Matthew 13:58

Chapter 5

Christ's Failure As a Preacher

Sympathy Necessary in Hearing The Perils of Literalism Christ Declined Applause Spirituality the Supreme Text.

Text: "Because of their unbelief." Mat 13:58

One would have thought that no difficulties would have stood in the way of such a preacher as Jesus Christ. The Man who could work miracles could surely clear all obstacles out of his path. So it would seem to our ignorance; but so it was not in reality. Jesus Christ complained of difficulties, and confessed his inability to remove them. Those difficulties assume a peculiar significance when we remember that Jesus Christ seemed to have all the elements that both deserve and command success. His miracles were confessed and admired on every hand. He was beyond all question the most popular speaker of his day, characterised by marvellous graciousness and completeness and wisdom of address; so much so that the most learned wondered and the most illiterate understood, and those who were most ignorant felt the coming upon them of a new and very welcome light. Still, this Man, worker of miracles and speaker of beautiful speeches, failed, in a sense which I shall presently explain, in his ministry. He did not numerically fail: great multitudes thronged him on the hill-side, and along by the sea-shore; the popularity of numbers was triumphant it was never so seen in Israel. Yet every heart was a difficulty, every man was a stumbling-block, and in many cases the doctrine was wasted like rain upon the barren sand. At one place even his miracles were powerless; at that place he could do but few mighty works their unbelief was greater, so to speak, than his faith, and he did not there many mighty works because of their unbelief.

Have we any consciousness or experience on our own part which answers to this in any degree, and helps us to understand it? You preachers have, for you know that there are some towns in which you cannot preach. Personally I know that right well. There are some towns in which I find it utterly impossible to say what I have prepared to say. I may, indeed, utter the words, but they come back upon me, and bring no blessing or answer of human heart along with them. They have struck a wall and rebounded and come home, and I cannot get rid of them as gospels and as benedictions. You singers know it. There are some rooms in which you cannot sing: you are choked, suffocated nothing in the construction of the room answers to your voice; you have no co-operation in the walls, in the ceiling, in the floor everything is dead against you, and you who can in other places, under kindlier circumstances, sing to the delight of your friends, and even to the satisfaction of critics, are not at all yourselves under circumstances which seem to depress and disable you. We all know it. There are some men to whom we cannot talk. Conversation is still-born when they are present. I want to say something, but I can not; I have propositions to make, but I cannot make propositions to dead walls or to gravestones. I have sorrows to tell, I have griefs for which I want some human sympathy, but I cannot unburden myself to the men who are round about me on this occasion or on that. We all know the meaning of this temporary disability and disennoblement, so that we who have power under other circumstances are unable to do any mighty works there because of some want, some antipathy, some occult and unnameable cause that shuts us up and makes us barren alike of intellectual conception and verbal expression and force.

Well, it was much the same with Jesus Christ upon another plane, that is to say, upon a much higher level. He was not the same Christ always. The conditions being prepared and equal, how his speech rolled like a river the people welcoming him, eager to hear him, giving him heart-room. Why, he seemed to talk himself up into heaven, and thence to distribute the very bread of life and water from the river of God. Such is he power of sympathy; so true is it that faith works miracles, that good hearing creates good speaking, that social sympathy elicits the whole fulness of the heart, all its secret and mystery and blessedness of love.

How was it that Jesus Christ failed in his ministry? Some reasons are given in the sacred narrative. First of all, the people said, "We know this man. We do not know whence he gets his wisdom. Is not this the carpenter's son is not his mother called Mary, and his brethren James and Joses, Simon and Judas; and his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then hath this man all these things?" And they were offended in him. There was a kind of wild logic in their reasoning, a kind of maniac intelligence about their grim philosophy they said: "The cause is not equal to the effect. We can measure this man. We know almost his birthday. We know his father and his mother and his business and his training, and all about him, and there is not in him, so far as we know his antecedents, anything to account for a wisdom that overlaps our rabbinical theology and our doctrinal philosophy. There is not in him enough to account for the wonders which he flings from his fingers and breathes from his lips."

Do not let us altogether despise these people, because we repeat their error to-day. My brethren, we repeat all the old errors; there is no originality in folly. Our fathers killed the prophets, and we build the sepulchres of the dead men and kill other living men, that our posterity may have grave-digging and tomb-building to attend to in their time. Do not believe all the nonsense you hear talked about heroic lives and splendid boys, who have triumphed over this and that and the other, and do not join the mob when they clap their untrained hands in clamorous and thoughtless applause about those boys now dead. Ask them how they treat the boys that are living in their own streets, and who are trying heroically and quietly to repeat the miracles which they have paid a shilling entrance-fee to clap in the great hall. Let us see what we do ourselves, and not be gloriously heroic over dead people.

