Salt is good; but if the salt have lost its savour, wherewith shall it be seasoned? It is neither fit for the land, nor yet for the dunghill; but men cast it out. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.—St. Luke xiv. 34, 35.
This 14th chapter opens with another act of healing on the Sabbath Day. When I was preaching on the sixth chapter, I considered these acts generally. I inquired why they assume such prominence in the Gospels, why our Lord attached such solemn importance to them, why they awakened such bitter hostility against Him. There is a difference, I think, between His treatment of those earlier indications of the Pharisaic temper, and of those which are presented to us in the chapter I considered last Sunday, and in this. No doubt the principle which is enunciated in the sixth chapter governs these cases as well as the previous cases. ‘The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath: Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath’—that was the grand assertion of the true humanity of the fourth commandment, that was the divine exposure of all attempts to make the Godhead inhuman. But in both these recent disputes with the Pharisees the argument takes this form:
‘Which of you who shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, will not straightway pull him out on the sabbath day?’ The repetition of this appeal, which the Pharisees could not answer, shews, it seems to me, what temper of mind our Lord was especially designing to lay bare at this time. A self-seeking religion was undermining the nation. The habit of measuring acts by their profit and loss was the characteristic habit of the Pharisee. Jesus detects it in this instance; He shews how little what they held to be the law of God interfered with any question of property; how stern it became when only the health or life of a fellow creature was at stake. If we follow the windings of this chapter, I believe we shall find that He is setting different illustrations of the self-seeking spirit, and of the contrast between it and the mind of the gracious God.
I. Jesus is at a feast. He sees the guests choosing out the chief rooms. He puts forth, the Evangelist says, a parable to them. We do not, at first, perceive why His discourse should have that name. It reads like a simple admonition applicable to those who frequented that feast or any feast. ‘When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room; lest a more honourable man than thou be bidden of him.” And when we go on to the next passage, we might easily say, ’Here is a sanction for calculations of worldly prudence. The conduct prohibited is treated as inconsistent with this.’ Lest he that bade thee and him come and say to thee, Give this man place; and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room. But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee.’ My friends, I do not in the least wish you to forget that our Lord does announce this as the probable result of these two courses. I believe experience may have led many to the same conclusion, may perhaps have led some to aim at the humility which He enjoins. If it be so, must not these sagacious foreseeing men have gained a glimpse of some law which proves the eager longing for promotion—the natural desire for overtopping others—to be a mistake? What is that law? Our Lord proclaims it in the fullest, most distinct words: Whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” This is God’s law, the law of God’s kingdom. And therefore it discovers itself in all cases, in the least as well as the greatest. The commonest human feast is an illustration of it. The principle must reach that, or it is not a principle. It must be meant to govern a man’s acts in all his relations, in all his circumstances. Some may recognise it in the higher regions of spiritual life and forget it in the lower; then they will always be in danger of losing it where they do confess its application. Some may learn the truth of the maxim in ordinary affairs, and then may trace it to its divine Source. They will be most likely to do so when they have obeyed the law instinctively; having always felt that they were deserving of the lower rather than of a higher place. Those who have speculated on the advantage of seeming to be humble, may possibly get a reward from their hosts at earthly feasts; He who reads the heart will not say to such, ‘Friends, come up higher,’ at His feast. You will see, then, that our Lord did, on this occasion, speak a parable in the truest sense of the word. We might even learn from this instance what a parable is, how wide its range is. Our Lord would open our eyes to read in all the processes of nature with which we are most familiar, in all the earthly things with which we have most to do, in all our intercourse with our fellows, indications and expositions of the eternal Government. When the poet said that the law which guides the planets in their course is that very law which moulds a tear and bids it trickle from its source, we may be startled with the violence of the contrast. But he uttered an unquestionable truth, and one which has more practical force when it is referred to the mysteries of the spiritual world than to those of the physical.
