Part 13

7. Why is it well to do good where there can be no hope of recompense?

8. Explain the answer of Jesus to Peter.

9. What is the nature of the reward worth while?

10. How shall we gain the reward worth while?

{243}

{244} PICTURE: THE WISE AND THE FOOLISH VIRGINS, Wainwright

{245}

XXXII

EXTRA SERVICE

Teaching further the nature of service, and what kind of service is pleasing to God, Jesus told His disciples the parable of the laborers in the vineyard.

[Sidenote: The parable of the laborers.]

"The kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the labourers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the market place, and said unto them: Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right I will give you. And they went their way. Again he went out about the sixth and ninth hour, and did likewise. And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why stand you here all the day idle? They say unto him, Because no man hath hired us. He saith unto them. Go ye also into the vineyard: and whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive.

"So when even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith unto his steward. Call the labourers, and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first. And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny. But when the first came, they supposed that they should have received more; and they likewise received every man a penny. And when they had received it, they murmured against the goodman of the house, saying. These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast {246} made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day.

"But he answered one of them, and said, Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for a penny? Take that thine is, and go thy way: I will give unto this last, even as unto thee. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good? So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called but few chosen."

[Sidenote: The value of service in the world's work.]

In the world's work, there are many today who become offended for the same reason that the laborers, who had borne the burden and the heat of the day, became offended. But that is because they do not understand the principle of service and wages. In every industrial or commercial institution rewards in the way of salary or promotion are made dependent, not upon the length of service, but upon the quality of service and the spirit put into the service. In a certain mercantile institution, for example--an institution with which you are perhaps all acquainted--there was employed not many years ago a young man of unusual ambition and energy. There were then in the department in which he was placed, men who had been in the employ of the institution for fifteen or twenty years. This young man gave value received in return for the compensation he was given. He put quality into his service; he put spirit into his service; he threw himself into his work body and soul. Before long, he was made head of the department. Those who had served for many years were offended, and murmured against the manager. But the reward came, as rewards worth while must {247} always come, for quality and spirit of service. The young man has continued to give to the institution the best that it was in him to give; he has continued, too, to advance; today he stands next to the superintendent, with the outlook that ere long, when the superintendent retires, he may become himself the superintendent. In the meantime, men of long years of service are still in the same positions that they held when this young man entered the employ of the institution. Promotion and reward are based on merit.

[Sidenote: The value of service in the Church.]

If we turn now to the spiritual life, we shall find that the same principle obtains. Length of membership, or service, in the Church does not assure exaltation. Indeed, there are many men in the Church who have belonged to it from childhood to a ripe old age, who may nevertheless receive a very meager compensation. Theirs has been a life of membership only. They have rendered little or no service; and such service as they have rendered has been of inferior quality and questionable spirit. In reward, they will receive whatsoever is right. On the other hand, men who have had the privilege of belonging to the Church in this life for only a short time may receive as large a reward as the others, or even a larger reward than theirs. For again, these members of few years, have in those few years rendered service of a quality far superior to that of those of long years of membership. In the spiritual life or in the temporal life it is true that one may hope to get in return only as much as one gives. It is a law of physics that action and reaction are equal and opposite. An adaptation of that law may be applied here. {248} When we enter into service, temporal or spiritual, our lord will give us whatsoever is right.

[Sidenote: The test of profitableness.]

A question like this may now arise in your minds: How shall we know whether or not our service is sufficient and adequate? Another parable of the Lord's will help us find the answer to the question. "Which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meat? And will not rather say unto him. Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken; and afterward thou shalt eat and drink? Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I trow (believe) not. So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do."

[Sidenote: The application to the day's work.]

In any position in life, there are certain duties which we are required to do. The cash-boy in the department store, the elevator boy, the clerk behind the counter, the stenographer in the manager's office, the bookkeeper, the what not, has each one a specified kind of work to do. But if each one does only that which he is required to do, no more, he is in a sense an unprofitable servant. He can lay claim to no special consideration, no special reward. But if one of them does more than merely what is required of him; if he comes early and stays late; if he plans and toils to make the business more attractive, more efficient; if he promotes business, then is he indeed a profitable servant. When we enter into {249} the employ of others, it is our duty to do faithfully all that is required of us; it is our privilege to give extra service, to make ourselves thoroughly useful and wholly efficient, to merit special consideration.

