Pastor Pastorum Part 23

Their condition as we know from the Acts was replete with joy; over and over again we are reminded of the gladness which filled the souls of the early converts. The reward promised, when qualified by this phrase, might rightly be set before the Apostles, for it was no reward at all except to spiritually minded men. These two words, which are omitted by St Luke, enable us to understand-what seems a little strange-why this promise is not accepted with joy and with eager questions as to when this happy time should come; it puzzled the hearers. Any rising exultation is checked by the words, "with persecutions," and the hearers are perhaps set wondering why Christ often drops difficulties into His speech, just when He seems to be going to reveal what men particularly want to know, and why, when holding out a promise, He should dash the cup from their lips.

Parable of the unjust Steward. St Luke xv., xvi.

More and more, as our Lord's work draws near the close, do we notice that His eye, somewhat diverted from what is pa.s.sing about Him, is directed to a condition of things foreseen "being yet far off." It is to provide for this that He is ever taking thought and imparting lessons; and if no state of things had come about in which these lessons might find a field of exercise, we should be at a loss to understand what they meant or why they were there. The explanation is found in the early history of the Church of Christ. In the parables and discourses of the later ministry there is one image to which our Lord again and again recurs. It is that of men labouring in a Master's service, and most commonly in that of a Master who is away from home and may at any time come back. It may be that the Master is a great King, in which case the labourers are his ministers, and frequently there is mention made of diversity of office and of some who exercised authority over "men-servants and maid-servants." In these cases we frequently find, either in the parable itself or in the "hard saying"

which commonly closes it, an allusion to some special danger attaching to delegated power.

One such moral danger there is besetting those entrusted with any charge, and above all with a spiritual charge, which is very insidious, and more easily corrected by a lesson given in a story than by direct reproof; it is that of the severity and rigour which comes of over-scrupulosity and over-zeal. The trustee of a property will sometimes feel morally or legally bound to exact the very uttermost, and to use a hardness which he would never think of shewing in his own affairs; and by habitually constraining himself to use hardness he may become actually hard of nature himself. When we come to matters spiritual and ecclesiastical all this is true in an intensified degree.

The more exalted the priest's notion of his function and the more genuine his appreciation of the Majesty of G.o.d, the more impossible it seems to him to abate one iota of G.o.d's claims. Things sacred, he has been taught to think, differ in kind from things secular, and demand rules of management of their own. He holds it unlawful to make composition with offenders against G.o.d; he is the appointed upholder of the rights and dignities of the Almighty and he dares not bate a hair. Honestly awe-stricken at the tremendous responsibility, he flies where he can to a written Law, and, pointing to the letter, he takes refuge in the sacerdotal "non possumus" as an answer to every extenuating plea.

I believe that when our Lord delivered the parable of the unjust Steward, He had in view this particular evil which is all the more dangerous because it wears the garb of "jealousy for the Lord G.o.d."

If the Apostles, feeling that they formed the personal staff of a King endowed with all power from on high, had _not_ been lifted up and shewn some touch of imperious and exclusive spirit, they must indeed have been more or less than men. That symptoms of such a spirit had appeared and caused our Lord concern may be gathered, not only from the positive instances, such as, the forbidding one who followed not with them to cast out devils in the Lord's name; the demand to be allowed to call down fire from heaven; and the rebuking of those who brought to Christ "their babes that He might touch them;" but, even more certainly, from the repeated animadversions, in the later teaching of our Lord, on personal ambition and the over-straining of authority. Moderation, as to what may be expected from human nature, though not enforced by positive injunctions, is commended to us, after our Lord's way, by a gentle influence everywhere present, and by a current in the teaching setting steadily towards the point in view. Our Lord had been speaking to the people in a series of parables-the lost sheep, the lost piece of silver, the Prodigal Son,-all set in one key, all bearing on the "joy in the presence of the angels of G.o.d over one sinner that repenteth,"(295) and He then turned to the disciples, with, as I believe, the same thought still uppermost in His mind, and urges them as the "pastors and masters" of the future, not, by insisting on the utmost, to make reformation too hard.

