For Sunday

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 73, Issue 115, 17 May 1930, Page 7 (Supplement)

For Sunday

EXPERIENCING CHRIST When a lawyer came tempting Jesus, saying, ‘ 1 Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” our Lord made issue one o_" practical service in every day life by the parable of the Good Samaritan. His “inasmuch” in the judgment scene has made us still more familiar with the commonplace means of working out Christian faith and devotion. We most truly actualise the reality' of Divine friendship as wo befriend our needy sisters and brothers. Thus a member of a Samaritan League put the position very humbly but most beautifully: 1 ‘When I go out tq do a service to another man in the name of Christ I feel I have not had an experience with that other man. I have had an experience with Christ.”

Tolstoy has brought this out in the now familiar story, ‘‘Where Love is, God is.’’ Martin, an old cobbler, is reading about Christ and half wishes Christ would visit him. He falls asleep musing, and is startled by a voice which says, ‘‘Martin, Martin, look into the eet to-morrow! I will c< ! ” The old cobbler cannot make up his mind whether the voice is real or whether it is just a dream. The next day he finds himself continually going to the window: ‘‘Will He indeed come, I wonder? It is too much to expect, and yet such things have happened.” During the day the old man brings in a sweeper from the street, gives him tea, and invites him td warm his hands by the stove. Then he brings in a soldier’s wife whom he see'- from the window try'ing to wrap up, her baby in a piece of old sacking, and he gives her food and drink and comfort. Then he brings into his little room an apple-woman and the boy who had run away' with one of her apples. As he talks to her, her anger disappears, and when he dismisses them, the boy is helping to carry her load.

The last scene shows Martin sitting at the table on which burns a solitary candle. ‘‘The day is nearly' over and He hasn’t been. It must have been a dream after all. Yet His voice

seemed so real.” But as the old man sits there, the figure of the snowsweeper rises before his eyes, and a voice says, ‘‘Martin, Martin, do you not know Me? This is I.” Then the figure of the soldier’s wife with the child in her arms appears out of the darkness and the Voice says. ‘‘And this is I.” Then follows the figure of the apple-woman and the Voice says, “And this, also, i= I.” And the great truth dawns upon the old cobbler that God has come near to him in man, that in loving service to men and women he has actually served Christ. “Mere poetic fancy',” some will say. But is it? The Indians think 1 is always a privilege to help a Brahman, even a Brahman beggar, because you are helping a man in whom God dwells more fully than in any other caste. Does not Jesus teach as a similar [thought, that it is always a privilege to help anybody', because all men are of the same caste, the very' highest caste? They are all, potentially at least, sons of God. They' aro men in whom God dwells. That, indeed, is not poetic fancy' merely, but the naked truth. That by coming to man with nothing but a loving desire to help them you do actually' come near to God Himself; perhaps nearer than if you knelt at the Holy Communion and received from the saintliest hands the sacred emblems of the broken body' and shed blood our Lord. Most of you are familiar, with the story of the Holy Grail, which so many poets have wrought into verse. The Holy Grail was the cup from which Jesus drank with His disciples at the last supper. According to the legend this cup was lost, and it was a favourite enterprise of the knights of Arthur’s court to go in quest of it. One of the prettiest of these stories tells of Sir Launfal’s search for the Holy Grail. After a long and vain

search, during which he passed from youth to old age, he turned honieward, bent, worn out and frail. As he drew on there lay a leper, lank and wan, cowering before him, “For Christ’s sweet sake I beg an alms,” the leper said. Sir Launfal saw in the beggar an image of Him who died on the tree. “He parted in twain his single crust, He broke the ice on the streamlet’s brink, And gave the leper to eat and drink.” {Suddenly a light shone about the place:—“The leper no longer crouched at his side, But stood before him glorified, Shining and tall, and fair, and straight As the pillar that stood by' the Beautiful Gate.” Sweetly now He spoke as the knight listened: “In many' climes, without avail, Thou hast spent thy r life for the Holy' Grail; Behold, it is here—this cup which thou Didst fill at the streamlet for me but now; The crust is My body broken for thee; This water His blood who died on the tree; The Holy’ Supper is kept, indeed, In whatse we share with another’s need; Not what we give, but what we share, For the gift without the giver is bare; Who gives himself with his alms feeds three— Himself, his hungering neighbour, and Me.” What needs emphasis is that the human appeal is constantly the appeal of God, and often we ought to need no other. In a truer sense than we dream, to go to men simply in order to befriend them is to bring oneself into closer touch with the Divine Friend. Of him who serves another in Christ’s name it may' actually be said, his life touches Christ. For this rcasan our service must never be superficial. To rid ourselves of responsibility by' giving a sum of money, large or small, is neither serving God nor man. It is blasphemy', or next doer to it. As Will Crooks, of Poplar, used to say: “Give part of yourself rather than part of your wealth.” He had little sympathy for those who give money and then run away. A person once called at his house during a bad winter and offered him “I am anxious about the poor people, Mr Crooks, so I’ve brought down this money for you to help them.” “Have you?’’ was the response. But what are you going to do?” “Oh, I’m going to the South of France. I cannot bear England in the winter.” “Then I advise you to take the £5OO with, you.” “Do you refuse it?” “Absolutely. It is cowardly for a man like you to offer £5OO and then run away. You ought to do more than give it; you ought to spend

it. Come down and see that the proper people get it. It is not so hard to raise £5OO for the poor as it is to distribute it properly among the poor.” Drastic, you say? But is it no' immoral to escape from the demands of a situation by' giving a sop to conscience in the form of a donation? Should not our gifts represent real interest, real sympathy, real love? Should not our gifts be a translation of personality' into terms of cash? Jesus our Master points the way in His words: “He that findeth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for My' sake shall find it.” Even so shall we experience Christ as we lose ourselves in service for our fellows. H.G.G.