Matthew 8:18-22

Chapter 32

Prayer

Almighty God, we come to thee in the name of Jesus Christ, our Saviour and our Priest, our only answer to thy law. We live in thy remembrance of us: when thou dost forget us, we shall die in the darkness of thy frown. Who can stand the neglect of God? Thou openest thine hand and satisfiest the desire of every living thing. That thou givest them, they gather; thou openest thine hand, they are filled with good thou turnest away thine eyes and they die in the infinite darkness. Who can stand against the Lord, or fight against his almightiness and prevail? Thy chariots are as the whirlwind and thy horses are swifter than eagles, and our hand is lifted up in weakness only to fall down again in utter failure and distress. Truly we live because thy compassions fail not; thy pity is the explanation of the continuance of our days; because thine heart is moved towards us with all the tenderness of yearning love, therefore is our life not yet cut off we are the living, the living to praise thee, we stand as memorials of thy goodness; our very breathing should be a song of thy care and love, yea our whole life should be a sacrifice unto thee because of thy patience and long-suffering.

Thou hast written thy book for our guidance: thou hast not left us without witness and memorial in the wilderness; thou hast declared thy counsel concerning us in many simple and tender words. Give us the seeing eye, the hearing ear, the understanding heart, and may thy will, revealed in plain letters, be the man of our counsel and the guide of our life. May we have no will of our own, may we live in thy purpose and bow loyally before thy Kingship. All we like sheep had gone astray; we had turned every one to his own way. Now by the grace of God manifested in Jesus Christ, we have returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls. We enter into thine house with thanksgiving, with loud sweet songs of the very heart, fired with all our love, and lifted high above the winds because of the passion of our thankfulness. Hear thou in Heaven thy dwelling-place, our adoring psalm and our filial hymn, and send down from the invisible sanctuary blessings that shall illuminate and nourish and perfect our souls.

Thou knowest us altogether; we have nothing that we can hide from God. Thou knowest the place of our roots, and every fibre of them is under thy searching eye. Thou knowest where we were born and under what circumstances of joy or sorrow. Thou hast looked upon us ever since. Thy good hand has beset us behind and before, and has been laid upon us, and because of thy blessing our life is now found in a holy place. Thou knowest the rods that have smitten us; thou knowest the thorns that have pierced and torn us in our long journeyings; thou knowest what difficult places have been found in our course, how sometimes there have been no friends and many enemies, much sand and stone, and no water. Thou understandeth us altogether, in our sorrows and in our delights, in our adversities and prosperities, and thou dost judge us by thy pity and love as well as by the severity of thy righteousness. According to our want and pain do thou now come to us every one: omit none from thy blessing. Where the heart is burdened do thou lift the oppressed weight; where the eyes are darkened with a great darkness do thou let fall upon them some gentle light from Heaven; where there is great gladness or unusual joy of heart, where the goblet is full of the wine of joy, do thou grant unto such to remember that all true and perfect gifts come down from Heaven, from the Father of lights.

Speak to those who are nearly done; show them that they have but a few pages to write and the life-letter will be complete. Speak comfortably to those who are in the midst of their records, and do thou show them that what is now being written will one day be read by thyself. Come near to those who are beginning their way, and give them courage, Christian hopefulness, saintly resolution, and enable them to work out their life's work with all patience and love and Christian fidelity. The Lord look upon those who are not with us today, who are in the sick-chamber, or in some place of penitential hiding, or on the great sea, or in the far-off land, in the prison, or in the field of war. The Lord look upon all whom we ought to include in our tenderest prayers, and send blessings from the sanctuary that shall be as the bread of life.

We put ourselves day by day into thine hands; send what thou wilt send to us; let the light fall upon us from every point of the sky if thou wilt, or let the great darkness make our way fearful. Whether it be light or whether it be dark, take not thy Holy Spirit from us; let there be light within, and then there shall be the calm of Heaven.