The parable of the unjust Steward was addressed, we are told, to the disciples, and as the disciples had no worldly goods at all, it cannot be the main drift of the parable, as has been sometimes maintained, to inculcate Christian prudence in the use of these. I find in this parable a closing comment in a very terse form; this leads me to suspect that the key to the main purport lies therein. The verse is this, "For the sons of this world are for their own generation wiser than the sons of the light."(296) The drift of the parable is, indeed, to teach a kind of prudence, but not one in which _money_ is concerned. The administration of property is only the vehicle in which the lesson is conveyed. What I take to be inculcated here is true Christian wisdom as to the exercise of authority-spiritual authority above all. The moral that I discern is this; that the Apostles and their successors may do more good by shewing a little indulgence-by conceding something to weak human nature, not enforcing Jewish formalities, and not insisting too inflexibly upon every point which they think may touch the honour or the privileges of Christ's Church-than by adhering to the strictest regard for observances, and imposing rules for sanct.i.ty of thought and conduct with which only a chosen few would be able to comply. How many have been repelled from religion by the rigour, which Priests or Puritans fancied themselves under compulsion to employ, and how has this fretful anxiety for discipline sometimes soured the natures of those who had it in charge!

I proceed to a short examination of the parable, of which I will quote the whole.

"And he said also unto the disciples, There was a certain rich man, which had a steward; and the same was accused unto him that he was wasting his goods. And he called him, and said unto him, What is this that I hear of thee? render the account of thy stewardship; for thou canst be no longer steward. And the steward said within himself, What shall I do, seeing that my lord taketh away the stewardship from me? I have not strength to dig; to beg I am ashamed. I am resolved what to do, that, when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses. And calling to him each one of his lord's debtors, he said to the first, How much owest thou unto my lord? And he said, A hundred measures of oil. And he said unto him, Take thy bond, and sit down quickly and write fifty. Then said he to another, And how much owest thou? And he said, A hundred measures of wheat. He saith unto him, Take thy bond, and write fourscore. And his lord commended the unrighteous steward because he had done wisely: for the sons of this world are for their own generation wiser than the sons of the light. And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends by means of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when it shall fail, they may receive you into the eternal tabernacles. He that is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much: and he that is unrighteous in a very little is unrighteous also in much. If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true _riches_? And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another's, who will give you that which is your own?"(297)

I do not pretend to have made out for every particular in the story of the parable a spiritual parallel after my own view, indeed I think that interpreters sometimes look for too complete a correspondence. I can quite understand that a detail might be introduced which should give life to the story and so help to fix it in the hearers' minds, which might have no a.n.a.logue in the spiritual interpretation at all. This parable is, as we are told, addressed neither to the people nor to the scribes, but to the disciples, and, as it must have been delivered during our Lord's journeys in the north of Judaea or its neighbourhood when He was but slightly attended, it is probable that when He spoke it few beside the Apostles were by. One peculiarity, which strengthens my impression that it was uttered for the special benefit of the first hearers of it, is, that it turns on a matter which only those who were conversant with the customs of that place and time could fully understand. We know so little of the way in which estates were managed in Palestine, that the relations between the steward and his Lord are imperfectly conceived, and much of the difficulty of this parable arises from this cause: in the other parables the circ.u.mstances forming the sh.e.l.l of the story belong to all countries and all times alike. If now, as I have supposed, the primary use of this parable was for those who first listened to it; if it were specially intended to teach the Twelve and their immediate successors not to make too heavy demands on their converts; then it would matter less, if the story should not be so clear for men of later times.

