SUNDAY READING

Taranaki Daily News, 8 March 1924, Page 11

SUNDAY READING

(Sy

Rev. A. H. Collins.)

THE HARVEST FIELD. “The field ia the world; and the , good seed are the sons of the Kingdom; and the tares are the sons of the Evil One; and the enemy that sowed them is the Deyjl; and the harvest is the end of the world.”— Saint. Matt, xiii., 38, 39.

The parables of Jesus are “nature studies” par excellence, shrewd and piercing interpretations of the sacramental meaning of common things. If we could see Nature as Christ saw it we should never look on garden and field without receiving some message of our Heavenly Father’s wisdom and love. Commonest objects spoke to Him on highest things. He saw Heaven mirrored in the wayside flower. He heard the voice of God in the twitter of birds. Harvests were homilies. Fields of wheat wefe fall of wisdom. Stalks of grain had tongues as well'as ears. The dullest objects were clear enough to reflect some thought of God, and grand enough to point heavenward, like cathedral spires. Earth bore the footprints of the Great Creator. The parable of the sower is one of the liveliest of these Nature studies. With a corn field as His text —a corn field and a sower —He preached a sermon which has passed into the thought of the world and been applied in a hundred ways. We call our schools and college* “seminaries” or seed plots. We speak of “disseminating” the truth, which is only another way of saying we sow the seed. We refer to (those who “sow righteousness” and alas! of some who “sow their wild oats.” We are constantly reminded that thoughts, words, deeds, bear harvests. In this way we recognise that the husbandman's calling supplies symbols of spiritual laws and lessons.

TRAGEDY OF THE SOIL. It is striking to note how Christ identifies Himself with the farmer and his varying fortune. “H e that soweth the good seed is the Son of Man.” And yet how scant the harvest he reaped! How much of His teaching seemed to come to naught! He knew the tragedy of the soil choked with 7 thorns; the soil that had no depth; the seed filched by the birds, and the ground stamped hard by .hurrying feet. “Only preach the Gospel and you will not lack hearers and converts,” say some. It isn’t true. The experience of Christ disproves the shallow judgment. He preached the good news of the Kingdom, with infinite fidelity, and infinite charm, and at the of the day the result He reaped would have, dissatisfied the statistical fiend, and the same has been true of many of His most faithful servants. Let discouraged teachers plod on. It is not the sower of the seed that explains the scanty harvest; it is the soil; it is not the preaching but the hearing that ia at fault.

“The field is the world,” said Christ. That is how He interpreted His sphere. The world! But what is a field? Ask the sport, and he will tell you it is so much land set apart for a game. Ask the land shark, and he will tell you it is a desirable area waiting the advent of the speculator. Ask the artist, and you will find he is thinking of it in terms of the landscape. Ask the agricultural chemist, and he speaks of it as a mine of wealth for the skilful farmer. Let him slay the weeds and clean the land, and sow it, and the wind and the sun will make the wilderness to blossom. Jesus Christ’s view ia different. “The field is the world.”

( RESERVOIR OF LIVING POWERS. Humanity is not a dead, dull, irresponsible mass of matter. The world is alive. It is charged with vital forces. Rightly used, it will yield harvests of wealth and blessing. It isn’t like an iron plate in which the seed is cast and remains unchanged. It isn’t a brick floor from which the seed can be swept. It isn’t only a trampled road on which the seed lies till .the birds make a meal of it; or a granary where the seed is simply hoarded. Humanity i§ a field—■ a vast feservoir of living power—it is alive, it throbs with loves and hates, with faith and doubts, with hopes and fears, with conscience and a will. Bad as human nature is—and Jesus knew all that can be said on that subject—He nevertheless saw. humanity as a field; sometimes overrun with thorns, sown with deadly charnal, unfenced and neglected; yet still a field that is capable of yielding, some thirty, some sixty, and some a hundred fold. “The field is the world.” This is Christ’s view o»f humanity. This is His answer to the question, What does life mean? This is Christ's philosophy of life. Life is a field, a vast store of wonderful powers and possibilities, of truth and goodness, and rightly used life will yield profit to God and man. Saint Paul caught* and expressed the idea in a noble passage. “’For all creation, gazing eagerly as with outstretched neck, is waiting and longing to see the manifestation of the soirt of God. For the creaton fell into subjection to failure and unreality, yet there was always the hope that at last the creation would also be set free from the thralldom to decay, so as to enjoy the liberty that will attend the glory of the sons of God.” Because Saint Paul believed that, he sowed the seeds of the Gospel in the hearts of men; sowed it in all soil from Jerusalem round about Illyricum, and even as far as Spain and Britain. Apollos watered the seed and God gave the increase in regenerated lives. John Wesley caught the same cosmic view, and regarded “the world as his parish.” “The field is the world.” That’s why we cannot help being missi£ftiaries, once w e have caught Christ’s viewpoint.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. I am not hawking for flies. I am stressing a truth of the greatest importance. Every man has his philosophy of life, consciously or unconsciously. Some see life through mists and clouds, and some see it in clearer outline, but in each case his philosophy counts, for life is apt to become what we think it to be. Chesterton states the truth in

