Sermons from the Latins/Sermon 21
Fourth Sunday of Lent.
The Duties of Wealth.
"And Jesus, seeing the multitudes, had compassion on them, and said to His disciples: Give ye them to eat" — Matt. xiv. 14, 16.
SYNOPSIS.
Ex. : I. Argument for Divinity. II. Christ's magnetism.
I. Christ's goodness: 1. Hardships and disappointments. 2. Uncharitable rich. 3. Philip's protest.
II. Postprandial: 1. Why gather fragments? 2. Man insatiable. 3. Superfluous wealth.
III. Objections : 1. Vices of poor. 2. Miseries of poor. 3. Three Gospel millionaires.
Per. : 1. Kings Jesus and Herod. 2. Sequel. 3. True fame and reward.
SERMON.
Brethren, in the miraculous multiplication of the loaves and fishes I see many lessons as beautiful as they are useful. I find there an answer to the modern infidel who impugns Christ's divinity. When the Greek painter Apelles visited the studio of the artist Protogenes during the latter's absence, he simply drew on the canvas a single line of such exquisite delicacy and proportions that on returning and seeing it, Protogenes immediately exclaimed: " Apelles hath been here, for by one hand alone could that have been executed." In the stupendous miracle to-day recorded, the people seeing unmistakably the hand of God, cried: " This is indeed the Promised One — the Messias" — and they hailed Him as their King. Again in this history I see an instance of Christ's wondrous power over the minds and hearts of men. Orpheus, they say, moved rocks and trees by the magic of his music, and birds and beasts were tamed by the eloquence of Francis of Assisi, but the music of Christ's speech was more alluring still, for it held even His enemies spellbound — it led captivity captive. Wiser than Solomon, more eloquent than Demosthenes, never did man speak as He, and hence the thousands, forgetful of all else, followed Him far into the wilderness. But the lesson I would set before you to-day deals not with Christ's almighty power in deed or word; rather it concerns His sublime unselfishness, and His tender sympathy with the needy and unfortunate. Seeing the multitudes, He had compassion on them and said to His disciples: " Give ye them to eat."
Brethren, for some weeks previously so busy had been Christ and His disciples in and around Capharnaum, preaching and healing, that the Gospel says they had had scarcely time to eat. Hence it was that Jesus gently drew His immediate followers apart, and embarking sailed with them across Genesareth to the opposite shore. But the thousands in Capharnaum, bound for the Passover at Jerusalem, were not to be denied. Hurrying as best they could around the lake's northern shore, they presently arrived at the mount to which the little band had retired for rest and nourishment. Brief rest, slight nourishment, for immediately they descend and resume their labors. It is worthy of notice that the Hebrew words used to describe the provisions the Apostles had carried with them indicate that the five barley loaves were of the cheapest kind, and the two fishes a species of sardine. So fared the God-man, though His was the earth and the fulness thereof. And that such austerity was His rule of life is further proved from the fact that when after His Resurrection He reappeared on Genesareth's shore, His preparing for them the selfsame meal, regardless of the splendid fish miraculously caught, was to them sufficient proof of His identity. Yet, though the loaves and fishes are their all, they grudge them not to the hungry multitudes. Ah, Brethren, what lessons here for all of us! What selfsacrifice in the cause of humanity, no matter how discouraging the results! His mission to Nazareth had been fruitless, they had rejected and sought to kill Him. Capharnaum had followed Him because it saw the miracles He did; and this vast multitude, because they have eaten of the loaves and fishes, call Him Prophet and hail Him as their King. Seeing, they see not, and hearing, they do not understand, for the one return He craves they fail to give; viz., faith in His divinity. That, and that alone, was all He sought, but from first to last, from His rejection by the Nazarenes to His weeping over Jerusalem, His search was one long disappointment. Yet despite ingratitude and unbelief He moves among them as untiringly and impartially as the sun that shines alike on good and bad, feeding the famished, and healing the afflicted. Oh, how many there are, who, placed by God securely on the mountain of prosperity, shamefully forget the starving multitudes below. Selfishly they take their ease, wallowing in luxury, with never a thought of their sacred obligations. Christ stands between them and the throng, and begs with outstretched hands for bread that His poor may eat. What answer does He get? Do they with childlike faith place at His feet their all? Do they remember that their riches should constitute them Christ's disciples? Do they return the wealth He gave them that He may bless and break and distribute to the needy? Alas! alas! They turn their backs on Him and them. " Send them away," they say to Him, " this horrid rabble, bid them begone and get a meal as best they may. It is an outrage to bring them clamoring here, disturbing our aristocratic quiet, marring the beauty of the landscape, trampling our parks and