II. Here, then, was one hint of the way in which the self-seeking, self-exalting spirit might work in little acts as in great; how it had to be encountered in the little that it might not usurp dominion over the greatest. And He whose teachings were a continuous methodical education, who passed by insensible steps from one topic to another, always speaking to that which He knew was in His hearers—forcing nothing upon them—went on from this discourse concerning the choice of the chief room at feasts to speak of the highest hospitality, of that which is most in harmony with the spirit of the universal Benefactor. ‘Then said he also to him that bade him, When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbours; lest they also bid thee again, and a recompense be made thee. But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: and thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.’ The privilege of doing good, of conferring blessings without the hope of a return, this He set before them, this He sets before us, as the grand privilege of all. We avail ourselves of it very seldom. The notion of giving in the expectation of receiving as much again, though a very sordid one, is apt to displace, even in those who not only affect generosity but are generous, the one which surely commends itself to our consciences and reason as the nobler. And there is a darker and sadder contradiction mixed with this. Our Lord’s promise of a recompense at the resurrection of the just has been translated into the dialect of the money-market. He has been supposed to say, ‘Make the sacrifice of giving feasts to the poor, and halt, and blind here, and God will pay you for it hereafter.’ And so that hope of waking up after God’s likeness and being satisfied with it, which has cheered and sustained all those who have really worked under the inspiration of God’s Spirit for their fellow men, is quite set aside. The resurrection of the just is not the rising out of ourselves into fellowship with the divine Love; it is the prolongation and ratification of the great curse which has divided us from each other and made the earth miserable. Oh my friends! there is no language so pure and divine that men have not power to transmute it and wrench it into a justification of the sins which it denounces. If the Word of God were confined by the letters of Scripture, there would be no witness against our perversion of those letters. If God did not really baptise men with His Spirit and fire, but only gave us a holy book, the holy book would not only miss its interpretation; it would be made into an apology for the most unholy deeds. But in every generation the truth of the book has been confirmed by the divine power which has appeared to deliver the Church from those who have patronised it, worshipped it, trampled upon it.
III. ‘And when one of them that sat at meat with him heard these things, he said unto him, Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God.’ The thought of an age, of a state of society, in which men should really call the poor, the halt, the blind to their feasts, struck on this man’s heart, and called forth in it wonder and hope. ‘Yes! that will be indeed a heavenly kingdom. One would like to be a citizen of that.’ The rejoinder comes in a parable with which we are all familiar. ‘You think it would be a great privilege to eat bread in the Kingdom of God. Listen then to a story.’
‘Then said he unto him, A certain man made a great supper, and bade many: and sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for all things are now ready.’
In St. Matthew’s Gospel the feast is one at a wedding. I believe the context of his narrative obliges us to think of this characteristic. It is the central point of the story; the accompanying particulars cannot be understood without it. St. Luke, by omitting it, shows me that he is directing our minds to another aspect of the subject. The nature of the feast is less in question than the freeness of the invitations to it and the temper in which those invitations are received. We must always remember, however, that it is a feast. Those who are called, are called to receive a blessing, to enter into an enjoyment. ‘And they all with one consent began to make excuse.’ They do not excuse themselves from toil. They have no dislike to that. Toil is itself their excuse. ‘The first said unto him, I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it: I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them: I pray thee have me excused.’ These are all honourable and useful occupations. And the third, who says, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come,’ evidently does not plead pleasure as his reason. Marriage he regards as part of the business and routine of existence, which gives him no leisure to take part in what might be a fit entertainment for a man with fewer cares.
Preachers who have partly perceived that this parable was not aimed at the dislike of work and preference for delight, by which some, especially in youth, are characterised, have evaded its force by describing the occupations which our Lord speaks of as belonging to the present world. ‘He invites them to engage in religious duties - duties having reference to a future world.’ I cannot see this distinction in the story. The man might be devoting himself to his piece of land or his oxen, on a calculation of what would be best for him in the time to come. He might be restraining himself from present gratifications for distant objects. The man who had married a wife might have a becoming sense of the obligation in both of them to frequent the synagogue. The worldliness I admit, but not a worldliness which was the least incompatible with a very punctual pursuit of what are called religious duties. Men who were busy with those duties, who carefully enjoined them on others, whose piece of ground or oxen or marriage would not have hindered them from making long prayers or going daily to the Temple, were especially the persons to whom this invitation was addressed, and ’who would not come.” Their religious duties were one of the strongest reasons which they alleged for their absence. And why? The call was to rejoice in a God who cared for His creatures, who had entered into fellowship with them, who would have them enter into fellowship with Him, who would have them share His blessedness—the blessedness of distributing liberally, the blessedness of raising those that were fallen. This was the feast of the Kingdom of Heaven which the teachers and examples of religion to the nation scornfully refused.