What I regard as the point of the story is this, that it is just as unwise to exact the utmost that is due in moral and spiritual matters-casting off every one who falls short in conduct or differs in religious views-as it would be in worldly business to stand out always for the utmost penny of your rights. The honesty or dishonesty of the steward is not the central point on which the moral turns, it is his tact in remitting part of his claims with a long-sighted view. I do not think that we need now trouble ourselves with the question of who it is that answers to the "rich man which had a steward;" but that he does not represent Providence is clear from the eighth verse, which includes him among the "sons of this world;"

for it is his sense in commending the steward which draws forth the moral, "The sons of this world are for their own generation wiser than the sons of the light." This rich man's verdict on his steward's conduct may be taken to represent the view which practically minded men, versed in affairs and regarding matters little on their ethical side, would take of the case in hand; in fact he stands for the public opinion of his cla.s.s.

Next comes the question, What was the business position of the steward? It agrees best both with the circ.u.mstances before us and with such extraneous information as we possess, to suppose that the functionary, called here steward, managed absolutely his master's property, and that he was paid by a poundage on the net receipts, or by some similar method, so that his interest and his master's would, generally speaking, coincide. There is no allegation against him of fraud or corrupt bargaining, and indeed, his being in danger of beggary shews that he is not supposed to have made himself a purse. He is charged with having "wasted the goods," but this may mean in the way of over leniency with creditors or of unproductive outlay, not in that of personal appropriation. He was clearly not treated as though he were liable to criminal prosecution. It is of course meant to represent him as a _bad steward_, and the word here construed _unjust_ sometimes means little more than _bad_, as will be seen from Archbishop Trench's note, in the sense of being ineffective and unsatisfactory to his employers.

Dr Edersheim observes as follows:(298)

"It must be borne in mind that he is still steward, and as such has full power of disposing of his master's affairs. When, therefore, he sends for one after another of his master's debtors, and tells each to alter the sum in the bond, he does not suggest to them forgery or fraud, but, in remitting part of the debt, whether it had been incurred as rent in kind or as the price of produce purchased, he acts, although unrighteously, yet strictly within his rights." His master praised his astuteness, he had kept within the law and so long as this was done the current code of morality was satisfied. It is a point to be noted that no bargain is made with the debtors, he trusts to their grat.i.tude to receive him into their houses.

A lesson prominent in the parable and which is brought out in the application is, that as he had made friends by his leniency in administering the substance of the master so they, Christian pastors and masters, should make to themselves friends out of something which is called the "mammon of unrighteousness" (about which we shall presently enquire). These friends would, out of grat.i.tude, receive them into "the eternal tabernacles." For these friends are to be in Heaven themselves, and they must have got there-if we are to keep to the story-not only through their pastor's teaching and ministrations, but they must have partly owed their salvation to the loving and merciful treatment they had met with. An offender may be sometimes won over and completely changed for the better by feeling that he has been treated more kindly and leniently than he deserves. The parable implies that these might not have reached heaven if their guides had been more hard with them, if they had exacted every religious duty, and had been severe upon every failing. These men having reached the eternal tabernacles welcomed into them those who by lessening their burdens had been the means of their getting there themselves.

We now come to the hard question, What is meant by the words "the mammon of unrighteousness" or "unrighteous mammon"-which are identical? I think they must mean the temporal authority in regulating things outward which the earliest rulers of the Church necessarily possessed. The word translated "unrighteous" does not here imply inherent badness, but that the seeming wealth has only a value according to worldly judgment and worldly measure, without intrinsic worth in itself. This may corrupt its possessor as much as worldly riches. I give, in a note, Archbishop Trench's discussion of the Greek word.(299) Riches, _as riches_, are never called unrighteous by our Lord. I do not think, however, that wealth in its common sense can be intended by the word "mammon" here, for of "silver and gold" the Apostles would have none. But though the Apostles had not money, yet they had advantages for the use of which they must answer; they had, in authority and position, what answered to wealth; they could regulate the lives of the converts; they could lay hands on those chosen for the Ministry; they could enforce or remit certain of the Laws of Moses. This power dealt with things outward,-contributions, observances, rules of discipline and the like,-and so, if, as the authorities quoted seem to shew, the word here translated _unrighteous_ may mean false, in the sense of unreal, as paste to diamond, then this possession of theirs which gave room for the exercise of clemency-this apparel of dignity-might be so termed in contrast with inward spiritual riches, which form part of the condition of the individual man.

