3.16 Building of Tower King Going to War
XVI. BUILDING OF TOWER KING GOING TO WAR.
Jesus was still on His journey, accompanied, as St. Luke tells us, by great crowds. Knowing that out of such numbers only few were qualified by unwavering steadfastness of purpose to be His disciples in the stormy days ahead, He turned to those who followed Him, and said: “ If any man come after Me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.
Whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after Me, cannot be My disciple.” To this solemn declaration He added a twofold parable. “ Which of you,” He said, “ desiring to build a tower, doth not first sit down and count the cost, whether he have enough to complete it? Lest haply, when he hath laid THE PARABLES OF JESUS 177 a foundation, and is not able to finish, all that see begin to mock him, saying: “ This man began to build, and could not finish.” Or what king, going to war with another king, will not first sit down and take counsel whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is still afar off, he sendeth an embassy to ask for terms of peace.
So, therefore, every one of you that renounceth not all that he possesseth cannot be My disciple.” In the words which form a setting for these parables, Jesus laid down as an indispensable condition of discipleship the absolute renun ciation of all that a man has. As a further condition, he must be ready to part with life itself, even though death should appear in its most frightful guise, death by crucifixion.
It was well, then, that a man should pause before contracting obligations involving the sacrifice of all things, and should first consider the cost, lest, having enrolled himself among the disciples of Jesus, he should afterwards repent, and thus make himself an object of scorn to those who were not idealists enough
12 178 THE PARABLES OF JESUS even to make the attempt which he had made. This is the lesson which both parables convey, though less formally and directly than as an inference which Jesus left it to ourselves to draw. It has been pointed out that there is a stylistic inexactitude in the parables, in asmuch as in them something positive is required, whereas the renunciation demanded is negative. We have already allowed that we can only inferentially draw from theparables the lesson which they were intended to teach; still, it is true that, although renunciation in itself may be something formally negative, it involves nevertheless a positive and almost continuous act. The teaching of Jesus which we have been considering had in view the circumstances of the period. Times have changed, and there is no longer reason to apprehend any such consequences from following Jesus as those with which His disciples who were His contemporaries had to reckon. Still, those who aim at following Him perfectly must beprepared for sacrifices and renunciation. Even the worldly-wise, whose hopes and fears and desires are all bound up within the narrow THE PARABLES OF JESUS 179 limits of this world and this life, must practise continual self-denial, if they would enjoy that well-being and happiness at which alone they aim.
44 Thou must refrain I thou must refrain!
Such is the everlasting strain, The one uninterrupted song, Which hoarsely sounds the whole day long In every mortal’s troubled ear.”
These are the sentiments which perhaps the most perfect representative of the worldlywise in the higher and nobler sense of the term puts into the mouth of the chief personage in his great masterpiece, sentiments which his own long and varied experience had taught him. How much more, then, are those called upon to practice self-denial and renunciation who look upon this life as a time of probation, and for whom it possesses no real value but as such!
TAGS: [Parables]