‘So that servant came, and shewed his lord these things. Then the master of the house being angry, said to his servant, Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind.’
Our Lord had urged rich men to call such as these to their feasts. He now says that they were called and would be called. He had blessed the poor. He had Himself preached the Kingdom of Heaven to the outcasts of the land. For this He had been described as evil, a friend of publicans and sinners. Only men who had nothing to boast of, who were needing a shepherd, who did not count it a misery to them that others should be blessed with them, heard His voice. They were willing to be receivers, to take a gift from the Highest of all, not to insist that they had earned it.
‘And the servant said, Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room. And the Lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.’ All interpreters have been inclined to treat this passage as an announcement of the Gospel to the Gentile world—the Gospel that since the Son of God had been born of a woman, men of all kindreds and tribes might receive the adoption of sons; that God sealed them by baptism with His own name; that He fed them with the flesh which was given for the life of the world. That this sense must be in the words, the fearful sentence which follows is proof sufficient: ‘For I say unto you, That none of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper.’ Here is that rejection of a self-seeking, exclusive nation which would not receive benefits freely from God’s hands, which would not be His instruments in imparting them—whereof our Lord has been speaking ever since He set His face to go to Jerusalem. Surely we lose nothing of the power and terror of the words for ourselves when we construe them in that literal and obvious way. Is not the Jewish habit of mind that to which every one of us is prone? Does it not grow upon us, become deeper in us, through our familiarity with religious ordinances, through the repetition of the call to come and taste of God’s feast? Think of what it must have been to men who had believed God to be their enemy, to hear the news; ‘He invites you to His feast. He desires communion with you. He would have you read His mind to you in the food of every day.’ What an Eucharistical song must have risen from all creation—from the world seen and unseen! And we speak of the Eucharist as a religious duty which must be performed if we would escape perdition—not as the celebration of a wedding which the Son of God has made with our race! Is not the temper which led the Jews to hate the feast, working in us Gentiles who seem to exult in it as our highest distinction? Alas! we do exult in it as our distinction—as the badge of our difference from other men, not as the witness of our union with all. Whilst it is so, can we really taste of the supper?
And we can turn the words of the New Testament upside down, as the Jews turned the words of the Old Testament upside down. What lessons have not Christians drawn, sometimes in theory, continually in practice, from the command, ‘Compel them to come in?’ ‘Surely it must be good to make men Christians by force, if there is no other way.’ Yes! if you can. Persecute them by all means, if persecution will make them partakers of the divine feast; if it is not shewn by all evidence to be the best means of making them partakers of the feast of devils. ‘They shall be willing in the day of my power;’ that was the faith in which Apostles preached. That was the compulsion which prevailed over the forces of the legions. Emperors, priests, mobs, have tried the other kind of compulsion: with what effect the records of God’s judgments written in history have shewn imperfectly, the judgment of the last day will declare completely.
