Pastor Pastorum Part 18

We see that St John attributed this great concourse of people to its being the time of the Pa.s.sover. Now the road from Damascus to Jerusalem went past the north end of the Lake, and it has been supposed that the great caravan of Syrian Jews was pa.s.sing on its way to the feast, and that to this the "great company" belonged. St Matthew, St Mark and St Luke, however, all imply that the mult.i.tude came from the neighbouring cities, and St John says that they "_followed_ Him (_i.e._ from the villages of Gennesaret) because they beheld the Signs;" and St Mark tells us that the people "saw them going and many knew them." The crowd therefore could not have been strangers from Damascus. St John, however, would not have here mentioned the Pa.s.sover, if there had not been some connexion between it and the presence of the crowd. The connexion, I believe to have been this.

He means to account for the crowd by saying, "It was feast time, no work was being done, and large bodies of men were therefore at leisure to follow." Some think that the Evangelist may have seen in this miraculous meal a subst.i.tute for the Paschal feast, which our Lord and his followers can hardly have kept according to due form.

In this miracle, I am particularly concerned.(214) In speaking of it in an earlier Chapter I observed that our Lord's rule of abstaining from using His miraculous power to provide for the physical wants of His followers or Himself, holds in this case, inasmuch as our Lord's party had enough for themselves; this proceeds on the supposition that the loaves and fishes belonged to the Apostles, although if they had had the money, and bought what would just have sufficed for themselves, the law would have held good.

It may be asked, "Had the Apostles the loaves with them or did they buy them of the lad?"

As a matter of explanation, I think it more consistent with the narrative of the other Evangelists to suppose that the lad mentioned by Andrew(215) was carrying provisions belonging to the party, than that he had brought them for sale and that the disciples bought them.

St Matthew, St Mark and St Luke speak as though the loaves and fishes belonged to the Apostolic company, while St John says "There is _a lad here_ who has &c." The supposition that the lad was employed to carry the provisions does not, it is said, agree with the received notions of the poverty of the Apostles. We find, however, that they had the use of various boats, and St Mark speaks of "hired servants" in Zebedee's boat.(216) I suppose that one of these servants, not being wanted while the boat was ash.o.r.e, was employed to carry the sack of provisions for the party. It supports my view that the two common articles of diet should _both_ be brought by the same lad, in just such quant.i.ty as to suffice for our Lord's company. The words "How many loaves have ye? Go and see" shew, that our Lord supposed them to have brought a supply;(217) moreover the quant.i.ty of provisions was nearly the same and they were of the same kind, as those which the Twelve had with them on the subsequent occasion of the feeding of the four thousand.(218) It is unlike the East, as we now know it, that there should have been no bargaining, and that _one_ lad should have seen the opportunity of selling his commodities and followed from one of the villages, and that no other should have done so.

Whether the provisions belonged to the disciples or were(219) purchased at the time, the wants of our Lord's own party, as I have just said, could have been supplied without miraculous intervention; and the rule, answering to the refusal to turn Stones into Loaves, would hold. These rules, or Laws as I have called them, treated of in Chapter V. are not formally imposed by our Lord on Himself, or alluded to in express terms.

They are _uniformities observed_ in his conduct, which harmonise with the course taken in the Temptations. We need not suppose that He said to Himself "I will always adhere to this rule or that," but He observed the rule because to follow it best forwarded in each case the end in view. Our Lord's company are never in straits for food, but our Lord once implies that if they had been so His power might always be trusted as a means of supply.(220) He would not have adhered to His practice narrowly, when it would have weakened the lesson of Trust. Philip may have been charged with the care of provisioning the party, just as Judas Iscariot carried the purse; this conjecture would account for our Lord turning to him with the question, "Whence are we to buy bread?"(221)

What our Lord said on this occasion to the mult.i.tude we do not know; we are told only that "He began to teach them many things,"(222) and in listening they lost all count of time, so that when our Lord had finished, it was too late for them to go and buy bread. After the meal He perceived that they "were about to come and take him by force to make him king."(223) The people must have just heard of the execution of John; they may have been exasperated against Herod and thought they had found in our Lord one who would treat the Romans like Sennacherib's host. We hear of no outbreak of enthusiasm, no clamorous demonstration of fervour; they were perhaps too much possessed by reverential awe for that, at any rate their orderliness is very remarkable.