Jesus Christ therefore shared the common fate. "There is his father, there is his mother, there are his kinsfolk from whence hath this Man this wisdom? It is guessing, it is conjecture, it is audacity, it is blasphemy: it cannot be accounted for," and there is nothing people get so angry with as mystery of a supernatural kind. They feel as if they ought to know it; they are intelligent people, they are upon boards of direction, they are ministers of churches, they are office-bearers in high institutions, and they ought to be able to understand everything of the kind. Here is a case in which the spiritual power is in excess of the social antecedency and the social surroundings: therefore ignore it, deny it, contradict it, offend it, disable it, put it down. Rude reasoning, with just as much logic about it as you have seen occasional light in a lunatic's eye.

Well, there is another reason of failure the utter bondage to the letter. The people to whom Christ spoke were literalists. I do not despise the letter, only I do consider that it is not all. The kingdom of heaven is as a grain of mustard seed, the least among seeds, but when it is sown and fully developed, it becomes a very great tree. So with the letter. It is necessary; we cannot do without it; but it is not to be held in the hand, but is to be planted as a seed, and is to bring forth all the poetry of bad and blossom and fruit, and is to afford lodgment for singing-birds, ay, room enough to give habitations to God's birds, not one of which he overlooks or neglects. When Jesus Christ said, "Beware of the leaven," "O," they said, "that is because we have not brought any bread with us;" and it distressed the Saviour to think that after all his teaching, they could give no higher interpretation to his figures nay, they ceased to be figures before such unimaginative minds. When he said, "Except a man eat my flesh, he cannot live," they said, "How can a man give his flesh to eat?" and it distressed God's Christ to hear such literalistic criticism. You cannot interpret religious truth without the religious imagination that wondrous power which keeps the literal and yet comes out into apocalyptic visions and interpretations, and glorifies the letter until its raiments shine and its face glistens with a light brighter than the sun. When Jesus Christ said "bread," the people thought he meant bread. When he said, "I could give thee water to drink, which, having drunk, would cause thee never to thirst again," the woman said, "Then let me have it," not knowing that he spake of his heart's life and the Holy Ghost, the inner baptism, the satisfaction of the soul's thirst. Wherever this literalism is, in any congregation, the ministry will be a failure, unless, indeed, the ministry itself is a piece of literalism, and then it will be a double failure.

The third cause of the non-success of our Lord's preaching was the spirituality of the man and of the doctrine. This was the greatest difficulty of all. The Jews sought the more to kill him because he had not only broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was his Father. "The words that I speak unto you they are spirit and they are life. The Son of Man, which is in heaven." There was a strange ghostliness about the doctrine of Christ. It had earthly aspects of extreme and indestructible beauty, but the people were afraid to acknowledge the fascination, lest, by their admissions, they should be hurried to conclusions that would make them Christians. Jesus had always something beyond. He never said, "This is the point at which I want you to stand still." His plan of educating his church is God's plan of educating the world. The promise come, the promise realised, a higher promise still is spoken. The prize seized, a grander prize is offered, and thus God "allures to brighter worlds and leads the way."

The people having seen this to be part of his method were very careful how they conceded anything or made any admissions without looking well around the circle of consequences. They learned caution by experience. At first they were clamorous in their applause, but by-and-by they came to understand that applause was not enough. Then they came to hostility. They found it was one of two things then, and it is one of two things now either worship or hatred. There are men about whom you have no strong opinion; they are what are called nice, pleasant men, very agreeable persons, individuals whom you might pass by the thousand in the street, and take no notice of altogether without specialty or accent. But when Christ comes, it is one of two things; it is, worship him, love him, give him all; or it is, crucify him, crucify him. So the people were going to give applause. "Well done," said they; "repeat that miracle, show us another sign, renew the testimony of tokens;" and Jesus said, "You have had enough of this; I have wrought miracles enough to save the world if miracles ever would save it; now you must think, love, trust, repent, believe." At that point the great division was set up. The people said, in effect, "His parables are intellectual gems, his voice is full of varied and thrilling music, his language is nothing short of a Divine election of words, his retorts are keen and final, his miracles are mighty and beneficent, he is indeed the supreme wonder of our land." Jesus Christ said, "That will not do; so far, so good, if good; so far, so bad, if the rest be not added." There was partial faith, no doubt. Many of the Jews believed on him, and said, "When Christ cometh will he do more miracles than these which this man hath done?" That reasoning would seem to point to this man as the Messiah. Many of the people, when they heard these sayings, said, "Of a truth this is that prophet." All the people were amazed, and said, "Is not this the Son of David?"

So there was an acknowledgment of peculiar influence and special powers. Was Christ satisfied? A very beautiful trait of his character comes out here. An impostor would have been intoxicated with the applause; Christ declined it. The people said, "Never man spake like this man." The people would have taken him by force to make him a king, the people delighted in his miracles, and made him famous concerning them. Was this enough? Alas! it brought the expression of an infinite distress into Christ's face. There is some applause that damns a man, there is a liking for a ministry which crushes the minister. What did Christ want? To see of the travail of his soul! To applaud his miracles was to annoy him, to speak about what he had done was to give him offence. He said, "Do not speak about it; miracles spoken about lose their meaning. Tell no man; go home to thy friends and think." He was afraid that the people's applause would end in itself, in mere admiration, and in merely spreading for him a high-sounding name as a kind of consecrated juggler. He knew human nature, and he said, "Be quiet about the miracles; go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel." When the miracle was wrought, he said, "Go home and say nothing about it." We cannot be trusted with too many miracles, they unsettle our intelligence, they were not meant as other than alphabetic and indicative. If we make more of them we invert and spoil the purpose of Christ. Christ spoke of his soul the travail of his soul, "My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death." Please his soul, and you give him sincere and pure delight.