Of such real wealth we presently hear. Soon after this "the Apostles said unto our Lord, Increase our faith,"(300) but this faith is not to be given from without; it cannot be transferred into them as though it could be poured from one receptacle into another. They are to fit themselves for it and grow into it in the exercise of their work; when attained it would move mountains, it would be a wealth that no man could take from them, something inalienably bound up in their existence, comprising the blessing of feeling G.o.d present in their souls. Here indeed is a treasure compared to which not only silver and gold, but power and authority and the right of ordering of matters in the churches, would seem trifling and unreal like gla.s.s beside the gem.

Again what is the "little" and the "much" of verse 10? According to my view the "little" answers to the externals of religious management, and the "much" to the spiritual verity which pa.s.ses from soul to soul: those who are unfaithful in matters of administration which are comparatively little, will find that this spreading laxity will overgrow their whole nature and that they will soon become unfaithful in that which is great.(301)

If G.o.d's servants had not been faithful in administering their rule, if they had not in G.o.d's affairs used good sense and judgment, such as men employ in their own business, if they had not controlled their tempers, disregarded their personal interest and suppressed that temptation to lord it over others which goes with new-born power;-if they had not, that is, been faithful in the use of that wealth which is by comparison unreal, then, not being faithful in the discharge of this delegated trust, "that which is another's," who would give them that "clear-eyed Faith," that sense that G.o.d was abiding in their hearts, which would be essentially their very "own."

Thus we reach what I take to be the close of the parable; for the verse about serving two masters, which occurs also in the Sermon on the Mount, does not, I think, belong to this parable, but has only been _attracted_, so to say, into its place by the occurrence in both pa.s.sages of the rare word "mammon," which induced St Luke to put the two together.

I need hardly say, how far from positive I must be about the interpretation of a parable which has caused such an infinitude of comment.

Our Lord refusing to judge.

If we regard the Gospels in the light of memoirs of our Lord's actual life upon earth, it may seem strange that so few occasions are noticed in which we are shewn our Lord dealing with the business of ordinary life. Whenever we do find Him forced to take part in any secular proceeding, He is uniformly careful to avoid such decisive action as would establish an authoritative precedent in regard to things which might be left to men to manage. Some people are now disappointed at His not having furnished a wholly new and perfect scheme of human society. So far is He from doing this, that He will not even put patches upon that which He found existing.

G.o.d had supplied men with faculties to frame social inst.i.tutions for themselves, and these faculties Christ would leave free to work. If He had interposed to set the world right by absolute power, it might have been asked, Why this had not been done before? and, Whether it was owing to accident that the world had been let to go wrong?

Living among the people as our Lord did, He must commonly have conformed to Jewish usages. He could hardly have performed any act without coming into contact with their ways. If the particulars of every little occurrence in His private life had been set down, perhaps we might have realised, what we now hardly perceive, that in the Gospel we are reading of Jewish life in Galilee two thousand years ago. This absence of what is called "local colour" is partly due to the omission of small particulars.

An outline can be more general and more universal than a picture of minute elaboration; and the portraiture of our Lord would have lost much of its singular character of belonging to every age as its own, if the draughtsman's attention had been distracted from what was characteristic, in order to present every detail with equal care.

Now arises the question, How far did our Lord Himself determine which among His doings and sayings should be recorded and which not? If He had Himself left a record, every word would have been regarded as inspired, and the Christian church would have been ruled, not by an indwelling Spirit, but by a book written once for all. It could not have been ruled by both,-for men cannot walk after the letter and after Faith at the same time-and that wooden fixity which characterised Rabbinical Judaism, would have affected Christianity as well. It pleased G.o.d that it should be left to men to tell the tale, and so other men may venture to use their judgment about it. But as Christ pa.s.sed on His course, He must Himself have felt that this or that incident or discourse ought to be handed down.