[Sidenote: The application to Church service.]

So is it also in the Church of Jesus Christ. There are many things we are required as members to do. It is our duty--and a duty full of pleasure it should be--to attend the regular services of the Church, to partake of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, to magnify one's calling in the priesthood, to give offerings cheerfully to help the poor, to pay tithing, and so forth. But if we do these things only, the duties required by virtue of membership, we do only the things commanded us to do. We may count ourselves unprofitable servants. To become profitable servants, we should look after the thousand and one other opportunities that lie about us. It is our privilege to perform extra service.

[Sidenote: An Exclamation against mere formal performance of duty.]

One day when Jesus was apparently wrought up by the hypocrisy of the scribes and the Pharisees, He exclaimed against them thus: "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone."

[Sidenote: A privilege to give extra service.]

It is right that we should pay our tithes and offerings, and attend to the duties of our membership. These ought we to do. But in doing them we ought not to leave undone other things that may possibly be of even greater weight in {250} the estimation of God. Reward cannot come merely because of length of service, but must come because of the quality and the spirit of the service. And to become truly profitable servants, we must seize every opportunity for extra service.

THE REFERENCES

Matt. 20:1-16. Luke 17:7-11.

Matt. 23:23.

THE QUESTIONS

1. On what terms were the laborers of the parable employed in the vineyard?

2. How can you justify the paying of the same wage to the laborers who were employed at the eleventh hour as to those who worked all day?

3. What is the application of the lesson of this parable to man's daily work?

4. What is its application to Church service?

5. How shall we know when our service is sufficient and adequate?

6. Why did Jesus condemn the scribes and the Pharisees?

7. Show that extra service is a privilege.

{251}

{252} PICTURE: CHRIST DRIVING OUT THE MONEY CHANGERS, Hofmann

{253}

XXXIII

A PROPHET IN HIS OWN COUNTRY

[Sidenote: A perfect man and an exemplary leader.]

In all the history of the world there has never been another man like Jesus, nor another mission like that which He performed. We have heard so much of the meekness and humility of Jesus, of His suffering all things and resenting nothing, of His going like a lamb to the slaughter, that many people have formed a picture of Jesus that is wholly unworthy of Him. Some of you, even, may possibly think of Jesus as a weak sort of man who takes all kinds of abuse. But such a conception of Jesus considers only one of the virtues in the man, and does not consider the whole man. Jesus was just such a man as every boy and girl delights to see. In body He was strong, robust, physically perfect, with a wholesomeness of body quite unequalled by any other man. No trial or hardship deterred Him from pushing forward to the goal on which He had fixed His mind. No danger daunted Him. For His spirit was as wholesome and as perfect as was His body. When He was aroused by righteous indignation. His fearlessness knew no bounds. Picture Him, for example, alone and unafraid, with a scourge in His hand, driving the money changers and the petty merchants out of His Father's house! In body and in spirit, Jesus was perfect--of the purest athletic type. But Jesus was also a perfect leader. Hence, He had Himself in perfect control. While He suffered pain as {254} do other men; while He experienced the thrill of affection and love as do other men; while He could become angry, and possessed the passions that other men do--yet He had so subdued the mortal in Him to the divine, that the baser nature never once gained power over the Son of God. In this He set us an example of how we should live. It was because of His perfect self-control that He appeared always as the meek and lowly Nazarene. It is not difficult to understand that such a man aroused the wonder and admiration of the people to whom He ministered. Such a man we ourselves delight to worship.

[Sidenote: A work full of wonder.]