But surely Jesus Christ kept in hand all whom he did succeed in getting to hear him and like him? No. Many escaped from his grasp. "From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him." He was a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel. That is a marvellous circumstance in our Lord's life. He had difficulty in getting any: he did not keep all whom he did get. He was despised and rejected of men. Can we wonder that we hear in our own day of ministers who have to complain of similar non-success? Do you know how ministers of Christ are now spoken of in this matter of failure and success? I will tell you, but do not repeat what I tell you. The common inquiry Is, "How is he getting on?" and the frequent reply is, "They are not filling they are not filling. He does not fill the place. He does not keep up his congregation. The place was not so full as I have seen it. I think there is a falling away." Why I have even heard some lunatics say that the collection was not quite so large as it used to be! Ah, me! my Christ, my God's Christ, it is the old criticism over again, and it will be the old crucifixion. God grant that it may be the old resurrection! We are wrong in our standards, false in our reckoning. I do not complain of the criticism. I thank God that for five-and-twenty years I have been standing in the midst of a crowd as a Christian minister, and therefore I make no personal references in the matter, but there are higher standards than numbers, money, patronage, gifts, or anything that is outside and secondary. Do not let us despise these; they are most useful and necessary, and if any man here has the gift of speech and can eulogise these things soberly and fully, I will accept his statement and will replace my own with his description. Only let us know that Jesus Christ had to suffer from exactly this same cause. "From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him." Did he then cease to walk? He hardened his face and went to the Jerusalem of his destiny. Keep steadily on thy purpose, and never mind who comes or who goes, be thy face towards God's will, and God will see that no stone can keep thee in the grave.

A falling-off of physical power there may be in your minister: alas! he cannot always be young. Time makes insidious advances upon us all. As there came a time in our boyhood when words suddenly revealed their full meaning to us, so there are special moments in our after life when a man says, "Why, I am no longer young." Who cares for the aged minister who cares for the minister whose vigour is gone! Even a decline of intellectual force is possible: the man is not so ready and strong as he used to be. Once he answered the occasion as powder answers fire now he is more torpid, he has farther to come, his sleep is of another kind, and steals more fatally over his brain. Who cares for him in that withering time? Always some thank God.

But this physical decline, or intellectual falling away, is not the cause; the real reason may be deeper, and may actually be the supreme honour of the minister, as it was in the case of Christ. When did the disciples fall away and walk no more with Christ when his power of working miracles was gone, when his power of inventing and delivering beauteous parables had declined? The cause lay deeper: do not let us hasten over it, but rather let us consider it deeply. From what time was it, then, when many of his disciples went back? It was when Jesus was most spiritual in his teaching. Hear the testimony. He began to say, "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and as I live by the Father, so he that eateth me even he shall live by me." It was THEN that the disciples said, "This is a hard saying: who can hear it?" Jesus hearing that objection went further, and said, plainly, "No man can come unto me except it were given unto him of my Father." From THAT TIME many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him. Why? Because the miracles were less glittering and notable? No. Because the parables fell off in intellectual beauty and force? No but because the ministry became more spiritual. Just so now. When and why do the people love the minister? Which are the sermons which are little liked? I know. What are the sermons that will empty any church in London? O, my friends, belonging to this place or to that, for we gather here from many religious centres, how is it with you? Are you still hungering for little stories, striking anecdotes, pretty parables are you still delighted with small rhetorical toys cut with a jack-knife and painted red and blue, or do you want the inner truth, Christ's flesh to eat, Christ's blood to drink, a baptism of the Holy Ghost, keen, piercing insight into the inner mysteries of God's invisible kingdom? From that time, from the moment he became intensely spiritual, his disciples walked no more with him.

I heard a great organist play. He played from Handel, and the people answered with feeble enthusiasm of hand and foot. He played from Mendelssohn and Beethoven, and there was the same acquiescence in fate it was to be so, and was taken as such. He played a piece full of scenic representation, the village dance, the storm brewing, rolling, shattering the heavens then the quiet, gentle hymn: it was most pictorial, most vivid and graphic, and the people answered as with a roar. The organist said to me afterwards, on being complimented on the reception of the piece in question, "Well, it was somewhat ad captandum ." He was not pleased with the compliment. It was a beautiful piece, a rare and wonderful piece but Handel and Beethoven, these were masters, so to speak, who opened the infinite. Alas! who cares?

Now this review of Christ's failure destroys two sophisms. First, that earnestness is always successful. O, the cant that is talked about earnestness! Was Christ earnest?