No malice on the part of the scribes could have been so fatal to what our Lord had in view, as this giving of a political turn to the movement which He was setting afoot. The erroneous impression would spread fast and become ineradicable, so that the work of saving the world might have to be begun over again in another way. He hurried the disciples on board that they might not catch the contagion of this idea.

"And straightway he constrained his disciples to enter into the boat, and to go before him unto the other side to Bethsaida, while he himself sendeth the mult.i.tude away. And after he had taken leave of them, he departed into the mountain to pray."(224)

Solitary prayer on our Lord's part commonly betokens some important step in his course of proceeding. Here it precedes His leaving Galilee; possibly this political manifestation made it advisable; at any rate, very shortly after this, He goes to the borders of Tyre and Sidon and sees little more of Galilee during his life.

On the pa.s.sage of the Apostles back to the western sh.o.r.e, occurred the miracle of the Lord walking on the sea.

"And when even was come, the boat was in the midst of the sea, and he alone on the land. And seeing them distressed in rowing, for the wind was contrary unto them, about the fourth watch of the night he cometh unto them, walking on the sea; and he would have pa.s.sed by them: but they, when they saw him walking on the sea, supposed that it was an apparition, and cried out: for they all saw him, and were troubled. But he straightway spake with them, and saith unto them, Be of good cheer: it is I; be not afraid. And he went up unto them into the boat; and the wind ceased: and they were sore amazed in themselves; for they understood not concerning the loaves, but their heart was hardened."(225)

This miracle is one mainly of instruction, it is a step in that ascending course, whereby the Apostles were led to the conception of the crowning truth that Christ was "ever with them unto the end of the world." The experience of the journey taught that they "lacked nothing" when on duty for Christ; they were now to obtain a.s.surance that in moments of danger He was at hand to protect. It is worth notice that they were doing their utmost for themselves, "toiling in rowing," when Christ comes to their help. In like manner the miraculous draught of fishes was not given to men who had lightly accepted disappointment, but to those who had toiled all night.(226) I know of no Gospel instance of Divine a.s.sistance granted to men sitting with folded hands, and leaving Providence to do all. From this miracle they would learn a truth which was much more fully taught after the Resurrection, viz. that their Master was ever by them, and might a.s.sume a body not subject to the forces affecting matter, and become apparent at any time.

These lessons would be graven on the Apostles' memory, and would come upon them from time to time in after life. They would naturally look back to the days when they went forth on their first mission, full of hope and not without exultation; and when they recalled how all had gone well with them, how the devils had been subject to them and how all their needs had been provided for as it were by chance, it would come home to them that matters may be Divinely guided without the finger of G.o.d being suffered to appear. Many a time they may have cheered one another saying "Christ provided for us when we went forth with only our staves in our hands. He will not desert us now;" and many a time also in sore days of distress, the Apostles may have reminded one another that they were doing their very utmost-not sitting still and praying for help when the sea ran high-at the time when their Master appeared and said:

"Be of good cheer: it is I; be not afraid."(227)

CHAPTER X. TO THOSE WHO HAVE, IS GIVEN.

The Teaching by Parables.

We have, on our way to this point, while tracing the course of Christ's Schooling of the Apostles every now and then caught sight of the working of the principle, "to whomsoever hath, shall be given."

This apopthegm is recorded to have been three times spoken; first, as has been just mentioned, when our Lord gave to His disciples His reasons for teaching in parables, and again as the moral at the end of the parables of the talents and of the pounds. We draw from it that our Lord was about to exercise selection and deal with different hearers in different ways. Up to this time He had put His lessons into terse sayings, like pearls strung on a string; a hearer could easily carry a single one away, he had only to listen and learn. For a mult.i.tude who came and went like the shifting atoms of a cloud, this was the most that could be done. But among those who now listened to the parables at Capernaum were apostles, disciples, and listeners variously disposed, and they received a lesson from which different hearers drew profit in very different degrees.

The time now began to draw in sight when the most momentous duties that ever fell to men, would be laid on the Twelve, and to them our Lord now turned with an interest which daily grew more intent. The Apostles were not mere recipients as the crowd had been. They were not mere pa.s.sive hearers receiving and storing wise sayings. What they heard was meant to set their minds at work, and the good they got from it depended on themselves.

