Town and Country Sermons

SERMON III. THE TRANSFIGURATION

(Preached before the Queen.)

Matthew xvii. 2 and 9.  And he was transfigured before them. . . . And he charged them, saying, Tell the vision to no man, until the Son of Man be risen again from the dead.

Any one who will consider the gospels, will see that there is a peculiar calm, a soberness and modesty about them, very different from what we should have expected to find in them.  Speaking, as they do, of the grandest person who ever trod this earth, of the grandest events which ever happened upon this earth—of the events, indeed, which settled the future of this earth for ever,—one would not be surprised at their using grand words—the grandest they could find.  If they had gone off into beautiful poetry; if they had filled pages with words of astonishment, admiration, delight; if they had told us their own thoughts and feelings at the sight of our Lord; if they had given us long and full descriptions of our Lord’s face and figure, even (as forged documents have pretended to do) to the very colour of his hair, we should have thought it but natural.

But there is nothing of the kind in either of the four gospels, even when speaking of the most awful matters.  Their words are as quiet and simple and modest as if they were written of things which might be seen every day.  When they tell of our Lord’s crucifixion, for instance, how easy, natural, harmless, right, as far as we can see, it would have been to have poured out their own feelings about the most pitiable and shameful crime ever committed upon earth; to have spoken out all their own pity, terror, grief, indignation; and to have stirred up ours thereby.  And yet all they say is,—‘And they crucified him.’  They feel that is enough.  The deed is too dark to talk about.  Let it tell its own story to all human hearts.

So with this account of the Lord’s transfiguration.  ‘And he took Peter, and James, and John, his brother, up into a high mountain, apart, and was transfigured before them; and his face did shine as the sun; and his raiment was white as the light; . . . and while he yet spake a bright cloud overshadowed them; and, behold, a voice out of the cloud, which said: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.  Hear ye him.’

How soberly, simply, modestly, they tell this strange story.  How differently they might have told it.  A man might write whole poems, whole books of philosophy, about that transfiguration, and yet never reach the full depth of its beauty and of its meaning.  But the evangelists do not even try to do that.  As with the crucifixion, as with all the most wonderful passages of our Lord’s life, they simply say what happened, and let the story bring its own message home to our hearts.

What may we suppose is the reason of this great stillness and soberness of the gospels?  I believe that it may be explained thus.  The men who wrote them were too much awed by our Lord, to make more words about him than they absolutely needed.

Our Lord was too utterly beyond them.  They felt that they could not understand him; could not give a worthy picture of him.  He was too noble, too awful, in spite of all his tenderness, for any words of theirs, however fine.  We all know that the holiest things, the deepest feelings, the most beautiful sights, are those about which we talk least, and least like to hear others talk.  Putting them into words seems impertinent, profane.  No one needs to gild gold, or paint the lily.  When we see a glorious sunset; when we hear the rolling of the thunder-storm; we do not talk about them; we do not begin to cry, How awful, how magnificent; we admire them in silence, and let them tell their own story.  Who that ever truly loved his wife talked about his love to her?  Who that ever came to Holy Communion in spirit and in truth, tried to put into words what he felt as he knelt before Christ’s altar?  When God speaks, man had best keep silence.

So it was, I suppose, with the writers of the gospels.  They had been in too grand company for them to speak freely of what they felt there.  They had seen such sights, and heard such words, that they were inclined to be silent, and think over it all, and only wrote because they must write.  They felt that our Lord, as I say, was utterly beyond them, too unlike any one whom they had ever met before; too perfect, too noble, for them to talk about him.  So they simply set down his words as he spoke them, and his works as he did them, as far as they could recollect, and left them to tell their own story.  Even St. John, who was our Lord’s beloved friend, who seems to have caught and copied exactly his way of speaking, seems to feel that there was infinitely more in our Lord than he could put into words, and ends with confessing,—‘And there are also many more things which Jesus did, the which if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.’

