Twenty-third Sunday after Trinity
November 7, 1858
“This I say, that he which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.”—2 Corinthians ix. 6.
The passage: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.
This text is often cited with great triumph by those who say men can be stirred to good deeds only by the prospect of a tangible reward in a future state. “The writer,” they say, “is St. Paul, whom Protestants suppose to have laid the axe to every notion of human merit. His meaning is plain. He is urging the Corinthians to collect money for their poorer brethren, and he says that if they give liberally they will receive liberally from God. Could language be more natural or reasonable? Your preachers fall into it almost inevitably. You are shocked at the idea that alms are an offering for sins. You denounce at length those who suggest that some offences may be overlooked, or that rewards in Heaven may be won by giving up part of our earthly treasure. Yet is there one of your charity sermons that does not leave hearers inferring that their condition will be better if they help the cause and worse if they are deaf to the preacher? Draw what fine distinctions you like; you suggest that opinion whenever your words are effective. And why are they so often ineffective, except that men cannot tell whether you mean what you say? Sometimes we are to take St. Paul literally and reckon the harvest by the seed sown. Sometimes you speak as if the one had nothing to do with the other. The result is what you would expect: the benevolent and religious efforts of your flocks are uncertain and desultory, begun under some sudden impulse and soon abandoned for want of motive to persevere. In ordinary affairs we act on the Apostle’s maxim and expect results from our diligence. In the affairs you call most important, we seem to assume, or half assume, the opposite.”
These arguments point to a real inconsistency in how we speak and a real feebleness in how we act, and both should be examined and corrected. They appeal to the practical sense that Englishmen value above all refinements of divinity, and they appeal to our trade temper. It is very hard to shed in one region the habits of thought we cultivate in another. If we suppose our main business on earth is to lay out capital for a good return, then whatever we formally profess, we shall use the same measure in our expectations of the world after death. We may rail against Romanism until we are weary, but if this is Romanism, then a nation given to money-getting and gambling must be Romanist or atheistic, or both at once.
I. I want to interpret St. Paul strictly, so I ask you to notice that his comparison is not drawn from trade. He did not avoid commercial images when they came his way; the Epistle to the Ephesians is full of them. He speaks of goods left in bond by the purchaser, of the seal put on them, of the earnest-money paid, of the time when he would come to redeem them. But here the analogy comes from husbandry, not from the merchant’s speculations. He speaks not of making a venture but of conforming to a law. The savage who depends on the accidents of the chase is more of a speculator, in the common sense, than the civilized man who tills and sows at the appointed season. The savage trusts partly to his skill and partly to chance. His acts are irregular, done in the uncertain hope of a reward, and when he gets it he boasts over his less fortunate rival. The farmer does best when he attends most carefully to facts he cannot control. He trusts neither skill nor chance; his acts are orderly; and he expects a result that is common, which other men share with him. His fields may be more productive than his neighbour’s, but it is the harvest he must look to; the sun and rain will not come at irregular seasons to please him. That is St. Paul’s comparison in general. Let us ask more closely what seed he required the Corinthians to sow, and what harvest he encouraged them to hope for.
II. I am not eager to explain away the context. St. Paul did wish the Corinthians to collect for the poor, so let it be fully admitted that money was the seed, or part of the seed, which they were not to scatter sparingly. He does not indulge in refinements, and we must not if we are to understand him. He wanted them to give of their substance, their gold, and other things besides if they had them. But notice how much he says about cheerful giving, about not giving grudgingly or of necessity. So something was demanded of them not only besides the money but before it, and without it the precept would not be obeyed. St. Paul was sure the seed would be sown sparingly, capriciously and unprofitably unless something directed the sower’s hand. These were great demands: cheerfulness and a ready mind. How were they to be had? They do not come automatically with the possession of money; St. Paul hints that they often belong most to those who have least of it. Could calculation produce them? Suppose a man says to himself, “So much of this wealth I love must be given up, to avert a future penalty or win a future reward.” Would a cheerful will and ready mind be formed in him, at once or gradually? I think he would begin by grudging, and would grudge more with every effort to diminish his hoard. Under some great pang of conscience, with death staring him in the face, he might scatter freely: “It is worth any risk now. I may not enjoy my wealth long. Why not give it to the poor or the Church as well as to my heirs?” But how sure we are that this disposition lasts only as long as the terror! I do not say it is impossible to keep up a habit of fear, a pressure never quite unfelt. But those who say that such a process will produce the state of mind the Apostle demands are no practical people; they are wild dreamers. We credit this motive with an influence it cannot have in the nature of things, because we resolutely ignore another principle in ourselves and others, wholly unlike it and absolutely opposed to it. We do not acknowledge that a power is working on us to produce a ready and loving mind, and that our true thoughts and just acts come from it. We suppose instead that the wretched calculations which disturb and destroy the sincerity of our deeds are the springs of whatever is good in them.