How could He effect this without miracle of any kind? It seems to me that He may have selected, as it were, matters for preservation thus. When He desired an incident to be known, "Wheresoever the Gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world,"(302) He emphasizes it, by some action or declaration, as above, viz. by letting drop some vivid expression which takes hold of the minds of men. Thus the story of the denials of Peter is rendered indelible by the words, "before the c.o.c.k crow twice." The hard saying or striking expression, sometimes because it touched the quick of men's understandings, and sometimes because it puzzled them to make it out, was thought of again and again, and remained by them as part of themselves. The incident which called the saying forth, or the colloquy in which it occurred would have to be recorded to explain the saying itself: a ma.s.s of the matrix would go along with the precious metal embedded in it. What it was not thought needful to preserve, was not enriched with these pregnant sayings and has not survived.

Hence I believe that the withdrawal from us of those "many other things that Jesus did" was not without design. The consequences of this may be of service to us in many ways, but the only one of which I shall speak is this. If every detail of our Lord's acts had been set down, many more of those matters of daily life, on which judgment is now left open, would have been determined for us by the recorded example of our Lord. Many Christians would have felt bound to act as Christ had done, even in those concerns of ordinary life which might well be left to the individual; and many inexorable necessities-many rigid lines for which there was no occasion-would have traversed the field of Christian action.

That our Lord should have thus placed a limit on the particulars that should be recorded about Him falls in with the views taken in this book, viz. that He was anxious to preserve individual freedom of action, and that He looked forward with a general prescience to the course of events.

It is my opinion that our Lord foresaw, that, in time to come, men of different races and under different conditions would desire to fashion their lives after His, and that therefore He purposely freed the account of Himself that should come into their hands from all that was immaterial, and particularly from all that was exclusively Jewish in its garb; but whether this were so or not, the fact remains that no particular national inst.i.tutions or social usages are consecrated by our Lord's words or practice. Supposing that our Lord knew that posterity would regard His example as a sacred rule, and that He wished men not to be hampered in this way, but to retain free play of thought and will, it is hard to devise for Him a course more expedient for the end in view than that which he actually took.

Several instances occur in the Gospels, of appeal being made to our Lord about vexed matters belonging to the life of that time. Such appeals He always meets much in the same way. He puts the matter aside, either by positively refusing to judge or by giving the question an unexpected turn.

The cases to which I shall refer are, (1) the disputed inheritance, (2) the woman taken in adultery, (3) the paying of the didrachma, (4) the judgment on the tribute to Caesar.

1. It seems to have been during the ministry in some city, either in Judaea or Peraea, when the people were pressing on one another to get near our Lord, that one of the mult.i.tude said to Him, "Master bid my brother divide the inheritance with me."(303)

This man was influenced by some notion that he had been wronged, a notion which was very likely born of cupidity. This greed he carried always about him, it was uppermost in his mind, and when he found the crowd listening to the Preacher of righteousness, he thought that he might turn the influence of this Preacher to account for his own ends. If, by an _ex parte_ statement he could get Christ's judgment on his side, possibly his brother would do His bidding. The Jewish Law of inheritance was plain and courts of Law were accessible, but perhaps his claim had been disallowed; at any rate he thought it a cheaper plan to get the great Preacher to interfere.