lawns. What! feed a throng like that! Consider the expenses of my city palace and my country villa, my crowded stables and my kennel of dogs; see the outlay for my wine-cellar, our dinners, our theatre-parties, our trips abroad, our jewels and finery — why, I have not a cent to spare nor a crumb for your ragged mob." Thus once on a time spoke Dives to the starving Lazarus, and Dives in consequence was buried in hell. So acted Judas when he clutched the purse and tied the strings and swore his Master should not have two hundred pennies wherewith to purchase bread, — and Judas, you know, was a thief, and presently betrayed his Master for money and finally hanged himself. So, too, the uncharitable rich are thieves who appropriate the wealth confided to them by God on behalf of His poor. They are unjust stewards and I say to you, God's wrath shall hold them prisoner; aye, and sell them with their wives and children into slavery to the devil till the last farthing of restitution has been made. Christians, forsooth! If a brother or sister be naked and want daily food and the rich man say: " Go in peace, be ye warmed and filled," yet give them not the necessaries of life, is that Christ's teaching and example? To have the substance of this world, and to see one's brother in need and to steel one's heart against him, is that what Christianity means? Ah, no! for "in this," says St. John, "we know the charity of God, because He hath laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down not only our wealth, but, were it necessary, even our lives for the brethren." Go to, therefore, ye rich, weep and howl in the miseries that shall come upon you when your riches shall be corrupted, your garments moth-eaten, your gold and silver cankered, and when the rust of them shall be for a testimony against you and shall eat your flesh like fire. You have stored up to yourselves God's wrath, for the cry of the poor you have defrauded hath entered into the ears of the Lord God of Sabaoth. But, to be Christian, must we, like Andrew, relinquish all? Is mot Philip's hesitancy justifiable, for what indeed is the little we can afford among so many? Oh, self, self, how cunningly it argues! "Bring hither the loaves and fishes," said Christ, " and bid the men be seated." Give according to thy means and leave the rest to Him. Give not through pride or vanity or hope of gain, else your largest contribution will be small and little pleasing to the Saviour. But giving what you can, however little, give it with love of Him and His into Jesus' hands, and rest assured it will be multiplied indefinitely for you and them. Give with purest motives and with confidence. Pure motives will make the giving of even a cup of water meritorious of eternal life, and confidence in giving becomes faith. Fear not that poverty will overtake your generosity, for whosoever gives to the poor is creditor to the Lord, and is sure to be repaid a hundredfold. If you cast your bread on the human stream, you are sure to recover it — twelve baskets for five barley loaves — good measure, pressed down and shaken together and running over will God give into your bosom.
Brethren, when the wondrous banquet was ended, Christ said to His disciples: " Gather up the fragments that remain, lest they be lost." Doubtless there was little danger of their being lost, for the people would gladly have hoarded them against the morrow's needs. But the Master wished it otherwise. His lesson in altruism is for all, disciples and people alike. He bade His followers give their all to the hungry throng, and now He teaches the multitude to do to others as they have been done by. The object-lesson was one not only of unselfishness, but also of faith, of trust in God. It was as though He said: "Be not solicitous for the morrow. Your heavenly Father, who feeds the birds and clothes the lilies, is conscious of your needs. Give and it shall be given you again, aye, twelve teeming baskets for your humble loaves and tiny fishes." With shame be it confessed, that the law of satiety holds good in every creature of God save man. The clouds rain down their surplus moisture, and lea and furrow drink their fill and pass along the residue to the parched plain. The blade and tree absorb but their share of nourishment from the soil, and the well-fed kine wander off leaving the manger unguarded. Man alone, though satisfied, can never be satiated. His lust for possession is all-absorbing. Possession, do I say? Dominion rather; for the most universal and stubborn error the world has ever known is that men are absolute masters of all they possess. Such detestable doctrine needs no refutation. God is, and His is the earth and the fulness thereof, and to Him each must render account of his stewardship. In the divine plan all are amply provided for. The rich from their riches may appropriate sufficient for their needs, " but that which remaineth," says Christ, " give alms." By every right of charity and justice the world's superfluous wealth belongs to the poor, and to deny assistance in cases of dire necessity is a crime against high heaven. The cry of the poor for help is simply the voice of God asking for His own. For Christ identified Himself with them in the words: "Whatsoever you do unto them, you do likewise unto Me."