It was not so with St. Paul. So I think this passage is entirely consistent with those which people have imagined it contradicts or qualifies. He assumes there is a Spirit of God, a Spirit of Love, stirring hearts that would of themselves be torpid into living energy, steady labour, and acts with no obvious immediate result. He bids them simply obey this Spirit. Then their acts will be simple and orderly, like the husbandman’s who casts seed into the ground, loses it from sight, and trusts it to secret powers he does not direct. They will not be like the wild hunter’s, who is always reckoning what he can get by his bow, who believes in no hidden, transmuting processes, who knows nothing of law or a lawgiver, and whose efforts are therefore poor, fragmentary and uncertain.
“Do not sow sparingly,” the Apostle seems to say. “Sow freely and ungrudgingly, for the free, ungrudging Spirit of God is working with you, to will and to do His good pleasure. You strive against Him and refuse to be the instruments of His loving purposes when you dole out with a niggardly hand what He has given you in trust for members of your own family. If you sow sparingly, you are not sowing as God sows. You are not acting as servants and children of the great Husbandman. You show that you think of Him as a taskmaster you are bargaining with, for whom you make sacrifices only because you expect to be paid.”
III. These are the inferences from the sowing clause. But what does he mean by the reaping? What are the rich results that follow free sowing, and the poor ones that follow a mean, grudging use of the seed? In this passage the Apostle gives little help. He takes it for granted that the Corinthians knew what to hope for; they had heard the Gospel to little purpose if they did not. His own words elsewhere, and still more our Lord’s, should remove all doubt.
1. First, Christ clearly promises very rich blessings to come from our fellow-creatures: “Give, and it shall be given you; full measure, pressed down, and running over, will men give into your bosoms.” The assurance is that those who have a free, uncalculating love in their hearts and show it in their acts will receive a larger return of the same. Those who, as He said at the same time, give “hoping for nothing again,” who have no notion of laying out capital to advantage but give their gold, their hearts, their very selves to those around them because they sympathize with them, will find a greater sympathy than they can dream of. The Apostles must often have felt that this promise, like others from One who does not deceive, was not being fulfilled. St. Paul complained to the Corinthians that the more he loved, the less he was loved. The preachers of the Gospel seemed hated because they carried a message of peace. They sustained themselves by remembering that the servant is not above the Master, that He who showed most love found most hatred, and that He said, “They have hated both me and my Father.” Through those words they learnt the truth of His others. They were sure the Divine Love had not been thrown away: if it called forth all that was most hostile to it, that was a homage to its power. In time it would also call forth, still more wonderfully, what corresponded to its own nature. Out of the hardest rock waters would gush when it was struck by the rod of the true guide and deliverer. If the Cross was the great sign of how men struggle against their dearest Friend, it would at last, He declared, draw all to itself. The Apostles knew what power of resistance to it lay in themselves, and they knew its mightier attraction. If in their own persons they felt the enmity it provoked, they also knew they were objects of an affection whose depth and height they could not measure. This affection might have been dangerous to them had it not been checked by many unfriendly, ungenial influences here; but they were sure it would have free scope when the vanity that perverted it into selfish gratification was burnt up, and when they understood and realized what here they believed: that they were members of one body, in which if one suffers all suffer and if one rejoices all rejoice. On the whole, then, this was a fruit they received imperfectly and might expect in fulness hereafter. But they could not produce or ripen it by making it the object of their speculations; so far as they did, they blighted it in the bud and brought barrenness and rottenness into the stock it grew from. If this is the reward we desire, the notion of earning it by merit must be diligently cast aside.
2. But our Lord held out another prize. “Fear not,” He said to St. Peter, astonished at the fishes that came into the net at His word, “henceforth ye shall catch men.” Peter had in his own heart many of the thoughts fostered in the Church that calls him its head, and in Churches that disclaim him. “We have left all, and followed thee,” he said, “what shall we have therefore?” He was told they should have more than they had left or knew of. But it was clear they must pass through a tremendous discipline, a fiery baptism, before they could receive the good things coming to them or even care to receive them. They had given up their father’s ship and their trade to do Christ’s work, and they thought that by and by they would get their wages and be allowed to rest. He never hinted at such happiness. Those who had used five talents or two well should have five or two more; they should rule over five cities or ten. The reward was fresh work, a larger sphere, a more responsible stewardship. To be distributors and doers of good was not a way of getting good for themselves; it was itself the good. If they did not enter into it, enjoy it and give thanks for it, but counted it taskwork to be endured for a time, they could not be ministers of the kingdom of Heaven or enter into the joy of their Lord. For the chief of all in that kingdom was the servant of all, and the joy of Christ was to do His Father’s will and finish His work. So the great gift of His Spirit was bestowed on the Apostles not as dismissal from labour but as qualification for it. By this Spirit they were to bear witness of Christ’s redemption, catch men, and gather out a Church. By it they were raised above the miserable question, “What shall we have then?” and felt that Selfishness is the great curse and damnation from which Christ came to free them; that Self-Sacrifice is the law of the Universe; that this part of the Universe is broken, divided and unhappy because we fight against that law and try to repeal it; and that it must be obeyed by all creatures in every region where Christ’s power is fully confessed and His Father worshipped as their Father.
3. Though continual increase of work is one part of Christ’s promise to His faithful disciples, He equally speaks of a Rest prepared for them, which they are to enter. In this world rest and work have sustained each other, and either without the other has been a curse. It must be so throughout the Universe He rules, who reveals Himself as creating all things, renewing them each day, and resting with delight in what He has made because it is very good. In no future condition under His law can there be a rest incompatible with activity, or an activity that does not imply rest and end in it. Scripture does not leave us ignorant of this rest: it speaks of it as the image of God’s own rest and satisfaction. We enter it in proportion as we know Him and are satisfied with what satisfies Him. Our fevers and restlessness do not come from too much toil; they beset those most who have most idleness. They come from a dream of something we are to get for ourselves, here or elsewhere, something necessary to our happiness which the Creator does not wish us to have and which we must somehow obtain in spite of His unwillingness. This craving, whether it takes a worldly or a religious form, whether it turns openly to earth or is nominally occupied with Heaven, must destroy peace, and must be inhuman and ungodly. For the peace of God which passes understanding is not a distant thing we must go up into the sky or down into Hell to find. It is with us continually, embracing us, the source of all that is harmonious in the lives and societies of men, reflected in the order of the outward world. And because it binds us together in one, the man who wants it for himself alone refuses it, while the man who would vindicate it for all men and invite all into it discovers its nature and begins to taste its blessedness. He does not strive with God but yields to Him, believes that His Will is the loving, preserving, restoring Will, and reposes in that.
I think then, my brethren, that today’s text, far from encouraging the doctrine St. Paul denounces elsewhere, is one of the best warnings against it. Once learn from him what seed God would have us sow and what harvest He would have us desire, and our dreams of meritorious services that earn eternal life will seem more monstrous than ever. And the practical English sense which the dealers in these false motives try to enlist will be found utterly to reject them. Plain, material gratifications that can be seized and bring a moment’s reward will not be given up for the dim possibility of some advantage in another existence. It is true that our language about rewards is fluctuating and confused; true that our benevolence is often uncertain and dilettante; true that the two are closely connected, perhaps as cause and effect. But it is not true that we are too opposed to the doctrine that men must be bribed to do right. We are afraid to dispense with bribes even when they plainly fail. We are afraid to tell men boldly that Selfishness is not the law of their lives, with every act of kindness and duty a graceful and meritorious departure from it. We are afraid to say that no man can live to himself or die to himself, however much he wishes it.
St. Paul held that opinion, and therefore exhorted the Corinthians to collect for the poor not as some act of virtue or sanctity but as part of their regular business, to be done as they sow the ground, care for their children, or pursue their common occupations. Caring for children and performing our duties as lawyers, physicians and tradesmen imply just as much a relation to other human beings, habitual obligations to them, and daily self-sacrifice as gifts to the poor do. Family, profession and trade will be neglected, just as the poor will, by any man who resolutely acts on the principle that he is sent into the world to care for himself. Let that principle be carried into practice as consistently as it is proclaimed in theory, let men become what they are always trying to become, and the work of the world is at an end. It is not Heaven we have given up; we have renounced the blessings of earth and fallen into a condition more savage than any yet known. Do you never fear this result? Are you not sometimes terrified by the indolence, purposelessness and hopelessness you see among young men? You want to make them work for any object, however poor or mean, and you cannot make your ends low enough. You try competition for immediate rewards; that fails, or succeeds only for a moment. You try competition for distant rewards and fear of distant punishments; that is less effective still. Oh, try one method more! Do not speak to the base, covetous spirit in man, which Christ came to cast out. Speak to what He came to rescue and redeem. Hold out to that a sure and certain hope, safer than the husbandman’s waiting for harvest. Speak of a Righteous Kingdom already established in the world. Say that it will assuredly be manifested whether we crave it or not. Say that in this Kingdom the great blessing is to work for a perfectly good and faithful Master, and to rest in His wisdom and truth. This is the message men want to hear. For in the idlest human being there is a crying for occupation and an impatience of the wretchedness of an idle day. There is a craving to know whether anyone will hire him, who He is, and what His vineyard is. In the most exclusive man there is a secret cry for a reward at the end of the day that is general, not special, not doled out by our narrow measure but according to the grace of Him who gives to all liberally and upbraids not. And in the most selfish man there is an inward feeling that Selfishness has been his torment, and that the Christ who breaks this yoke is the only Saviour of him and of the Universe.