The Lord help every good man to do his work with both hands, diligently, with a heart steadfast in all righteousness, and with an expectation that cannot be cut off in despair. The Lord turn upside down the counsel of the wicked, and bring to naught the deliberations of those whose heart is moved by malice. The Lord forgive our enemies, pity our littlenesses; come with infinite pardonings to our heavy and ever-darkening guilt, and ever lift above the cloud of our fear the cross of the great Son of God. Amen.

Mat 8:18-22

18. Now when Jesus saw great multitudes about him, he gave commandment to depart unto the other side.

19. And a certain scribe came, and said unto him, Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest.

20. And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests (literally shelter), but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.

21. And another of his apostles said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.

22. But Jesus said unto him, Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.

The Conditions of Discipleship

"He gave commandment." There was always in him some sign of lordship. He did not receive instructions, he gave them; though in one moment more his mouth was to be opened in a confession of the fact that he had not where to lay his head, yet he gave commandment. This kind of writing does not come of the uninspired human fancy, nor hold together with sufficient artistic cohesion, to be the child of the mere imagination. Yet there is a rugged and vital unity about it, which is the seal of truth. A peasant and the son of a peasant and without any signs of power about him such as are reckoned of consequence by earthly judges, he yet "gave commandment." Whence this imperative tone? Whence this subtle claim to dominion? Whence this quiet assumption of supreme power? When he concluded his discourse the people were astonished at his doctrine, for he taught them as one having authority, not as one being in authority, not as one who had on an official cloak and must be respected for his clothes' sake, but as one having authority, breathing it, holding it, originating it, directing it; and this same authoritative speaker of doctrine, gave commandment, issued a royal precept, told the people about him what to do. Truly the parts do hold together, not with any mechanical contrivance, but because they belong to one another by the law of a reconciliation which does not come within the technical sphere of the mere fancy. His look was law; his tone admitted of no qualifications; his word was prompt, complete, authoritative, final. He never recalled a sentence to amend it; he never requested permission to add to his own doctrine an explanatory or emendatory note. Show me a single instance in which he ever corrected himself. Our pages are blotted all over with erasures and disfigured by a thousand interlineations, but his writing is straight on, no sentence interfering with any other sentence, any more than any star clashes with any fellow planet in all the sea of the heaven.

"When he saw great multitudes about him he gave commandment to depart." We should have thought it would have been an excellent reason for staying where he was. What more could he need than great multitudes? He came to teach, to preach, to heal, to bless, and to save, and behold here are great multitudes, and yet he gives their presence as a reason for leaving them. Why did this Son of man leave the great thronging, sweltering multitudes? Because the true spirit had left them. They were a mob: it was a great congeries of curious gazers, of persons who wanted to be satisfied with mighty works and wondrous signs. They were swollen with their own wonder, moved by the bad inspiration of their own love of amazement. To such people Jesus Christ never has anything to say. To the miracle-loving Herods he answers never a word; to the merely curious inquirers regarding doctrine or history he preserves a stony silence. It is not the crowd as a crowd he wants or seeks, it is the needy heart, the conscious poverty, the piercing, pleading pain. Do not suppose that we can attract him by anything of a merely multitudinous or formal or ceremonial character. To this man will I look which man? The crowned one, whose shoulders are empurpled, whose feet are plunged in soft velvet and down? To this man will I look. I long for the answer to that statement. "Which man?" my heart inly cries. To the man that is of a broken and a contrite heart and who trembleth at my word. Fill your churches with multitudes and with eloquence and with incense and with colour, till the eye is weighted by its oppressiveness, but if the waiting, panting, broken heart be not there, Christ is miles away, yea, on the other side of the horizon, with his back to us. The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. He comes to our poverty, weakness, and self-renunciation, not to our wealth and strength and self-assertion.

We have now to figure him as about to move to the other side, and while he is in the process of going, a certain scribe came and said unto him, "Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest." This man represents the ardent and hopeful side of human nature. He sees no difficulties, his heart is swollen with a new and glad impulse, and he says he will follow that impulse, whatever the event may be. Could consecration be completer? Could any promise be less reserved? The Son of man will leap towards this man as towards a friend: he will fall upon his neck and cry tears of joy upon his shoulders. What was his reply? Cold as ice. The hot heart came to him, and he dropped into it a great load of polar ice. The reply in letters was this: "Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head." What became of the scribe? The text does not inform us.