PERSONAL FORCE MAKES PROGRESS.

a paradoxical way. He says, “There are some people, and I am one of them; who thinnk that the most important and practical thing about a man is still ‘his view of the universe. We think that for a landlady considering a lodger, it is important to know his income, but it is still more important to know his philosophy. We think that for a general who is about to fight an enemy, it is important to know the enemy’s numbers, but it is still more important to know his philosophy. We think the question is not whether his theory of the cosmos matters, but whether in the end anything else matters. “Your view of life shapes your action. Now have we adopted Christ’s view of life? Do we. believe in man? We believe in his sin, we cannot help it; but do we believe in the sublime spiritual possibilities of man, both here and hereafter? Do we, as Jesus did, see the angel in the child, the saint in the sinner, the son in the prodigal? Do we reverence humanity, in all its members?* Are we aware how near we are to God, when we grasp the hand of a man? Do we live and act in the confidence that the human soul is fitted and capable of receiving and using and living the full, rich, life of God? “The field is the w’orld.”

The second thing Christ said is equally striking. “The good seed are the sons of the Kingdom.” The good seed is not dogma or creed but,persons; not words but spirit. Human life climbs and the Kingdom of God grows by means of those who know God's will and keep His commandments, and are willing to suffer and serve God. “Produce persons and the rest follows,” cries Walt Whitman. That is the sum of history. Produce Moses and the prophets of Israel follow. Produce Paul and the rest of the Apostles and a new era dawns. Produce Luther and you have the Refoqnation. Produce John Wesley and the Evangelical Revival is assured. Produce William Carey and modern missions are inevitable. That is the law. Progress is by ' means of personal force. It is the man the good man, full of the Holy Ghost, that really tells on the progress of the world. Originally Christianity conquered the ancient world by means of men and women, who had been conquered by Jesus Christ. The church had nothing else, not wealth, or scholarship, or social prestige or numbers, but just saved men and women. But they were proud to bear the marks of the Lord Jesus, strong to suffer, and brave to die. The one unanswerable argument for Christianity is a good man. The truest defences of the Gospel is a life surrendered to God. There is no witness like a redeemed soul. Produce converts, and-the rest follows; cease to produce converts and society reverts to barbarism. GOOD SEED MUST BE SOWN. Kingdoms fall for lack of men. The hackneyed example is Rome, but the same is true of all nations. Spain got rid of the Moors and the Jews and ruin followed their compulsory exile. France drove out the Hugenots and suffered for centuries. America gave asylum to the men of “The Mayflower,” and a new, free nation leaped to empire/’ The good seed are the sons of the Kingdom.” But the seed must be sown: for “except a corn of wheat die it abideth alone”; but scatter it, fling it into the sepulchre of the sod, and as you do so it will say “When 1 come again 1 will repay thee.” Love life and you will lose it. Lie warm and snug, like a poodle, before a winter fire;/gather like a squirrel, build like a beaver, hoard like a bee, and life will mock you; but invest your life in the life of the world and “ye shall reap if ye faint not.”

“The good |eed are the sons of the Kingdom.” With amazing faith Christ committed His cause to the care of men. Someone has imagined the amazement among the hosts of heaven at this sublime act of daring. Gabriel greets the Victor returning from His awful conflict, and rejoices in the victory He has won. But Gabriel asks, “Lord, have you safeguarded your costly victory? Have you insured the good news will go round th e world? What precautions have you taken?” and Christ made quiet answer. "I have told Peter and John and the others about it. 1 opened my mind and heart to Mary and Martha.” "But, Lord, suppose they forget and fail you. Have you taken no further precautions?'' "No. I have no other plan. Peter and John and the others will tell their friends, and their friends will tell their friends, and so the news will travel round the globe, until the Kingdom come.”

GOD’S FAITH IN MAN. We speak of man's faith in God; but think of God’s faith in man! Why, He has staked everything on man! When Christ said, '‘the harvest is the end of the world,” He struck a grave note, but He did not mean that the end of the world is the only harvest. Men are constantly reaping the fruit of their deeds, good and ill. Longfellow sings of an archer who shot an arrow in the air, lost it, sought it, missed it. and. then found it in 'the heart of an oak. He tells of a song the singer sang and thought it forgotten; but found it in the heart of a friendl It is the poet’s way of saying that ddeds live on. Judgment is not an arbitrary imposition. It is life’s harvest. It is the natural and inevitable fruit of the seed we sow. Like produces like in all world. Eternity takes the tint and tone of time.

We scatter seed with careless hand, And dream we ne’er shall see it move, But for a thousand years, The fruit appears, In weeds that mar the land, Or healthful store.