In the crowd on the Lake sh.o.r.e which stood listening to our Lord as He spoke from the boat, there were characters of all sorts disposed towards Jesus in every variety of way. There were many followers and some foes, while perhaps nearly half were neither the one nor the other, but merely the loiterers who throng every eastern town: these would go where others went, glad of anything which broke the sameness of the day. They had come to listen-after their way of listening, taking no heed how they heard-many a time before, and no good had come of it, though the teaching was so plain that he who ran might read; with all their opportunities they had got nothing, and so from them was taken "what they seemed to have," that is to say, these very opportunities themselves. They now heard only what appeared to be the story of an every-day event, and they wondered what good it could do to them. Thus, this mode of teaching sorted out its auditory by a self-acting mechanism. It threw off the light, while it attracted earnest and enquiring minds who, never doubting of a deep meaning in all our Lord said, asked themselves and one another what this meaning could be.

The aphorism "that to him who had, more was given" was, as applied to material wealth, in some form or other probably familiar to the shrewd men of the time, just as the saying, that "nothing succeeds like success" is among ourselves now. But what was startling was, that this principle should be adopted by Christ and laid down as one of those upon which G.o.d's government is carried on. For this inequality in human conditions, and the tendency to rise faster the higher one gets and to sink faster the lower one falls, was a thing that was commonly regarded as a defect in the world's arrangement, due to some inherent perversity in matter or in man.

People's minds, in those days, were possessed by the notion that G.o.d must have intended to make things fair and equal for all, but that inequality had slipt into the world in the making, when G.o.d's eye was off it for a moment: soon, however, the Messiah would come and set this right among other things. Hence it startled our Lord's hearers to find this defect, as they deemed it, in the order of the world brought forward by Him, and not only not explained away as they would have expected, but set forth as among the Laws according to which the Spiritual Order of the world was carried on. From the prominence given to this statement in the narrative of the three earlier gospels we see what a deep impression it made.

Our Lord applies this aphorism, solely, to the advantages and opportunities which men should have for learning the ways of G.o.d. But the a.n.a.logy between this principle and some observed principles of economic and organic science is very striking and interesting, to say no more; while in education the working of this rule is abundantly obvious in every school. That the world is ordered on a basis not of equality but of inequality, is a patent fact; and lately it has been shewn that it is of inequality that all progress comes. One little superiority, due to what seems an accidental variation, gives an advantage for gaining a greater superiority and so on. Uniformity, indeed, implies stagnation. If all men had just the same powers and minds and characters, would not such a world stagnate from its insupportable dulness and the want of stimulus for the faculties of men? If, at every step, it grew harder to get farther on, then no one could go very far. A bullet fired into a tree, which hardens from the bark to the core, is brought to a standstill very soon. Such a state of things would preclude exalted eminence; mediocrity would reign supreme and the onward march of mankind would be checked.

Our Lord, as a fact, a.s.serts not only that inequalities widen, but also that they are purposely so widened. As the explorer advances, he is brought into more open ground and is better recompensed for his toil.

Spiritual progress was to be brought about after the plan upon which all other human progress proceeds. It was to originate in individuals, who should push forward, seize upon posts in the foreground and hold them till the rest came up: it is not the way of Humanity to advance in line along the whole front. All progress comes of individual excellence and the world is so ordered as to favour the growth of one beginning to out-top the rest. It is an aid in this direction, that in education advance becomes commonly easier, and always more pleasurable as we proceed. Education moreover sorts out men. A hundred boys, near of an age, thrown together in a school seem at first nearly on a par; but an aristocracy develops itself wonderfully soon, both in the school and out of doors, and every half year the distinctions between boy and boy grow wider and become more strongly marked. However conscientiously the teachers may distribute their pains, the abler boy gets more attention, because he asks more intelligent questions and, seeing his interest in his work, the teacher's thoughts in spare moments revert to him. The same holds of spiritual life, for when a man attains a sense of communion with G.o.d he becomes conscious of an inward joy, which illuminates his life, and this helps him on. Nothing is more striking in the Acts than the "exceeding great joy" which with the Apostles was the habitual state.

A very material point as to the bearing of this principle is brought out in the two parables in which it occurs. What is spoken of as that which a man _hath_, is not what has been given him or what he has inherited, but only what he has acquired for himself. It is not so much the possession of the pounds or the talents which is the ground of reward, as the a.s.siduity, energy and intelligence, by which they have been earned.