Jesus Christ treated the ardent temperament by always presenting the dark side of the case. It is thus he balances us. To the low in heart, the fearful and timorous in spirit, he speaks a promise, and so lifts up the mind on the depressed side until a happy equipoise is established. To the bold, enthusiastic, romantic disciple, who is going to walk upon the wind, he says, "You are going to a land where you will not have a pillow for your head." It is thus that men see different sides of the Christian faith: it is thus that men are measured by different standards in the Christian sanctuary. It is thus that perhaps no two Christian experiences exactly coincide. Christ is to us what we are to him. He fills the great mountain with light, and he fills the little daisy, too, with light, and never a beam too much to bear down its weak little neck. He that gathers much in this field has nothing over; he who gathers little has no lack. How foolish, then, and utterly vain is any attempt to reconcile men's thinkings in mere letters and words. You cannot write Christian experience once for all. It varies, it carries a thousand different colours and tints and hues and mixtures of colour, and utters itself in innumerable tones, complete, strong, tender, weak, whining, valiant, glad as the utterance of a trumpet, and sad as the moaning of a heart that is stabbed. Do not, therefore, be looking out for uniform standards and unanimous opinions and coincident experiences. Christianity will answer you so as to bring up the side of your character that needs elevation.

This is beautifully illustrated in the case of the next man. Another of the disciples said unto him, Lord, I will go with thee to the other side, but suffer me first to go and bury my father." How filial, how tender a plea to which the son of God can have but one reply. What says he? He speaks in a most soldierly tone. He hardens himself into most inexorable discipline, and says, "Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead." A hard tone, without one pulse of human feeling in it: how unloving, how unsympathetic, how chilling, how calculated to alienate human affection! This answer was to a particular person of a particular temperament, and was meant to redeem that man from a false conception of Christian doctrine and Christian duty. It does not apply to all cases; it had a distinct and limited application, and was the only message fitted for the kind of man to whom it was delivered. He could not hand on the message indiscriminately to others; it was a gospel spoken to his own heart; it was bread intended for the satisfaction of his own hunger.

This man, however, has many representatives in all ages. Let us understand him a little. He is the kind of man who always has some arrangement to make. He is the sort of person who can never do the next thing that is to be done without precedingly doing something on one side. There are persons who, when we call them, say, "Coming presently." A broken obedience, a reluctant reply, a mixed answer! Who can tell how far that "presently" stretches over their life? "Presently" is a word that cannot be described by the dictionary, and that cannot be measured on the face of the clock. Are you not acquainted with some friends who are always quite willing to serve you, but first must go down the road or up the hill, to the post-office, or upstairs, and then...? Such arrangements may be permitted as between man and man, such little slaveries to the matter of convenience may be permitted on the social scale, but when it becomes a question of following Christ, we are called upon for absolute self-surrender. That is the very essence of Christianity. There is nothing double in Christian consecration; the true Christian slave has one eye, one hand, one end, one heart, one prayer, one desire. Have we attained this? Not a soul amongst us has come within a million miles of its attainment; but if we desire it, hope for it, and struggle towards it, God will take a broken column as if it were a pillar completed to a glittering point.

The answer of Jesus Christ to all temporising and arrangement-making persons is an answer of unreserved and absolute surrender. Do you suppose that we have given Christ everything? I have not If you have, I have nothing to say to you. I am still burying my father, I am still completing my bargains, I am still adding to my estate, I am still studying the ways and tricks of a perverse world, I am still hushing my breath, so as not to awaken the sleeper. I am going after Christ, but I must first quaff this cup, inhale this fragrance, and breathe in this cloud. I am coming presently. This is what you said to me when I asked you to join the Church, to surrender to Christ, to become an out and-out Christian. You did not say to me, "No!" you said, "Thank you, I will come presently."

These answers of Jesus Christ are exaggerations in the sense of having another side to them which would have shown their true meaning. There are some persons who do not understand the law of exaggeration: to them an exaggeration is a lie; they do not know that we have to paint very broadly, to be seen afar. There are those who do not understand that we have to infuse into some utterances an emphasis beyond the immediate literal requirement of the case in order that the detonation may be heard. They do not comprehend Jesus Christ when he utters those sublime exaggerations, yet nothing but such exaggerations would have met the cases in question. Now let us qualify them.

Peter once said to Jesus, "We have left all and followed thee." Jesus Christ replied, "No man hath left father or mother, sister or brother, houses or lands, for my sake and the gospel's, but shall receive a hundredfold in this present life and in the world to come life everlasting." That was not the answer which he made to the scribe: to him he set forth the severe by-and-by he would enter into the gracious. His gospel does not tempt us; the kingdom of heaven is not a bribe, it is first a cross, a discipline, a pain, an agony, and afterwards a sweet quiet heaven. In the case of Peter the great act had been done, in the case of the scribe it was about to be done. The scribe would have been misled if the great promise had been held out to him; he therefore had revealed to him only the darker aspect of this great adventure.

Jesus Christ never lets any man really go after him and be disappointed with the result. He keeps his grace for daily revelation according to the daily need. He giveth more grace he giveth grace upon grace. He will not tempt you as with a bribe, but he will feed you with an eternal satisfaction. I do not ask you therefore to come into the Christian sanctuary that you may get rid of your distresses, and your debts and burdens, your pains of body and your clouds of mind, but I call you and tell you that it is a cross you have to take up. That was the message of Jesus Christ to another of his disciples "Follow me, quench every other love, fix your undivided vision upon myself, beware of wandering desires and divided affections and broken resolutions and imperfect vows. If any man will follow me, let him take up his cross." A great teacher, truly, and not less gracious than severe.

From these two instances two false inferences might be drawn. First, that Jesus Christ did not care to make disciples. He had the chance of making two disciples here in the superior sense (for probably they were both disciples in the merely literal interpretation of the word), and yet he discouraged both the men. When did he ever appear anxious to increase his numbers? When was it a matter of personal consequence to him to make two into four and four into twenty, and when did he send forth a statistician to schedule the numbers of his flock? Truly this kingdom is not a new miracle, mystery, or arithmetical surprise or success. Arithmetic has nothing to do with it. Christ works slowly but he works continuously, and the end shall come and he will deliver up the kingdom to God his Father, and God shall be all in all, for he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death, then in all the universe there shall be nothing but radiant, joyous anthem-singing, life and immortality. He did not like men to go away from him, but still if they wished to go, he did not hinder them. Jesus said to his disciples when many turned away and walked no more with him, "Will ye also go away?" He was accustomed to loneliness, he had trodden the winepress alone, and of the people there were none with him. We do not flatter or patronise Christ by the multitudinousness of our number: he asks not for many only, but for much for the very life and loyalty of the heart.

A second false inference that might be drawn from these answers is, that Jesus Christ had nothing to offer to his disciples. He told one man that he would have no pillow for his head, and he told another simply to follow him and let the dead bury the dead. Again and again are we taught that this kingdom of heaven is not a bribe; we are not to go after it for the sake of the loaves and fishes. Jesus Christ never promised a downy pillow: he has many a time darkly hinted at a crown of thorns. Jesus Christ never promised honours and delights and satisfactions of an earthly kind: he always said, "The cross is heavy, and it must be laid upon the weakest shoulder." O thou severe One, what is the meaning of all this? The meaning is in a sentence. He seeks for truth in us which shall correspond to the truth that is in him. My profession must not be a personal luxury it must be truth to truth, reality to reality, Christ and his disciples one, as he and his Father are one.

Tell the mocker that Jesus Christ does not bribe his disciples: tell the taunting fool that in this warfare every man is to be a soldier, trained by the severest discipline, whose delinquencies are to be punished with the highest penalties, but tell them also that are without and who mock and taunt and wonder, that there is no such bread as that which comes down from heaven.