The first reason then, I suppose, for the evangelists’ modesty, was their awe and astonishment at our Lord.  The next, I think, may have been that they wished to copy him, and so to please him.  It surely must have been so, if, as all good Christians believe, they were inspired to write our Lord’s life.  The Lord would inspire them to write as he would like his life to be written, as he would have written it (if it be reverent to speak of such a thing) himself.  They were inspired by Christ’s Spirit; and, therefore, they wrote according to the Spirit of Christ, soberly, humbly, modestly, copying the character of Christ.

Think upon that word modestly.  I am not sure that it is the best; I only know that it is the best which I can find, to express one excellence which we see in our Lord, which is like what we call modesty in common human beings.

We all know how beautiful and noble modesty is; how we all admire it; how it raises a man in our eyes to see him afraid of boasting; never showing off; never requiring people to admire him; never pushing himself forward; or, if his business forces him to go into public, not going for the sake of display, but simply because the thing has to be done; and then quietly withdrawing himself when the thing is done, content that none should be staring at him or thinking of him.  This is modesty; and we admire it not only in young people, or those who have little cause to be proud: we admire it much more in the greatest, the wisest, and the best; in those who have, humanly speaking, most cause to be proud.  Whenever, on the other hand, we see in wise and good men any vanity, boasting, pompousness of any kind, we call it a weakness in them, and are sorry to see them lowering themselves by the least want of divine modesty.

Now, this great grace and noble virtue should surely be in our Lord, from whom all graces and virtues come; and I think we need not look far through the gospels to find it.

See how he refused to cast himself down from the temple, and make himself a sign and a wonder to the Jews.  How he refused to show the Pharisees a sign.  How, in this very text, when it seemed good to him to show his glory, he takes only three favourite apostles, and commands them to tell no man till he be risen again.  See, again, how when the Jews wanted to take him by force, and make him a king, he escaped out of their hands.  How when He had been preaching to, or healing the multitude, so that they crowded on him, and became excited about him, he more than once immediately left them, and retired into a desert place to pray.

See, again, how when he did tell the Jews who he was, in words most awfully unmistakeable, the confession was, as it were, drawn from him, at the end of a long argument, when he was forced to speak out for truth’s sake.  And, even then, how simple, how modest (if I dare so speak), are his words.  ‘Before Abraham was, I am.’  The most awful words ever spoken on earth; and yet most divine in their very simplicity.  The Maker of the world telling his creatures that he is their God!  What might he not have said at such a moment?  What might we not fancy his saying?  What words, grand enough, awful enough, might not the evangelists have put into his mouth, if they had not been men full of the spirit of truth?  And yet what does the Lord say?  ‘Before Abraham was, I am.’  Could he say more?  If you think of the matter, No.  But could he say less?  If you think of the manner, No, likewise.

Truly, ‘never man spake as he spake:’ because never man was like him.  Perfect strength, wisdom, determination, endurance; and yet perfect meekness, simplicity, sobriety.  Zeal and modesty.  They are the last two virtues which go together most seldom.  In him they went together utterly; and were one, as he was one in spirit.

Him some of the evangelists saw, and by him all were inspired; and, therefore, they toned their account of him to his likeness, and, as it were, took their key-note from him, and made the very manner and language of their gospels a pattern of his manners and his life.

And, if we wanted a fresh proof (as, thank God, needs not) that the gospels are true, I think we might find it in this.  For when a man is inventing a wonderful story out of his own head, he is certain to dress it up in fine words, fancies, shrewd reflections of his own, in order to make people see, as he goes on, how wonderful it all is.  Whereas, no books on earth which describe wonderful events, true or false, are so sober and simple as the gospels, which describe the most wonderful of all events.  And this is to me a plain proof (as I hope it will be to you) that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were not inventing but telling a plain and true story, and dared not alter it in the least; and, again, a story so strange and beautiful, that they dared not try to make it more strange, or more beautiful, by any words of their own.

They had seen a person, to describe whom passed all their powers of thought and memory, much more their power of words.  A person of whom even St. Paul could only say, ‘that he was the brightness of his Father’s glory, and the express image of his person.’