I will consider the pair of parables(228) just mentioned, before the discourse in which the saying first occurs, although they stand later in the history, because they shew most clearly what Christ's meaning was. In both parables we remark the following points.

(1) The rewards are proportioned, not to the amount of the original arbitrary gifts, which, I suppose, stand for natural advantages, but to what has been obtained by turning these gifts to account.

(2) What the servants are recompensed for is administrative efficiency.

This shews that our Lord had in view some active service in G.o.d's cause and not internal self-improvement alone.

(3) The rewards are not such that the servants can use them for their own gratification, they are not given money for their own use, but they are promoted to wider governments. He who has made five talents is given the rule of a larger province. And the servants are not so promoted merely for their own sake, the general welfare of the ruler's domain is the paramount object, and in order to promote this those who have proved themselves the ablest are given the amplest charge.

In the parable of the talents, the "man going into a far country" entrusts to his servants sums varying in amount, "to each according to his several abilities." With these they are to carry on business on his behalf during his absence. One of them, he who was of the lowest capacity, received only one talent-with him I am not now concerned; but the rest double the capital which had been put into their hands and all of these, those who have made two talents as well as those who have made five receive the same reward. To each is said "Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will set thee over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." Here the rewards are not in proportion to the original gifts, which were as five and two, but are in proportion to the rate of profit, which was in both cases the same. All have shewn the same diligence and all are recompensed alike.

The same principle appears in the parable of the pounds. The like sum, one pound, is entrusted to each servant; and the difference in the returns, one making ten pounds and the other five, is wholly due to the difference of judgment or diligence in using the money. The reward is exactly proportional to the amount which each servant has earned.

The greater charge is given to him who had made ten pounds-not purely as a _reward_, but because he has shewn himself twice as well adapted to govern the ten cities as the servant who had only made five pounds.

A few words in the parable of the pounds shew how well our Lord knew what the prevalent notion about equality was. The notion I mean that G.o.d must have intended men to share all advantages alike. When the pound is taken from him who has left it unused and given to him who has turned his own pound into ten, the bystanders in the parable, who, we may suppose, represent common current opinion, are surprised, not at the pound being taken away, but at its being so bestowed as to augment the inequality.

They would have looked to see it go to him who had made five pounds, so as to bring the conditions of the two servants more nearly to a par. They say, "Lord, he hath ten pounds," implying "Why give more to him who has so much already?" Men are jealous of G.o.d's prodigality in reward, although such reward may not diminish what they obtain themselves. The master in this parable makes no reply to the bystanders, and our Lord concludes the parable with the moral,

"I say unto you, that unto every one that hath shall be given; but from him that hath not, even that which he hath shall be taken away from him."(229)

The pounds in this parable, be it observed, are not bestowed on the servants as absolute gifts, they represent money held on trust, and this is the case not only with the original pound, but with the profit as well.

The Lord (St Luke xix. 23) evidently regards all the produce as his own.

The ten pounds have never been given over to the servant who gained them, so as to be absolutely his. Neither is the forfeited pound bestowed on him as a free gift, it is only an addition to the ten pounds of profit, which formed a fresh amount of capital in the hands of the most diligent of the servants to be used in his new employ. All this agrees with the view which I have taken, that the question in the parable is not one merely of reward and amercement but of putting the greatest opportunities into the best hands. In like manner our Lord looks to a practical end and adopts practical means. The paramount object that He has in view is the effective carrying forward of G.o.d's work; and those who shall prove most efficient are to receive as their reward,-not anything they can sit down to and enjoy,-but a wider sphere of activity, an extended range of opportunities, and of duties answering thereunto.

This remark of the bystanders, so casual in its form and so weighty in its substance, exemplifies our Lord's way of dealing with erroneous ideas. A hint is dropped, attention is called to what many had taken for granted, and there the matter is left. It might be many days before the world would find the seed thus cast upon the waters, but found, some day or other, it would be. When there is question of practical evil our Lord is plain and positive enough. The Pharisees are upbraided sharply, for making the Law of no effect by their traditions, and the Sadducees are told that in denying the resurrection "they do greatly err." But as regards the enigmas of life He only drops hints, which men may take or not.

I now come to the discourse, which I had put aside for a moment that the parables might be discussed.

As soon as our Lord had ended the parable of the Sower