IV. Jesus had preached of His Kingdom to crowds, and had said that men of all kinds would be drawn into it. Now He seems to change His tone. ‘And there went great multitudes with him: and he turned, and said unto them, If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.’ How are we to explain such a passage as this? I believe it will explain itself better than we can explain it; if we want further help, we shall find it in the records of Christendom. There have been two facts which those records have brought prominently before us. In obedience, as they supposed, to this exhortation, men have abandoned human ties—father, mother, wife, children, brethren, and sisters—that they might do what? That they might save their own souls. In so doing, they have directly set at nought our Lord’s command. I do not say they have exaggerated it. I say they have denied both the letter and spirit of it. That to which they have sacrificed all these human ties is precisely that which Christ commands them to sacrifice. They must hate all these, and their own souls. Our translators have taken here, as in another place, some pains to avoid the offence which would have been given by the use of the word ‘soul.’ They have changed it into ‘life.’ But when we are studying our Lord’s meaning, we must adhere to His phraseology. It is clear, then, that monks and nuns cannot be our guides in the interpretation of this passage. They have discovered no principle which reconciles it with Christ’s stern condemnation of those who made a gift to the treasury and so excused themselves from obeying God’s command to honour their father and mother.
But another fact has been also made evident by the experience of ages as well as of individuals. It has been found that, as men may relinquish the love of father and mother for the sake of themselves, so they may try to build the love of father and mother upon the ground of self. This love does not last. For love is the antagonist of selfishness. ‘Therefore,’ says Christ, ‘If you would follow Me, abandon this experiment. Two powers are fighting for your allegiance—Self and the Son of man. Self, the enemy of all human affections, of all the bonds of human fellowship; the Son of man, the Author and Sustainer of them all. Give up to Me, and for Me, all that has a selfish root. Plant your affections upon the divine root, so they will live and grow.’ Such language may sound refined to divines who can indulge in all scholastical subtleties; to devotees who think there is one law for them and another for mankind. It has not appeared strange or refined to humble men and women who have really taken up their cross and followed Christ in all lowly services—especially in services to the members of their own households. They have shewn in their daily lives how, by giving up their souls to Him and not thinking of themselves, they were able to be true children and brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers. Their minds may have been exercised by this precept of their Lord, just as a student’s mind is exercised by any problem in nature. But the exercise has been profitable in both cases. The reason and the will have been strengthened by the difficulty which they have had to master. In seeking they have acquired a power which they would not have had if the secret had been discovered to them without seeking. Our Lord gives two illustrations of His meaning.
‘For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish. Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace. So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.’
This seems a hard test of discipleship, ‘he must forsake all that he hath.’ May it not be just the blessing, if we knew it, which we are all craving for? We have set about building many goodly towers, many gorgeous palaces. How they have all dissolved! How our grand designs have mocked us! Because there was always some selfish scheme beneath, which made the foundation weak, which showed itself in the feebleness and incoherency of the superstructure. There has been a mighty battle going on within us between two kings, the spirit and the flesh. The evil power has his twenty thousand. There appear but a poor ten thousand troops ill-guided and disorderly to oppose him. If we could give up ourselves, the Captain of the Host would descend to help us, the stars of heaven would fight against our foe. But we struggle to keep something of our own, something apart from Him. So the terrible twenty thousand win the day. Sealed as Christ’s servants and soldiers, we are not His disciples, for we glorify self above Him who gave up Himself.
V. We have seen these various exemplifications of that self-seeking spirit which was destroying the chosen people. The moral is gathered up into the memorable sentence, ‘Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be seasoned? It is neither fit for the land, nor yet for the dunghill; but men cast it out.’ The Lord of the earth hath called out the seed of Abraham, to be the salt of His earth, to preserve it from decay and putrefaction. The salt was good; it had the divine principle and power in it. But if this principle and power departed from it, if it acquired all the worst qualities of that which it was to purify, what could be done with it? The land gained nothing from it; the dunghill was not enriched by it. For the purpose which it was to serve, it had become useless. Nay, was it not mischievous; was it not ministering to all the corruption which it was intended to counteract?—
Therefore the house of Israel was cast out; it was treated as refuse, for it had become refuse. But the earth was not left without salt. A wider earth was brought into cultivation. The Catholic Church was the salt—I so we have believed—which God appointed to purify that wider earth. Has this salt kept its savour? Is it doing its work? Has it not contracted the foulness of that which it was to regenerate? Has it not exhibited that foulness in its most concentrated form? Is the example of the past nothing to us? Are the words of Christ nothing? ‘He that hath ears to hear let him hear.’