Words in which to write of him failed them; for no words could suffice.  But the temper of mind in which to write of him did not fail them; for, by gazing on the face of the Lord, they had been changed, more or less, into the likeness of his glory; into that temper, simplicity, sobriety, gentleness, modesty, which shone forth in him, and shines forth still in their immortal words about him.  God grant that it may shine forth in us.  God grant it truly.  May we read their words till their spirit passes into us.  May we (as St. Paul expresses it) looking on the face of the Lord, as into a glass, be changed into his likeness, from glory to glory.  May he who inspired them to write, inspire us to think and work, like our Lord, soberly, quietly, simply.  May God take out of us all pride and vanity, boasting and forwardness; and give us the true courage which shows itself by gentleness; the true wisdom which show itself by simplicity; and the true power which show itself by modesty.  Amen.

SERMON IV. A SOLDIER’S TRAINING

Luke vii. 2-9.  And a certain centurion’s servant, who was dear unto him, was sick, and ready to die.  And when he heard of Jesus, he sent unto him the elders of the Jews, beseeching him that he would come and heal his servant.  And when they came to Jesus, they besought him instantly, saying, That he was worthy for whom he should do this: For he loveth our nation, and he hath built us a synagogue.  Then Jesus went with them.  And when he was now not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to him, saying unto him, Lord, trouble not thyself; for I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof: Wherefore neither thought I myself worthy to come unto thee: but say in a word, and my servant shall be healed.  For I also am a man set under authority, having under me soldiers, and I say unto one, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it.  When Jesus heard these things he marvelled at him, and turned him about, and said unto the people that followed him, I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.

There is something puzzling in this speech of the centurion’s.  One must think twice, and more than twice, to understand clearly what he had in his mind.  I, indeed, am not quite sure that I altogether understand it.  But I may, perhaps, help you to understand it, by telling you what this centurion was.

He was not a Jew.  He was a Roman, and a heathen; a man of our race, very likely.  And he was a centurion, a captain in the army; and one, mind, who had risen from the ranks, by good conduct, and good service.  Before he got his vine-stock, which was the mark of his authority over a hundred men, he had, no doubt, marched many a weary mile under a heavy load, and fought, probably, many a bloody battle in foreign parts.  That had been his education, his training, namely, discipline, and hard work.  And because he had learned to obey, he was fit to rule.  He was helping now to keep in order those treacherous, unruly Jews, and their worthless puppet-kings, like Herod; much as our soldiers in India are keeping in order the Hindoos, and their worthless puppet-kings.

Whether the Romans had any right to conquer and keep down the Jews as they did, is no concern of ours just now.  But we have proof that what this centurion did, he did wisely and kindly.  The elders of the Jews said of him, that he loved the Jews, and had built them a synagogue, a church.  I suppose that what he had heard from them about a one living God, who had made all things in heaven and earth, and given them a law, which cannot be broken, so that all things obey him to this day—I suppose, I say, that this pleased him better than the Roman stories of many gods, who were capricious, and fretful, and quarrelled with each other in a fashion which ought to have been shocking to the conscience and reason of a disciplined soldier.

There was a great deal, besides, in the Old Testament, which would, surely, come home to a soldier’s heart, when it told him of a God of law, and order, and justice, and might, who defended the right in battle, and inspired the old Jews to conquer the heathen, and to fight for their own liberty.  For what was it, which had enabled the Romans to conquer so many great nations?  What was it which enabled them to keep them in order, and, on the whole, make them happier, more peaceable, more prosperous, than they had ever been?  What was it which had made him, the poor common soldier, an officer, and a wealthy man, governing, by his little garrison of a hundred soldiers, this town of Capernaum, and the country round?

It was this.  Discipline; drill; obedience to authority.  That Roman army was the most admirably disciplined which the world till then had ever seen.  So, indeed, was the whole Roman Government.  Every man knew his place, and knew his work.  Every man had been trained to obey orders; if he was told to go, to go; if he was told to do, to do, or to die in trying to do, what he was bidden.