Brethren, some will call this doctrine communistic, and point you to the improvidence and vices of the poor, but if to echo Christ is communistic, then Communists let us be. Neither do we deny that the needy are oftentimes to blame for their condition, but God forbid we should trouble poor Lazarus about the mote in his eye as long as Dives' sports such a monstrous beam. Most of the poor man's vices are superinduced by his very poverty, and are in a measure attributable to those who could afford, but refuse, him relief. All men have faults, but the wage-earner has this to his credit that his life is one long purgatory. Though the rich man's wealth results from the poor man's toil, yet how often the toiler's fate is little better than that of the fowl that laid the golden eggs. -Society is like a tree of which the laborers are the roots buried in the soil, deprived of the joy, the light, the liberty of God's fair creation, but sustaining withal and nourishing the upper limbs with their gay blossoms and rich fruits. They are the feet of the social Colossus, indispensable alike to the stomach and the head; yet how often do they go bare and bleeding! What wonder that the cold rises betimes from them to the entire body politic, and works the death of society through some mad revolutionary upheaval! For if the poor have their duties toward the rich, the rich also have their sacred obligations toward the poor that cannot be ignored. They should do on earth what the sun does in the heavens — diffuse the light and warmth of worldly comforts among the lesser bodies. They should be the great arteries of society conducting God's munificence to every dependent member of humanity. Such must have been the Creator's social plan; else we might conclude that, though providing for the lilies, birds, and beasts, His fatherly solicitude is not concerned with the helpless poor. Reason and nature-study will convince the veriest Pagan of the duties of superfluous wealth. And for Christians, oh, in the face of Christ's teaching and example, can there be a doubt? Alas! whether it be doubt or niggardliness, it often happens that more shaking is required in a Christian than a Pagan, in a Catholic than a Protestant, land to bring down the fruit from the tree. . Did Christ but come to-day He could find full many a barren tree to disappoint Him and evoke His curse. Multi-millionairism and direst poverty are most conspicuous to-day in Christian countries. Why? Because they are correlatives, and because our moneyed men are only nominally Christian. Were they sincerely such they would be guided by Christ's commentaries on their Gospel prototypes. In the Gospel there figure three multi-millionaires. The first, the good young man, whom Jesus loved, the would-be Apostle, who nevertheless when bidden to give his millions to the poor, sadly turned away. He represents to us the spiritual disadvantages inseparable from the mere possession of wealth, whereby even the best of men are not only excluded from the number of Christ's immediate followers, but also, as Christ said, find it as difficult to even enter heaven as a camel does to pass through the eye of a needle. The second multi-millionaire is he whose possessions so increased that his sole concern was to build larger storehouses, that, having laid up much goods for many years he might take his rest and eat and drink and make merry. But no sooner was his plan accomplished than God said to him: "Thou fool ! this very night do I demand thy soul of thee." Why was God so harsh with him? We do not read that his riches were ill-gotten, or that he turned away the needy. His crime was forgetfulness of others, selfishness, because, says Christ, " he laid up treasures for himself and was not rich towards God," and God's earthly representatives, the poor. The last and worst of the Gospel millionaires was Dives. He clothed himself in purple and fine linen and feasted sumptuously every day, but never a crumb would he give to Lazarus, dying of starvation on his doorstep. But Dives died and was buried in hell. Brethren, there is never a modern millionaire but can find his prototype in one of the Gospel three. Be it that riches are his only fault; belong he to the selfish class, or the unmerciful, he is sure to learn in the history of these three what Christ thinks of him and what will probably be his fate hereafter. Thou art not worthy to be My disciple; this night do I demand thy soul of thee; and judgment without mercy to him that hath not done mercy.
Brethren, go back in thought to Jesus amid the throng, the miraculous banquet ended, blessing them, and with a gracious smile bidding them go in peace. What a contrast between that feast and that other just then being celebrated in King Herod's palace in honor of himself — his birthday. Lavish expenditure, sinful luxury, incest, with never a thought of the poor without. Contrast the sequel of each event. King Jesus spends the night in prayer upon the mountainside, and when the winds and waves arise He comes walking on the water and stills the sea and saves His shipwrecked followers. King Herod, drunk with wine and pleasure, swears to give his shameless niece her will, be it half his kingdom, and at her word presents her on a dish the head of the murdered Baptist. A striking lesson this as to the results of the use and abuse of wealth. For Christ is King to-day, and Herod and his house but an odious remembrance. To the selfish rich their wealth eventually proves a curse, and their names and memories are held in universal execration, but the generous giver stills the turbulence of the masses and becomes a second saviour of his people. " All the Church of the Saints shall declare his alms," says Scripture. Almsgiving is the surest guarantee of undying fame here and of rich reward hereafter, for " blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy."