'_How is it that ye do not understand?_'--ST. MARK viii. 21.
After feeding the four thousand with seven loaves and a few small
fishes, on the east side of the Sea of Galilee, Jesus, having crossed
the lake, was met on the other side by certain Pharisees, whose
attitude towards him was such that he betook himself again to the boat,
and recrossed the lake. On the way the disciples bethought them that
they had in the boat but a single loaf: probably while the Lord was
occupied with the Pharisees, one of them had gone and bought it, little
thinking they were about to start again so soon. Jesus, still occupied
with the antagonism of the leaders of the people, and desirous of
destroying their influence on his disciples, began to warn them against
them. In so doing he made use of a figure they had heard him use
before--that of leaven as representing a hidden but potent and
pervading energy: the kingdom of heaven, he had told them, was like
leaven hid in meal, gradually leavening the whole of it. He now tells
them to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. The disciples, whose
minds were occupied with their lack of provisions, the moment they
heard the word leaven, thought of bread, concluded it must be because
of its absence that he spoke of leaven, and imagined perhaps a warning
against some danger of defilement from Pharisaical cookery: 'It is
because we have taken no bread!' A leaven like that of the Pharisees
was even then at work in their hearts; for the sign the Pharisees
sought in the mockery of unbelief, they had had a few hours before, and
had already, in respect of all that made it of value, forgotten.
It is to the man who is trying to live, to the man who is obedient to
the word of the Master, that the word of the Master unfolds itself.
When we understand the outside of things, we think we have them: the
Lord puts his things in subdefined, suggestive shapes, yielding no
satisfactory meaning to the mere intellect, but unfolding themselves to
the conscience and heart, to the man himself, in the process of
life-effort. According as the new creation, that of reality, advances in
him, the man becomes able to understand the words, the symbols, the
parables of the Lord. For life, that is, action, is alone the human
condition into which the light of the Living can penetrate; life alone
can assimilate life, can change food into growth. See how the disciples
here fooled themselves!
See how the Lord calls them to their senses. He does not tell them in
so many words where they are wrong; he attacks instead the cause in
themselves which led to their mistake--a matter always of infinitely
more consequence than any mistake itself: the one is a live mistake, an
untruth in the soul, the other a mere dead blunder born of it. The
word-connection therefore between their blunder and our Lord's
exhortation, is not to be found; the logic of what the Lord said, is
not on the surface. Often he speaks not to the words but to the
thought; here he speaks not even to the thought, but to the whole mode
of thinking, to the thought-matrix, the inward condition of the men.
He addresses himself to rouse in them a sense of their lack of
confidence in God, which was the cause of their blunder as to his
meaning. He reminds them of the two miracles with the loaves, and the
quantity of fragments left beyond the need. From one of these miracles
they had just come; it was not a day behind them; yet here they were
doubting already! He makes them go over the particulars of the
miracles--hardly to refresh their memories-they were tenacious enough
of the marvel, but to make their hearts dwell on them; for they had
already forgotten or had failed to see their central revelation--the
eternal fact of God's love and care and compassion. They knew the
number of the men each time, the number of the loaves each time, the
number of the baskets of fragments they had each time taken up, but
they forgot the Love that had so broken the bread that its remnants
twenty times outweighed its loaves.
Having thus questioned them like children, and listened as to the
answers of children, he turns the light of their thoughts upon
themselves, and, with an argument to the man which overleaps all the
links of its own absolute logic, demands, 'How is it that ye do not
understand?' Then they did understand, and knew that he did not speak
to them of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees
and of the Sadducees. He who trusts can understand; he whose mind is
set at ease can discover a reason.
How otherwise than by rebuking and quelling their anxiety, could those
words have made them see what then they saw? What connection was there
between 'How many baskets took ye up?' and 'How is it that ye do not
understand?' What had the miracles to do with their discovering that
when he spoke of leaven, it was not of the leaven of bread? If not of
the leaven of bread, how did the reference to those miracles of bread
make them recognize the fact?
The lesson he would have had them learn from the miracle, the natural
lesson, the only lesson worthy of the miracle, was, that God cared for
his children, and could, did, and would provide for their necessities.
This lesson they had not learned. No doubt the power of the miracle was
some proof of his mission, but the love of it proved it better, for it
made it worth proving: it was a throb of the Father's heart. The ground
of the Master's upbraiding is not that they did not understand him, but
that they did not trust God; that, after all they had seen, they yet
troubled themselves about bread. Because we easily imagine ourselves in
want, we imagine God ready to forsake us. The miracles of Jesus were
the ordinary works of his Father, wrought small and swift that we might
take them in. The lesson of them was that help is always within God's
reach when his children want it--their design, to show what God is--not
that Jesus was God, but that his Father was God--that is, was what he
was, for no other kind of God could be, or be worth believing in, no
other notion of God be worth having. The mission undertaken by the Son,
was not to show himself as having all power in heaven and earth, but to
reveal his Father, to show him to men such as he is, that men may know
him, and knowing, trust him. It were a small boon indeed that God
should forgive men, and not give himself. It would be but to give them
back themselves; and less than God just as he is will not comfort men
for the essential sorrow of their existence. Only God the gift can turn
that sorrow into essential joy: Jesus came to give them God, who is
eternal life.
Those miracles of feeding gave the same lesson to their eyes, their
hands, their mouths, that his words gave to their ears when he said,
'seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye
of doubtful mind; for your Father knoweth that ye have need of these
things;' 'Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and
all these things shall be added unto you.' So little had they learned
it yet, that they remembered the loaves but forgot the Father--as men
in their theology forget the very [Greek: _Theou logos_]. Thus
forgetting, they were troubled about provision for the day, and the
moment leaven was mentioned, thought of bread. _What else could he
mean? The connection was plain_! The Lord reminds them of the miracle,
which had they believed after its true value, they would not have been
so occupied as to miss what he meant. It had set forth to them the
truth of God's heart towards them; revealed the loving care without
which he would not be God. Had they learned this lesson, they would not
have needed the reminder; for their hearts would not have been so
filled with discomfort as to cause them mistake his word. Had they but
said with themselves that, though they had but one loaf, they had him
who makes all the loaves, they would never have made the foolish
blunder they did.
The answer then to the Lord's reproach, 'How is it that ye do not
understand?' is plainly this: their minds were so full of care about
the day's bread, that they could not think with simplicity about
anything else; the mere mention of leaven threw them floundering afresh
in the bog of their unbelief. When the Lord reminded them of what their
eyes had seen, so of what he was and what God was, and of the
foolishness of their care--the moment their fear was taught to look up,
that moment they began to see what the former words of the Lord must
have meant: their minds grew clear enough to receive and reflect in a
measure their intent.
The care of the disciples was care for the day, not for the morrow; the
word _morrow_ must stand for any and every point of the future. The
next hour, the next moment, is as much beyond our grasp and as much in
God's care, as that a hundred years away. Care for the next minute is
just as foolish as care for the morrow, or for a day in the next
thousand years--in neither can we do anything, in both God is doing
everything. Those claims only of the morrow which have to be prepared
to-day are of the duty of to-day; the moment which coincides with work
to be done, is the moment to be minded; the next is nowhere till God
has made it.
Their lack of bread seems to have come from no neglect, but from the
immediacy of the Lord's re-embarkation; at the same time had there been
a want of foresight, that was not the kind of thing the Lord cared to
reprove; it was not this and that fault he had come to set right, but
the primary evil of life without God, the root of all evils, from
hatred to discourtesy. Certain minor virtues also, prudence amongst the
rest, would thus at length be almost, if not altogether, superseded. If
a man forget a thing, God will see to that: man is not lord of his
memory or his intellect. But man is lord of his will, his action; and
is then verily to blame when, remembering a duty, he does not do it,
but puts it off, and so forgets it. If a man lay himself out to do the
immediate duty of the moment, wonderfully little forethought, I
suspect, will be found needful. That forethought only is right which
has to determine duty, and pass into action. To the foundation of
yesterday's work well done, the work of the morrow will be sure to fit.
Work done is of more consequence for the future than the foresight of
an archangel.
With the disciples as with the rich youth, it was _Things_ that
prevented the Lord from being understood. Because of possession the
young man had not a suspicion of the grandeur of the call with which
Jesus honoured him. He thought he was hardly dealt with to be offered a
patent of Heaven's nobility--he was so very rich! _Things_ filled his
heart; things blocked up his windows; things barricaded his door, so
that the very God could not enter. His soul was not empty, swept, and
garnished, but crowded with meanest idols, among which his spirit crept
about upon its knees, wasting on them the gazes that belonged to his
fellows and his Master. The disciples were a little further on than he;
they had left all and followed the Lord; but neither had they yet got
rid of _Things_. The paltry solitariness of a loaf was enough to hide
the Lord from them, to make them unable to understand him. Why, having
forgotten, could they not trust? Surely if he had told them that for
his sake they must go all day without food, they would not have minded!
But they lost sight of God, and were as if either he did not see, or
did not care for them.
In the former case it was the possession of wealth, in the latter the
not having more than a loaf, that rendered incapable of receiving the
word of the Lord: the evil principle was precisely the same. If it be
_Things_ that slay you, what matter whether things you have, or things
you have not? The youth, not trusting in God, the source of his riches,
cannot brook the word of his Son, offering him better riches, more
direct from the heart of the Father. The disciples, forgetting who is
lord of the harvests of the earth, cannot understand his word, because
filled with the fear of a day's hunger. He did not trust in God as
having given; they did not trust in God as ready to give. We are like
them when, in _any_ trouble, we do not trust him. It is hard on God,
when his children will not let him give; when they carry themselves so
that he must withhold his hand, lest he harm them. To take no care that
they acknowledge whence their help comes, would be to leave them
worshippers of idols, trusters in that which is not.
Distrust is atheism, and the barrier to all growth. Lord, we do not
understand thee, because we do not trust thy Father--whole-hearted to
us, as never yet was mother to her first-born! Full of care, as if he
had none, we think this and that escapes his notice, for this and that
he does not think! While we who are evil would die to give our children
bread to eat, we are not certain the only Good will give us anything of
what we desire! The things of thy world so crowd our hearts, that there
is no room in them for the things of thy heart, which would raise ours
above all fear, and make us merry children in our Father's house!
Surely many a whisper of the watching Spirit we let slip through
brooding over a need not yet come to us! To-morrow makes to-day's whole
head sick, its whole heart faint. When we should be still, sleeping or
dreaming, we are fretting about an hour that lies a half sun's-journey
away! Not so doest thou, Lord! thou doest the work of thy Father! Wert
thou such as we, then should we have good cause to be troubled! But
thou knowest it is difficult, _things_ pressing upon every sense, to
believe that the informing power of them is in the unseen; that out of
it they come; that, where we can descry no hand directing, a will,
nearer than any hand, is moving them from within, causing them to
fulfil his word! Help us to obey, to resist, to trust.
The care that is filling your mind at this moment, or but waiting till
you lay the book aside to leap upon you--that need which is no need, is
a demon sucking at the spring of your life.
'No; mine is a reasonable care--an unavoidable care, indeed!'
'Is it something you have to do this very moment?'
'No.'
'Then you are allowing it to usurp the place of something that is
required of you this moment!'
'There is nothing required of me at this moment.'
'Nay, but there is--the greatest thing that can be required of man.'
'Pray, what is it?'
'Trust in the living God. His will is your life.'
'He may not will I should have what I need!'
'Then you only think you need it. Is it a good thing?'
'Yes, it is a good thing.'
'Then why doubt you shall have it?'
'Because God may choose to have me go without it.'
'Why should he?'
'I cannot tell.'
'Must it not be in order to give you something instead?'
'I want nothing instead.'
'I thought I was talking to a Christian!'
'I can consent to be called nothing else.'
'Do you not, then, know that, when God denies anything a child of his
values, it is to give him something _he_ values?'
'But if I do not want it?'
'You are none the less miserable just because you do not have it.
Instead of his great possessions the young man was to have the company
of Jesus, and treasure in heaven. When God refused to deliver a certain
man from a sore evil, concerning which he three times besought him,
unaccustomed to be denied, he gave him instead his own graciousness,
consoled him in person for his pain.'
'Ah, but that was St. Paul!'
'True; what of that?'
'He was one by himself!'
'God deals with all his children after his own father-nature. No
scripture is of private interpretation even for a St. Paul. It sets
forth God's way with man. If thou art not willing that God should have
his way with thee, then, in the name of God, be miserable--till thy
misery drive thee to the arms of the Father.'
'I do trust him in spiritual matters.'
'Everything is an affair of the spirit. If God has a way, then that is
the only way. Every little thing in which you would have your own way,
has a mission for your redemption; and he will treat you as a naughty
child until you take your Father's way for yours.'
There will be this difference, however, between the rich that loves his
riches and the poor that hates his poverty--that, when they die, the
heart of the one will be still crowded with things and their pleasures,
while the heart of the other will be relieved of their lack; the one
has had his good things, the other his evil things. But the rich man
who held his _things_ lightly, nor let them nestle in his heart; who
was a channel and no cistern; who was ever and always forsaking his
money--starts, in the new world, side by side with the man who
accepted, not hated, his poverty. Each will say, 'I am free!'
For the only air of the soul, in which it can breathe and live, is the
present God and the spirits of the just: that is our heaven, our home,
our all-right place. Cleansed of greed, jealousy, vanity, pride,
possession, all the thousand forms of the evil self, we shall be God's
children on the hills and in the fields of that heaven, not one
desiring to be before another, any more than to cast that other out;
for ambition and hatred will then be seen to be one and the same
spirit.--'What thou hast, I have; what thou desirest, I will; I give to
myself ten times in giving once to thee. My want that thou mightst
have, would be rich possession.' But let me be practical; for thou art
ready to be miserable over trifles, and dost not believe God good
enough to care for thy care: I would reason with thee to help thee rid
of thy troubles, for they hide from thee the thoughts of thy God.
The things readiest to be done, those which lie not at the door but on
the very table of a man's mind, are not merely in general the most
neglected, but even by the thoughtful man, the oftenest let alone, the
oftenest postponed. The Lord of life demanding high virtue of us, can
it be that he does not care for the first principles of justice? May a
man become strong in righteousness without learning to speak the truth
to his neighbour? Shall a man climb the last flight of the stair who
has never set foot on the lowest step? Truth is one, and he who does
the truth in the small thing is of the truth; he who will do it only in
a great thing, who postpones the small thing near him to the great
thing farther from him, is not of the truth. Let me suggest some
possible parallels between ourselves and the disciples maundering over
their one loaf--with the Bread of Life at their side in the boat. We
too dull our understandings with trifles, fill the heavenly spaces with
phantoms, waste the heavenly time with hurry. To those who possess
their souls in patience come the heavenly visions. When I trouble
myself over a trifle, even a trifle confessed--the loss of some little
article, say--spurring my memory, and hunting the house, not from
immediate need, but from dislike of loss; when a book has been borrowed
of me and not returned, and I have forgotten the borrower, and fret
over the missing volume, while there are thousands on my shelves from
which the moments thus lost might gather treasure holding relation with
neither moth, nor rust, nor thief; am I not like the disciples? Am I
not a fool whenever loss troubles me more than recovery would gladden?
God would have me wise, and smile at the trifle. Is it not time I lost
a few things when I care for them so unreasonably? This losing of
things is of the mercy of God; it comes to teach us to let them go. Or
have I forgotten a thought that came to me, which seemed of the truth,
and a revealment to my heart? I wanted to keep it, to have it, to use
it by and by, and it is gone! I keep trying and trying to call it back,
feeling a poor man till that thought be recovered--to be far more lost,
perhaps, in a note-book, into which I shall never look again to find
it! I forget that it is live things God cares about--live truths, not
things set down in a book, or in a memory, or embalmed in the joy of
knowledge, but things lifting up the heart, things active in an active
will. True, my lost thought might have so worked; but had I faith in
God, the maker of thought and memory, I should know that, if the
thought was a truth, and so alone worth anything, it must come again;
for it is in God--so, like the dead, not beyond my reach: kept for me,
I shall have it again.
'These are foolish illustrations--not worth writing!'
If such things are not, then the mention of them is foolish. If they
are, then he is foolish who would treat them as if they were not. I
choose them for their smallness, and appeal especially to all who keep
house concerning the size of trouble that suffices to hide word and
face of God.
With every haunting trouble then, great or small, the loss of thousands
or the lack of a shilling, go to God, and appeal to him, the God of
your life, to deliver you, his child, from that which is unlike him,
therefore does not belong to you, but is antagonistic to your nature.
If your trouble is such that you cannot appeal to him, the more need
you should appeal to him! Where one cannot go to God, there is
something specially wrong. If you let thought for the morrow, or the
next year, or the next month, distress you; if you let the chatter of
what is called the public, peering purblind into the sanctuary of
motive, annoy you; if you seek or greatly heed the judgment of men,
capable or incapable, you set open your windows to the mosquitoes of
care, to drown with their buzzing the voice of the Eternal!
If you tell me that but for care, the needful work of the world would
be ill done--'What work,' I ask, 'can that be, which will be better
done by the greedy or anxious than by the free, fearless soul? Can care
be a better inspirer of labour than the sending of God? If the work is
not his work, then, indeed, care may well help it, for its success is
loss. But is he worthy the name of man who, for the fear of starvation,
will do better work than for the joy that his labour is not in vain in
the Lord? I know as well as you that you are not likely to get rich
that way; but neither will you block up the gate of the kingdom of
heaven against yourself.
Ambition in every shape has to do with _Things_, with outward
advantages for the satisfaction of self-worship; it is that form of
pride, foul shadow of Satan, which usurps the place of aspiration. The
sole ambition that is of God is the ambition to rise above oneself; all
other is of the devil. Yet is it nursed and cherished in many a soul
that thinks itself devout, filling it with petty cares and
disappointments, that swarm like bats in its air, and shut out the
glory of God. The love of the praise of men, the desire of fame, the
pride that takes offence, the puffing-up of knowledge, these and every
other form of Protean self-worship--we must get rid of them all. We
must be free. The man whom another enslaves may be free as God; to him
who is a slave in himself, God will not enter in; he will not sup with
him, for he cannot be his friend. He will sit by the humblest hearth
where the daily food is prepared; he will not eat in a lumber-room, let
the lumber be thrones and crowns. _Will not_, did I say? _Cannot_, I
say. Men full of things would not once partake with God, were he by
them all the day.
Nor will God force any door to enter in. He may send a tempest about
the house; the wind of his admonishment may burst doors and windows,
yea, shake the house to its foundations; but not then, not so, will he
enter. The door must be opened by the willing hand, ere the foot of
Love will cross the threshold. He watches to see the door move from
within. Every tempest is but an assault in the siege of love. The
terror of God is but the other side of his love; it is love outside the
house, that would be inside--love that knows the house is no house,
only a place, until it enter--no home, but a tent, until the Eternal
dwell there. _Things_ must be cast out to make room for their souls--
the eternal truths which in things find shape and show.
But who is sufficient to cast them out? If a man take courage and
encounter the army of bats and demon-snakes that infests the place of
the Holy, it is but to find the task too great for him; that the temple
of God will not be cleansed by him; that the very dust he raises in
sweeping is full of corruptive forces. Let such as would do what they
must yet cannot, be what they must yet cannot, remember, with hope and
courage, that he who knows all about our being, once _spake a parable
to the end that they ought always to pray, and not to faint_.