as in the circle that listened that
day to the preaching of Jesus. We find the counterpart of this picture,
not only in individuals, but in associated churches; and if Christians,
both in their private and corporate capacities, are rich both in
temporal means and spiritual privileges, they need not go far to seek
for the Lazarus who is laid at their gate. Lazarus lies in the streets
and lanes of our opulent cities; and, oh, he is full of sores! For his
sake, for Christ's sake, for our own sake, we must go out and show him
kindness. Dives lost his opportunity,--lost it for ever: we must "haste
to the rescue" lest we lose ours too. If we love the Lord, our love will
stir and burst out and overflow in life. The life that will exercise
itself in Christ-like charity must begin now; and if a new life in the
Lord begin, it will reveal itself in love's labour. If we are bought
with a price and quickened by the Spirit, the beggar at our gate will
soon discover the change. He will not be left longer to the mere
promptings of natural instinct among his neighbours for the soothing of
his sorrows; the warm skilful hand of intelligent and affectionate
brotherhood will raise him up and minister to his wants. Lazarus,
instead of having only a dog to lick his sores, will be compassed about
with human affections, and all his wants supplied. As a diseased,
miserable, neglected lazar world felt the coming of Christ, the poor and
destitute of the world's inhabitants will know when a loving, hopeful
Christian comes within reach. Who touched me? might the huge world have
said, if it had possessed intelligence, when God became man and dwelt
among us. Who touched me? will the outcasts on the earth begin to cry as
they awaken to consciousness, when a revived Church has visited them in
their prison, and brought to them the bread of life.
XXVII.
UNPROFITABLE SERVANTS.
"Then said he unto the disciples, It is impossible but that offences
will come: but woe unto him, through whom they come! It were better
for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast
into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.
Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee,
rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him. And if he trespass
against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn
again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him. And the
apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith. And the Lord said,
If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this
sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted
in the sea; and it should obey you. But which of you, having a
servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when
he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meat? And will not
rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird
thyself, and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken; and afterward
thou shalt eat and drink? Doth he thank that servant because he did
the things that were commanded him? I trow not. So likewise ye, when
ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We
are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to
do."--LUKE xvii. 1-10.
We are accustomed to observe a connection, more or less intimate,
between the parable and the history that precedes it. Generally, some
recent event, or some question by friend or foe, suggests the
similitude. In almost every case we are able to trace the natural
history, as it were, of the parable,--to determine what feature of the
events or discourses preceding called up the image and gave it shape.
Here the relation between the parable and the antecedent instruction is
closer still: in this case there is not merely a connection, but an
absolute union. The direct and the metaphorical are here successively
employed to enforce one continuous lesson. The lesson is one: the first
portion of it is delivered in simple didactic language, and the second
in parabolic figure. Some instruments are made of two different kinds of
metal, not mixed in the crucible, but each occupying its own separate
place: one part consists of steel, and another of brass, soldered
together, so as to constitute one rod. The nature of the work is such
that steel suits best for one extremity of the tool, and brass for the
other. It is in a similar way that two different forms of speech are
employed here to impart one lesson: the discourse begins with literal
expressions, and ends with a similitude.
The passage 1-10 as a whole, teaches the double truth, That God requires
of men a complete obedience, and that even though a complete obedience
were rendered, the master would not be laid under any obligation--the
servants would have no claim to praise or reward. While the rule towards
the close is made universal, in the beginning the demand is particular
and specific--to bear meekly and forgive generously the injuries which
neighbours may inflict in the multifarious intercourse of life. Besides
the point which constitutes the main scope of the discourse, several
matters of the very highest importance are incidentally involved, and
must be noticed, each in its proper place.
First of all, in order to prepare his disciples for meeting the trials
that lay before them, he warned them that offences will come, and
pronounced a solemn woe on those who should cast them in their
neighbour's way. Looking to his own--alike those who were then in his
sight, and those who should believe on him down to the end of the
world--he calls them, tenderly, little ones, and intimates that it would
go ill with all who should dare to hurt them. This, however, appears to
be laid down as a basis for the lesson which he intended at that time to
teach, rather than the lesson itself. Speaking expressly for the benefit
of his own followers, he was more concerned to teach them how to bear
injuries than to command them to beware of inflicting injuries on
others. The chief part of a Christian's duty consists in bearing well;
and when that part of his duty is successfully performed, it is more
effectual in serving God and convincing men than any kind or degree of
active effort. The disciple is like his Lord in this, that he conquers
by suffering.
Accordingly, the Teacher soon glides from the precept which forbids his
people to inflict injuries, into the precept which teaches how they
should bear injuries inflicted by others. "Take heed to yourselves:"
this is his main design: towards this he was hastening; as a basis for
this word, the previous injunction had been given. But, mark well, it is
not after the manner of men that Jesus warns his disciples to take heed
to themselves. He does not mean that they should be solicitous to
protect themselves from receiving injury: he leaves that to the natural
instincts of self-preservation, and warns them against danger on another
side, where nature supplies no defence. He does not mean, Take heed lest
you suffer by the stroke which an enemy may deal against you; he means,
Take heed lest you sin in spirit and conduct when you suffer unjustly.
You suffer one injury when a neighbour treats you unfairly: and another
when you proudly, impatiently retaliate. The loss that you thus inflict
on yourself is far heavier than the loss which has been inflicted by a
neighbour: the little finger of the one damage is thicker than the loins
of the other.
After the outpouring of the Spirit at the Pentecost, we find these
scholars far advanced in this lesson, which their Master taught them
while he remained at their head. The believers of those days had,
especially in the persons of Peter and John, been cruelly persecuted by
the Jewish authorities, and when they met after their suffering to pray,
their petition ran: "And now, Lord, behold their threatenings: and grant
unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word" (Acts
iv. 29). An injury had been inflicted: they innocently suffered; and
observe what in these circumstances they feared: not more suffering, but
lest by the suffering they should be tempted to be silent or wavering
when called to be witnesses of Christ. Not the pain they endured, but
the right state of their own spirits under the endurance, exercised
their minds, and stimulated their prayers.
We must not suppose, however, that the Lord has commanded his disciples
to bear injuries as a clod bears blows. Mere softness in yielding to the
wicked is not a Christian grace; it is, on the contrary, a mischievous
indolence: it suffers sin upon a brother: it deprives him of the benefit
of reproof, and so encourages him to continue in his sin. "If thy
brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive
him." This Teacher does not obliterate the lines which separate
righteousness from unrighteousness. He enjoins tenderness: but much as
he loves to see that feature in his disciples, he places it second to
faithfulness. The order of precedence as regards these two has been
determined by royal ordinance--"first pure, then peaceable." "Have salt
in yourselves, and have peace one with another," said the Lord at
another time (Mark ix.), plainly giving faithfulness the first place,
and requiring that gentleness should press hard up behind. Rebuke the
brother who does a wrong to you; if under your reproof and the working
of the truth on his conscience, he be led to repentance and confession,
forgive him in your heart, and express your forgiveness, that he may be
encouraged and relieved. The precept "forgive" must, from the nature of
the case, refer to the articulate expression of forgiveness; for in his
heart and before God, a Christian forgives his enemy, although that
enemy continue obdurate.
Next comes the precept, given in similar terms already in another place
(Matt. xviii. 15-22), regarding the repetition of injuries. The duty of
forgiving a repenting injurer is not modified by the frequency of his
sin; the form of the expression "seven times in a day," is manifestly
intended to intimate that there is on that side absolutely no limit. It
is not the part of a Christian to count the number of the injuries he
has received, and to refuse forgiveness after a certain point; it is his
part to be of a forgiving spirit, and to give forth forgiveness to all
like the sunlight. The example of the Lord is the pattern for his
servants; "Love one another as I have loved you."
The conception of unlimited forgiving, which in Matthew's narrative is
expressed by "seventy times seven," is here with equal emphasis
expressed by "seven times in a day." When we understand the terms as a
formula for an indefinite number, we exclude the minute question, How
could we believe a man sincere, who should seven times in a day do us an
injury, and as often come and express sorrow for his fault? The words
should not be literally taken; and besides if any one should trifle with
his neighbour by frequent and manifestly false professions of
repentance, his meaning would and should be read, not by his words, but
by his conduct; the rule would and should be understood in its spirit,
and not in its letter merely.
Ver. 5. "And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith." An
interesting and instructive view emerges here, of the relation between
faith and practice. When they heard the measure of the demand which
their Master made upon them in the matter of bearing and forgiving
injuries, the apostles felt instantly that the weight was heavier than
they could bear. They had not in their hearts such an amount of patience
and love, as would enable them to fulfil this commandment of the Lord.
Having already learned that faith is the secret fountain whence the
stream of obedience flows, they asked with equal simplicity and
correctness that their faith might be increased. In this short prayer
they assumed, first, that they already believed, asking for an addition
to the faith which they already possessed; and second, that it is more
faith that will produce more obedience; and third, that the faith which
worketh by love is not of themselves, but is the gift of God through his
Son. In all this, having been secretly taught of the Spirit, these
apostles are deeply intelligent, and completely correct. The appetites
are generally sure guides to living creatures for the sustenance of
their life; and here the appetite of the new creature, points surely to
the source of supply: "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after
righteousness, for they shall be filled."
Both in the request of the scholars (ver. 5), and in the answer of the
Master (ver. 6), it is distinctly assumed as a fundamental truth in
religion, that faith lies at the root of obedience. When a requisition
is made upon them for an amount of meek endurance and forgiving love
which their own stores cannot supply, they cry not directly for more
power of enduring and forgiving, but for more faith which will
strengthen them on this side, and on all other sides at the same time.
It is as if you had a cistern meant to supply twelve streams, running in
various directions, from whose lip twelve conduits were accordingly led:
and when water from one of these was suddenly wanted, you opened it but
found that little or none could be obtained. You cry out for a new
supply to the cistern; that supply given will fill this channel which is
for the the moment in requisition, and all the other channels at the
same time. Endurance and forgiving--more than we are able to bear and
bestow--are at this moment required of us; but if we had more faith, we
should exhibit more of these graces, and more of all graces.
The Lord in his answer acknowledges that their inference is correct. By
another form of expression, similar in character to the "seven times in
a day," he intimates that faith possesses an unlimited power of
production in the department of doing. To intensify the result he
employs a double hyperbole, as engineers employ two pairs of wheels to
generate extreme rapidity of motion; the smallest spark of faith will
overcome the greatest obstacles that may lie across a Christian's path.
Again, the same idea which appeared before in Matt. xvii. 20, is
expressed here by a different figure: in both cases the Lord intends to
intimate that what without faith is impossible, may with faith be done.
In Matthew the impossible is represented by the removal of a mountain;
in Luke by the planting of a sycamore in the sea. By these forms our
Teacher conveys his meaning with amazing distinctness. The letters of
his lessons thus sharply, deeply cut, remain indeed dead letters to
those who have not experienced the grace of God; as letters of a book,
the largest and loveliest lie meaningless before the eyes of a savage or
a little child; but in either case, as soon as the scholar becomes
capable of understanding, the meaning shines forth like light. It would
be a great transition from our present position of impotence, if we
should become able to remove a mountain, or plant a sycamore in the sea;
such and so great is the transition when a man passes from death in sin
to life in Christ; such and so great the difference between what he
could bear, and hope, and do while he was at enmity with God, and what
he can bear, and hope, and do when he is reconciled to God through the
death of his Son.
The particular requirement which on this occasion put the faith of the
disciples under a strain greater than it was able to meet, was the
endurance and the forgiving of injuries; but this Scripture must not be
limited to a private interpretation; this is a specimen shown in
illustration of a general rule. There are diversities of operation,
under the providence of God our Father; now the faith of Christians is
tested in one way, and then in another. At one time they are called
actively to do a great work; and at another time passively to bear a
great burden. The work required of one disciple is a mission to the dark
places of the earth; and the work required of another is to bear
patiently many years of pain and weariness, in his own home, it may be
on his own bed. By both alike the kingdom of Christ may be advanced:
from both equally when they are bruised,--the one by great effort, and
the other by a heavy weight,--the odour of a holy temper may be diffused
all around.
We are not masters; we are servants. The Lord appoints to each his
place, and his work.
* * * * *
The lesson now passes into the parable. When he had pointed out how
great is God's claim, and how large faith's performance might become in
the life of a disciple, Jesus warns them, on the other side, that the
greatest possible, the greatest conceivable attainment in the direction
of a believing obedience, implies absolutely no independent merit in
man; obedience, although it reached the utmost point of perfection,
would still leave God indebted to man for nothing, and man indebted to
God for all.
"But which of you having a servant ploughing or feeding cattle." The
state of society which supplies the ground-work of this parable is in
many respects different from that which prevails in modern Europe. It is
especially important here to notice the difference in these two
features:--
1. It is a simple pastoral life that constitutes the basis of this
picture. The principle of division of labour exists there in its lowest
stages of development. It is assumed as a common and proper thing to
employ a shepherd or a ploughman in serving his master at table--a
practice entirely unknown among us. 2. The servitude in the instance
supposed was not a voluntary limited engagement, but a species of
slavery: the master's control was much more absolute and complete than
it is among us. The servant's toil might be, and probably in many cases
actually was, on the whole, not heavier than that to which our hired
servants are subjected; but the measure of the labour, both as to its
endurance and its severity, depended there on the master's will rather
than on the servant's freedom. The master, under the species of relation
which then largely prevailed, could demand of his servant on occasion an
amount and continuity of service which now is not demanded on the one
side, and would not be rendered on the other.
