Yes—every time we perform an act of kindness to any human being, aye, even to a dumb animal; every time we conquer our own worldliness, love of pleasure, ease, praise, ambition, money, for the sake of doing what our conscience tells us to be our duty, we are indeed worshipping God the Father in spirit and in truth, and offering him a sacrifice which He will surely accept, for the sake of His beloved Son, by whose spirit all good deeds and thoughts are inspired.
Think of these things, my friends, always, but, above all, think of them as often as you come—as would to God all would come—to the altar of the Lord, and the Holy Communion of His body and blood. For there, indeed, you render to God that which is God’s—namely, yourselves; there you offer to God the true sacrifice, which is the sacrifice of yourselves—the sacrifice of repentance, the sacrifice of thanksgiving, the sacrifice of righteousness, or at least of hunger and thirst after righteousness; and there you receive in return your share of God’s sacrifice, the sacrifice which you did not make for Him, but which He made for you, when He spared not His only-begotten Son but freely gave Him for us.
That is the sacrifice of all sacrifices, the wonder of all wonders, the mystery of all mysteries; and it is also the righteousness of all righteousness, the generosity of all generosity, the nobleness of all nobleness, the beauty of all beauty, the love of all love. Thinking of that, beholding in that bread and wine the tokens of the boundless love of God, then surely, surely, our repentance for past follies, our thankfulness for present blessings, our longing to be good, pure, useful, humane, generous, high-minded—in one word, to be holy—ought to rise up in us, into a passion, as it were, of noble shame at our own selfishness, and admiration of God’s unselfishness, a longing to follow His divine example, and to live, not for ourselves, but for our fellow-men. If we could but once understand the full meaning of those awful yet glorious words, “He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” then, indeed, we should understand that the one overpowering reason for being unselfish and doing good is this—that we are God’s children, and that God our Father is utterly unselfish, and utterly does good, even at the sacrifice of Himself; and that therefore when we are unselfish, and do good, even at the sacrifice of ourselves, we do indeed, in spirit and in truth, “render unto God the things that are God’s.”
SERMON XLII. THE UNJUST STEWARD
Eversley, 1866. NINTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.
Luke xvi. 8. “And the Lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely.”
None of our Lord’s parables has been as difficult to explain as this one. Learned and pious men have confessed freely, in all ages, that there is much in the parable which they cannot understand; and I am bound to confess the same. The puzzle is, plainly, why our Lord should seem to bid us to copy the conduct of a bad man and a cheat. For this is the usual interpretation. The steward has been cheating his master already. When he is found out and about to be dismissed, he cheats his master still further, by telling his debtors to cheat, and so wins favour with them.
But does our Lord bid us copy a cheat? I cannot believe that; and the text I should have said ought to give us a very different notion. We read that the lord—that is, the steward’s master—commended the unjust steward. What? Commended him for cheating him a second time, and teaching his debtors to cheat him? He must have been a man of a strange character—very unlike any man whom we know, or, at all events, any man whom we should wish to know—to have done that. But it is said—he commended him for having acted wisely. Now that word “wisely” may merely mean prudently, sensibly, and with common sense. But if the master thought that to cheat, or to teach others to cheat, was acting either wisely or prudently, then he was a very foolish and short-sighted man, and altogether mistaken. For be sure and certain, and settle it in your minds, that neither falsehood or dishonesty is ever either wise or prudent, but short-sighted, foolish, certain to punish itself. Such teaching is totally contrary to our Lord’s own teaching. Agree with thine adversary quickly, He says, while thou art in the way with him, lest he deliver thee to the Judge. If thou hast done wrong, right it again as soon as possible; for your sin will surely find you out, and avenge itself. Give the devil his due, says the good old proverb. Pay him at once and be done with him: but never think to escape out of his clutches, as too many wretched and foolish sinners do, by running up a fresh score with him, and trying to hide old sins by new ones. Be sure that if the steward cheated his master a second time, the master was foolish and mistaken, and as it were a partner in the steward’s sin by commending him. But if so; why does our Lord mention it? What had our Lord to do, what have we to do, with the opinion of so foolish a man?
It seems to me that the only reason for our Lord’s using the words of the text, must be, that the master was right, not wrong, in commending the steward. But it seems to me, also, that the master could be right only, if the steward was right also—if the steward had done the right and just thing at last, and, instead of cheating his master a second time, had done his best to make restitution for his own sins.
But how could that be? We know nothing of what these debtors were. All we know is that one believed that he owed the Lord a hundred measures of oil; and another believed that he owed him a hundred measures of wheat; and that the steward told one to put down in his bill eighty, and the other fifty. Now suppose that the steward had been cheating and oppressing these men, as was common enough in those days with stewards, and has been common enough since; suppose that he had been charging them more than they really owed, and, it may be, putting the surplus into his own pocket, and so wasting his master’s goods—that the one really owed only eighty measures of oil, and the other really owed only fifty of wheat; what could be more simple, or more truly wise either, when he was found out, than to do this—to go round to the debtors and confess: I have been overcharging you; you do not owe what I have demanded of you; take your bill and write four-score, for that is what you really owe?