This was the great and true thought which had filled this good man’s mind—duty, order, and obedience.  And by thinking of order, and seeing how strength, and safety, and success lie in order, and by giving himself up to obey orders, body and soul, like a good soldier, had that plain man (who had certainly no scholarship, perhaps could barely read or write) caught sight of a higher, wider, deeper order than even that of a Roman army.  He had caught sight of that divine and wonderful order, by which God has constituted the services of men, and angels, and all created things; that divine and wonderful order by which sun and stars, fire and hail, wind and vapour, cattle and creeping things fulfil his word.

Fulfil God’s word.  That was the thought, surely, which was in the good soldier’s mind, and which he was trying to speak out; clumsily, perhaps, but truly enough.  I suppose, then, that he thought in his own mind somewhat in this way.  ‘There is a word of command among us soldiers.  Has God, then, no word of command likewise?  And that word of command is enough.  Is not God’s word of command enough likewise?  I merely speak, and I am obeyed.  I am merely spoken to, and I obey.  Shall not God merely speak, and be obeyed likewise?  There is discipline and order among men, because it is necessary.  An Army cannot be manœuvred, a Government cannot be carried on, without it.  Is there not a discipline and order in all heaven and earth?  And that discipline is carried out by simple word of command.  A word from me will make a man rush upon certain death.  A word from certain other men will make me rush on certain death.  For I am a man under authority.  I have my tribune (colonel, as we should say) over me; and he, again, the perfect (general of brigade) over him.  Their word is enough for me.  If they want me to do a thing, they do not need to come under my roof, to argue with me, to persuade me, much less to thrust me about, and make me obey them by force.  They say to me, ‘Go,’ and I go; and I say to those under me, ‘Go,’ and they go likewise.

And if I can work by a word, cannot this Jesus work by a word likewise?  He is a messenger of God, with commission and authority from God, to work his will on his creatures.  Are not God’s creatures as well ordered, disciplined, obedient, as we soldiers are?  Are they not a hundred times better ordered?  A messenger from God?  Is he not a God himself; a God in goodness and mercy; a God in miraculous power?  Cannot he do his work by a word, far more certainly than I can do mine?  If my word can send a man to death, cannot his word bring a man back to life?  Surely it can.  ‘Lord, thou needest not to come under my roof; speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.’

By some such thoughts as these, I suppose, had this good soldier gained his great faith; his faith that all God’s creatures were in a divine, and wonderful order, obedient to the will of God who made them; and that Jesus Christ was God’s viceroy and lieutenant (I speak so, because I suppose that is what he, as a soldier, would have thought), to carry out God’s commands on earth.

Now remember that he was the first heathen man of whom we read, that he acknowledged Christ.  Remember, too, that the next heathen of whom we read, that he acknowledged Christ, was also a Roman centurion, he whom the old legends call Longinus, who, when he saw our Lord upon the cross, said, ‘Truly this was the Son of God.’  Remember, again, that the next heathen of whom we read as having acknowledged Christ, he to whom St. Peter was sent, at Joppa, who is often called the first fruits of the heathen, was a Roman centurion likewise.

Surely, there must have been a reason for this.  There must be a lesson in this; and this, I think, is the lesson.  That the soldierlike habit of mind is one which makes a man ready to receive the truth of Christ.  And why?  Because the good soldier’s first and last thought is Duty.  To do his duty by those who are set over him, and to learn to do his duty to those who are set under him.  To turn his whole mind and soul to doing, not just what he fancies, but to what must be done, because it is his duty.  This is the character which makes a good soldier, and a good Christian likewise.  If we be undisciplined and undutiful, and unruly; if we be fanciful, self-willed, disobedient; then we shall not understand Christ, or Christ’s rule on earth and in heaven.  If there be no order within us, we shall not see his divine and wonderful order all around us.  If there be no discipline and obedience within us, we shall never believe really that Christ disciplines all things, and that all things obey him.  If there be no sense of duty in us, governing our whole lives and actions, we shall never perceive the true beauty and glory of Christ’s character, who sacrificed himself for his duty, which was to do his Father’s will.