It should be noticed, however, that the service which is in the parable
required and rendered, is both in character and quantity extreme. An
ordinary example of a servant's work would not have suited the purpose
of the Lord; he needed a line stretched to its utmost limits. His
purpose is to teach that the utmost conceivable amount of obedience on
man's part is not independently meritorious before God; and, in
searching among temporal things for a suitable analogy, he selected a
case in which the line stretched from one extremity to the other.
When the servant has finished his day's work on the pasture or in the
field, at his return, and before he obtain either rest or food, he is
compelled to wait upon his master at table. Even this extreme measure of
work is required by the master and rendered by the servant as within the
limits of their respective rights: the servant even in that case has
done no more than was due.
"So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all these things which are
commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants."
God has given all, owns all, has a right to all. We are his by right of
creation, and his by redemption, when we are in Christ. Christians are
not their own; they are bought with a price. Themselves, and their
faculties, and their capabilities belong to God, their Creator and
Redeemer. When they have rendered all their powers, and all the product
of these powers, absolutely up to God's will, they have done no more
than rendered to him his own. "Will a man rob God? yet ye have robbed
me" (Mal. iii. 8). It is an aggravated sin to rob God of what is his;
but it is no merit or ground of praise simply to refrain from robbing
him; and this is all that the creature's obedience would amount to,
although it were complete.
Our Master ordinarily makes our work easy; he is gentle, and easy to be
entreated. "As a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them
that fear him:" but at his pleasure, and doubtless in deep ways for
their good, he sometimes lays extraordinary burdens on his own. He may
permit offences to come, trying your temper; he may permit sickness to
overtake you, trying your patience; he may permit temptations to assail
you, trying your faith even at its foundations; he may require of you
great and varied activity, trying your willingness to run at his call.
These burdens seem heavy, as the master's demand of service in the house
seemed heavy to the servant when he returned weary and hungry from field
labour; but although we should bear them all with complete uncomplaining
alacrity, we should acquire thereby no right to reward.
There is absolutely no such thing as a surplus of merit in man. The
imagination of it has ever been rife in man-made religions, as weeds
spring thick and spontaneous from the ground; but never and nowhere is
there any substantial foundation for this human conceit. It springs in
the deepest ignorance, and it withers when the light of knowledge begins
to shine. It rests on an entire misapprehension of the relations between
God and man. If a man on ship-board, thinking that the ship was about to
sink, on account of being too heavily loaded, should grasp the shrouds,
and hang on them with all his weight, by way of lightening the ship, the
bystanders would count him fatuous; and yet such is the folly of him
who, getting all from God, imagines that he has conferred on God a
favour by a surplus of goodness. I have seen grown people, in possession
of all their faculties, able to read, if not further educated, when, in
crossing a river by a ferry, they apprehended danger, applying both
their hands to the side of the boat in which they stood, and, pushing
with all their might, in order to push it towards a place of safety.
This implies the grossest ignorance, or at least the total forgetfulness
for the time of the most obvious and ordinary of the natural laws; and
yet I have found that these persons had quite enough of wit to manage
all their ordinary affairs, and to get along respectably in society. I
think there is some analogy between this case and the case of those who,
intelligent on other points, yet blindly imagine that they merit praise
for not squandering God's gifts that have been placed under their care.
"When ye have done all, say, We are unprofitable servants"--servants
whom the master did not need, and who contribute nothing to him. The
question whether the Lord conceded that in point of fact any man ever
does perfectly perform all his duty is out of place here; The Lord's
meaning is, even although a man should do all, he would still be
destitute of merit before God; much more are those destitute of merit
who come far short of perfection, and to this class belong all, even the
best of the children of men.
Means and opportunities of bearing evil and doing good are in providence
conceded to every one of us; and the law announced in another parable
holds good here; If we improve aright the talents which we possess, more
will forthwith be entrusted to us.
There is room for advancement; and, when grace is begun, it is sweet to
grow in grace. If we had power to add cubit by cubit to our stature, we
should have far to grow ere our head should strike the heavens; and in
bearing meekly, and acting righteously, and living purely, we have room
enough to expand: it will be long ere we have done all, and so our
progress be stopped by striking the boundary. Forgetting the things that
are behind, and reaching forth to those that are before, we may press on
and ever on; yet there is room.
Nor let any one think that bearing and doing God's will must be less
blessed when we learn that God did not need this at our hand, and that
we do not thereby lay him under obligation to us. When one is truly
taught of the Spirit, it will increase and not diminish the pleasure
which he enjoys in obedience, to learn that all he is, and has, and
does, comes from God. A dependent is happier than an independent
position for human beings, if he on whom they hang is great and good.
The life of a child is happiest during the period when he has no
possession of his own, and desires none,--when he gets all as he needs
from his father; on this side, as well as on others, we must receive the
kingdom as a little child.