The daily work of Jesus aroused as much wonder as did the physical and spiritual characteristics. His enemies even were constrained to admit that no other man ever spoke with such power and authority as did Jesus. And certainly, no other man has ever displayed such divine power as did Jesus. Throughout Judea, Samaria and Galilee, Jesus demonstrated His marvelous power and authority in healing the sick, in restoring the halt and the maimed, in quieting the storm, and even in raising the dead. It was, indeed, a marvelous work and a wonder. It reads almost like a fairy tale. And yet these things Jesus, the Son of God, actually did. In this lesson, we shall consider briefly some of the statements of the strange miracles Jesus performed.

[Sidenote: A healer and worker of miracles.]

While laboring in Galilee, Jesus performed an untold number of miracles. Mark tells us how the fame of Jesus as a miracle worker had spread abroad, {255} and how the afflicted flocked to Him. One day, when the offended Pharisees and Herodians were taking counsel against Him, Jesus withdrew Himself with His disciples to the sea: and a great multitude from Galilee followed Him, and from Judea, and from Jerusalem, and from Idumaea, and from beyond Jordan; and they about Tyre and Sidon, a great multitude, when they had heard what great things He did, came unto Him. And He spake to His disciples, that a small ship should wait on Him because of the multitude, lest they should throng Him. For He had healed many; insomuch that they pressed upon Him for to touch Him, as many as had plagues. And unclean spirits, when they saw Him, fell down before Him, and cried, saying, Thou art the Son of God. And He straitly charged them that they should not make Him known."

[Sidenote: The conditions in Palestine.]

With a little exercise of the imagination, you can easily visualize the remarkable scene described thus vividly by St. Mark. But in order to understand how such a condition could be possible it becomes necessary to know something about Galilee in the time of Jesus. Historians agree in telling us that ever since the days of Alexander the Great, all the vice and the wickedness of both the East and the West had literally poured into Palestine. The land of the chosen people had become corrupt, as had the chosen people themselves. Their bodies had become afflicted and their minds diseased through habits of wrong living and wrong thinking. Beggars were as common as the turns in the roadway; and nearly every beggar was distorted by some {256} terrible and loathsome disease. The insane, and those possessed of evil spirits, were almost without number. Their condition, too, was pitiable. In all the land that was blessed by God to become the home of His own people, there was no one to help the unfortunates. Instead of a land flowing with milk and honey, it had become a land poisoned with vice and corruption.

[Sidenote: A mission of love.]

It was into such a land, and amongst such a people, that the physically and spiritually perfect Jesus came to minister. Devoted to a mission of love. Jesus turned the strength of His own perfection and the power of His divine authority to the healing of the sick and afflicted, to the assuaging of the sufferings of the poor, and to the saving of the ignorant. It was a manifestation of divine power and compassion, without thought of reward or honor, for He always charged those to whom He ministered, "See that thou tell no man."

We have neither time nor space to consider the miracles of Jesus in detail. Let us read only three. The first exhibits the power of Jesus over physical illness; the second, His power over nature and the elements; the third. His power over death itself.

[Sidenote: The centurion's servant.]

"When Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto Him a centurion, beseeching Him, and saying. Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented. And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him. The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldst come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be {257} healed. For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. When Jesus heard it, He marvelled, and said to them that followed. Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.... And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour."

[Sidenote: Stilling the tempest.]

"When the even was come. He saith unto them. Let us pass over unto the other side. And when they had sent away the multitude, they took Him even as He was in the ship: and there were also with Him other little ships. And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full. And He was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake Him, and say unto Him, Master, carest Thou not that we perish? And He arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea. Peace be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. And He said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith? And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another. What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?"

[Sidenote: The raising of Lazarus.]

"Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead; and I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe; nevertheless let us go unto him. . . . Then when Jesus came, He found that he had lain in the grave four days already. . . . Then when Mary was {258} come where Jesus was, and saw Him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto Him, Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, He groaned in the spirit, and was troubled, and said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto Him, Lord, come and see. Jesus wept. Then said the Jews, Behold how He loved him! And some of them said, Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died? Jesus therefore again groaning in Himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. Jesus said. Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto Him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days. Jesus saith unto her. Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldst believe, thou shouldst see the glory of God? Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up His eyes, and said. Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard me. And I knew that Thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that Thou hast sent me. And when He thus had spoken, He cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them. Loose him, and let him go."

