02.05 The kingdom in the world
V. THE KINGDOM IN THE WORLD But it is with the influence of the Kingdom upon the world rather than with its influence upon the soul that this parable is more directly concerned. Yet the law of that influence is the same it moves from within outwards. It is well for us in these days to remember how wonderfully this law was illustrated in the action of the Church upon the world in the first ages of the Christian era. The leaven was indeed hidden, yet surely and steadily its presence told. Dean Church, in a passage of singulax insight and eloquence, has described the process. It is a passage which I at least can never read without deep emotion, and you will forgive me if I quote it at some length. The beginnings of the new morality “were scarcely felt, scarcely known of, in the vast movement of affairs in the greatest of empires. By and by, its presence, strangely austere, strangely gentle, strangely tender, strangely inflexible, began to be noticed. But its work was long only a work of indirect preparation. Those whom it charmed, those whom it oppressed, those whom it tamed, knew not what was being done for the generations which were to follow them.... They little thought of what was in store for civil and secular society as they beheld a number of humble men, many of them foreigners, plying their unusual trade of preachers and missionaries, announcing an external Kingdom of righteousness, welcoming the slave and the outcast as a brother, a brother of the Highest, offering hope and change to the degraded sinner, stammering of Christ and redemption to the wild barbarian, worshipping in the catacombs, and meekly burying their dead, often their outraged and murdered dead, in the sure hope of everlasting peace.
Slowly, obscurely, imperfectly, most imperfectly, these seeds of blessing for society began to ripen, to take shape, to gain power. The time was still dark and wintry and tempestuous, and the night was long in going. It is hard even now to discern there the promise of what our eyes have seen. I suppose it was impossible then. It rather seemed as if the world was driving rapidly to its end, not that it was on the eve of its most amazing and hopeful transformation.”
These words are the best commentary on the parable. But do they not rebuke many of our modern methods impatient of deep and hidden influence, eager for momentary success? Does not the Church to-day stand in danger of reversing the true law of influence of seeking to work from without inwards, of busying itself with the circumference instead of perfecting the centre? Consider the feverish strain or organization, the eagerness to adopt methods which ensure popularity or attract numbers, the idolatry of indiscriminate energy, which mark all the efforts of the Church. Consider the want of proportion between the demand for sanitary, industrial, and social reform, and the demand for the deepening and strengthening of the spiritual life. The extension of the true influence of the Church depends upon the intensity of its spirit.
Even when most conscious of its call to affect the whole range of national life, to bring within its fold the masses who are straying without, the Church must, by repeated acts of recollection, return to the great saying of its Lord, “For their sakes I sanctify myself.” It is by the depth of inward life rather than by the width of outward energy that the Church and its members really and lastingly influence the world.
TAGS: [Parables]