Our Lord repudiates in strong terms the notion that He is a "judge or a divider." Judges and dividers through many ages had been provided for regular duty in a regular way; but Christ's coming was an act standing by itself in the History of the race. It had nothing to do with the internal concerns of this people or of that. Its influence was worldwide. He was to kindle the new fire, to set alight the spiritual pa.s.sion in mankind. He notes how, in the man who appeals to Him, every affection had been absorbed and killed by his covetousness. He turns to the mult.i.tude and inveighs against this insidious vice, and delivers to them the parable(304) of the rich man who would pull down his barns and build greater. There is no hidden meaning lying behind this parable as there is in those in which He set the Kingdom forth, it is only an instructive story for the hearers to carry away. Then, turning to the disciples, He puts the matter in a higher light. His moral is ever this, that to improve a man's well being, whether of a material or a social kind, you must begin by making the man himself as good as you can. Such material well being as is needed for society will follow on the moral and spiritual improvement of individual men. "Seek ye _first_," says He, "the Kingdom of G.o.d and His righteousness, _and all these things shall be added unto you_."(305)

Let us suppose for a moment that our Lord had listened to this man and reviewed his case and left a judgment. What would have been the result? We should have had an isolated case of the Law of inheritance, on which an irreversible decision had been p.r.o.nounced. Every code framed for Christian lands would have had to accept and embody this. Endless comments on this particular case would have been written, endless guesses at the circ.u.mstances of it would have been made, and every one who contested a distribution would have endeavoured to shew that this decision covered his claims. Moreover, whenever the Christian missionary came to a new country, instead of holding a purely spiritual position he would have brought with him a new law of inheritance as part of the new religion, and people could not have accepted his teaching without changing usages to which they clung.

(2) Next comes the case of the woman taken in adultery (see p. 370). In the criminal jurisdiction of Moses the leading thought was to "put away evil;" but men had grown less cruel, and pity for the offender and hope of his reformation were coming into play. If the Lord had given judgment either in one way or the other we should have been landed in endless perplexity. The difficult questions of the distinction between a sin and a crime, and whether it is advisable for a state to enforce morality, would have been complicated by a Divine decision in a case of which the relation would not, unless the account were fuller than the Gospel notices usually are, contain all the particulars that are material.

The two cases that remain refer to polity rather than to law.

(3) The "didrachma" were levied apparently as a tax for the Temple service, enforced by custom, if not by positive law. Those who collected it ask Peter if our Lord does not pay this annual sum, and Peter at once declares that He does. But our Lord will not leave the matter so. The money shall be paid, because to refuse the payment would waken ill feeling and give an impression altogether false; but our Lord will not sanction such a payment with His authority, without protest and explanation. It might have been made the ground of supporting many kinds of religious impost if He had. He puts the question in such a light that His practice can never be quoted in support of any such demand.

(4) Those who came asking whether it was lawful to pay tribute to Caesar, like those who brought the woman taken in adultery, had a hostile intent.

They asked with a view only to entangle, not with a desire to learn. Our Lord always baffles those who address Him in this spirit. In dealing with the question of the tribute, He avoids each horn of the dilemma and teaches a grand lesson to the people who heard. For they were to render to G.o.d "the things that were G.o.d's," that is to say, not a man's money, but the whole man himself, for he is made in G.o.d's image and carries the likeness of it in his personality, just as the coin carries on its face the name and the impress of Caesar. Thus, in these words, the whole man is claimed as G.o.d's own by Christ.

If our Lord had either enforced or forbidden these two payments, His authority, appealed to on this side or that, would have further embittered questions which are bitter enough of themselves. Men have often pored over Scripture to extract an authority for what they wanted to do, and the case of the tribute money, notwithstanding our Lord's answer, has been pressed into the service of the upholders of imperial power.

Dr Bryce speaking of the Mediaeval Empire says:-

"From the New Testament the authority and eternity of Rome herself was established. Every pa.s.sage was seized on where submission to the powers that be is enjoined, every instance cited where obedience had actually been rendered to imperial officials, a special emphasis being laid on the sanction which Christ Himself had given to Roman dominion by pacifying the world through Augustus, by being born at the time of the taxing, by paying tribute to Caesar, by saying to Pilate, 'Thou couldest have no power at all against Me except it were given thee from above.' "