More marvelous power than that recorded in these three instances cannot be imagined. Our admiration is wrought up to the highest point; and in imagination {259} we see the strong, pure, healthy and wholesome Man, giving freely of His strength and life-force to those who come to Him, ministering to them, and saving them from their own evil lives and evil habits of thought. We wonder that there could be anyone who would reject such a Leader.

[Sidenote: In His own country.]

And yet, when He left the seashore and returned to Nazareth and His own country, Jesus was rejected by His own. "When the sabbath day was come, He began to teach in the synagogue: and many hearing Him were astonished, saying, From whence hath this man these things? and what wisdom is this which is given unto Him, that even such mighty works are wrought by His hands? Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? And are not His sisters here with us? And they were offended at Him.

"But Jesus said unto them, A Prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house. And He could there do no mighty work, save that He laid His hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them. And He marvelled because of their unbelief."

THE REFERENCES

Mark 3:7-12 Matt. 8:5-10, 13.

Mark 4:33-41. John 11:1-44.

Mark 6:1-6.

{260} THE QUESTIONS

1. What kind of man was Jesus physically?

2. What kind of man was Jesus spiritually?

3. What quality made Jesus a great leader?

4. What was the condition of Galilee--and all Palestine--at the time of Jesus?

5. How did Jesus manifest His divine power?

6. Describe some miracles wrought by Jesus.

7. Why is it surprising that all Palestine did not believe in Him, and accept Him?

8. What principle did Jesus teach concerning a prophet in his own country?

9. Why could Jesus do no mighty work in His own country?

{261}

{262} PICTURE: JESUS HEALING THE SICK, Schoenherr

{263}

XXXIV

THE MEANING OF MIRACLES

After reading of the wonderful miracles that Jesus performed in Galilee, one begins to wonder what a miracle really is. One begins to wonder by what power a miracle is performed. The miracles of Jesus are in the main so unusual, so extraordinary, so apparently in violation of all known laws of nature, that one begins almost to wonder how Jesus could upset the laws of nature.

[Sidenote: The explanation of the scribes.]

Apparently, Jesus's marvelous miracle-working power puzzled the people of His own generation. They knew little of the laws of nature, of course. They had been taught to believe in the possibility of miracles. But they were loath to grant any degree of divine power to Jesus. Hence, on one occasion, "the scribes which came down from Jerusalem said, He hath Beelzebub, and by the prince of the devils casteth he out devils." Of course, such a suggestion was absurd. Jesus Himself said to His disciples, "How can Satan cast out Satan? And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan rise up against himself, and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end." To this argument, there is, of course, no answer. It proves conclusively, that Jesus did not perform miracles through the power of Beelzebub. What a miracle is, by what power it is performed and why miracles are permitted, are questions that we shall consider in this lesson.

{264} [Sidenote: The universal presence of law.]

Let us consider first, then, what a miracle really is. As a matter of fact, a miracle is never an act accomplished in violation of law. You must understand that the universe is ruled by law. Everything that happens, happens through the operation of law. If we live wisely--eat right and think right--then it follows by the law of nature that we shall have strong, wholesome bodies like the Christ's, and clear, active minds like His. But if we violate the rules of right living, then come certain laws of retribution, and we are made to pay the penalty of our wrongdoing And so it is throughout the universe The heavenly bodies are directed and governed by law; God's creatures everywhere are subject to law; the earth on which we dwell, with the strange and marvelous and mighty phenomena which we here daily observe, is a product of law. Would it not be inconsistent, then, to think that Jesus--who is Himself the God of law--should work in violation of law? His own words in refutation of the statement of the scribes that He was in league with Beelzebub, is a sufficient answer to such a supposition. "If a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand." We must conclude, therefore, that a miracle, no matter how unnatural it may seem, is accomplished through the operation of some law of the universe. Yet, how can this be true, when some miracles that are well authenticated seem to be so utterly in violation of the laws of nature known to us?

[Sidenote: The miracle of the telephone.]