I tell you, my friends, that nothing prevents a man from gaining either right doctrines or right practice, so much as the undutiful, unruly, self-conceited heart.  We may be full of religious knowledge, of devout sentiments, of heavenly aspirations: but in spite of them all, we shall never get beyond false doctrine, and loose practice, unless we have learned to obey; to rule our own minds, and hearts, and tempers, soberly and patiently; to conform to the laws, and to all reasonable rules of society, to believe that God has called us to our station in life, whatever it may be; and to do our duty therein, as faithful soldiers and servants of Christ.  For, if you will receive it, the beginning and the middle, and the end of all true religion is simply this.  To do the will of God on earth, as it is done in heaven.

SERMON V. CHRIST’S SHEEP

Mark vi. 34.  And Jesus, when he came out, saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd: and he began to teach them many things.

This is a text full of comfort, if we will but remember one thing: that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever; and, therefore, what he did when he was upon earth, he is doing now, and will do till the end of the world.  If we will believe this, and look at our Lord’s doings upon earth as patterns and specimens, as it were, of his eternal life and character, then every verse in the gospels will teach us something, and be precious to us.

The people came to hear Jesus in a desert place; a wild forest country, among the hills on the east side of the Lake of Gennesaret.  ‘And Jesus, when he came out, saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep having no shepherd: and he taught them many things.’

And, what kind of people were these, who so moved our Lord’s pity?  The text tells us, that they were like sheep.  Now, in what way were they like sheep?

A sheep is simple, and harmless, and tractable, and so, I suppose, were these people.  They may not have been very clever and shrewd; not good scholars.  No doubt they were a poor, wild, ignorant, set of people; but they were tractable; they were willing to come and learn; they felt their own ignorance, and wanted to be taught.  They were not proud and self-sufficient, not fierce or bloodthirsty.  The text does not say that they were like wild beasts having no keeper: but like sheep having no shepherd.  And therefore Christ pitied them, because they were teachable, willing to be taught, and worth teaching; and yet had no one to teach them.

The Scribes and Pharisees, it seems, taught them nothing.  They may have taught the people in Jerusalem, and in the great towns, something: but they seem, from all the gospels, to have cared little or nothing for the poor folk out in the wild mountain country.  They liked to live in pride and comfort in the towns, with their comfortable congregations round them, admiring them; but they had no fancy to go out into the deserts, to seek and to save those who were lost.  They were bad shepherds, greedy shepherds, who were glad enough to shear God’s flock, and keep the wool themselves: but they did not care to feed the flock of God.  It was too much trouble; and they could get no honour and no money by it.  And most likely they did not understand these poor people; could not speak, hardly understand, their country language; for these Galileans spoke a rough dialect, different from that of the upper classes.

So the Scribes and Pharisees looked down on them as a bad, wild, low set of people, with whom nothing could be done; and said, ‘This people who knoweth not the law, is accursed.’

But what they would not do, God himself would.  God in Christ had come to feed his own flock, and to seek the lost sheep, and bring them gently home to God’s fold.  He could feel for these poor wild foresters and mountain shepherds; he could understand what was in their hearts; for he knew the heart of man; and, therefore, he could make them understand him.  And it was for this very reason, one might suppose, that our Lord was willing to be brought up at Nazareth, that he might learn the country speech, and country ways, and that the people might grow to look on him as one of themselves.  Those Scribes and Pharisees, one may suppose, were just the people whom they could not understand; fine, rich scholars, proud people talking very learnedly about deep doctrines.  The country folk must have looked at them as if they belonged to some other world, and said,—Those Pharisees cannot understand us, any more than we can them, with their hard rules about this and that.  Easy enough for rich men like them to make rules for poor ones.  Indeed our Lord said the very same of them—‘Binding heavy burdens, and grievous to be borne, and laying them on men’s shoulders; while they themselves would not touch them with one of their fingers.’