12.03 The sojourn in the far country
III. THE SOJOURN IN THE FAR COUNTRY The “far country,” as S. Augustine tersely said, “is forgetfulness of God.” It is that state of being which S. Paul described as “alienated from the life of God.”
There are ultimately only two states of life the one centred in God, when it is obedient to the leading of God and is moving towards Him in thought, desire, and will; the other, centred in self, when it resists the leading of God and is moving in thought, desire, and will away from God. Between these two states most men hover to and fro, but gradually the main motive of the will God or self carries them to the one or to the other. In proportion as God is becoming more and more the inspiration and the goal of all our activities, we realize the home-life for which we are made, and in which alone we can find joy and rest. In proportion as that inspiration and goal are becoming self we are taking our journey into the far country.
True, it is not always, perhaps not often, that a man pursues this journey recklessly to its last stage of degradation. Messengers of God haunting memories of better days and better things, the examples of better men, rebukes of conscience, warnings in the spirit and in the flesh are sent to delay or divert his course. But the parable describes the lot of human nature, choosing self and left to itself; and this, in order to give the great assurance that there is no stage in that mistaken journey from which a man cannot make his return to God and receive His welcome. In interpreting the sojourn in the far country it is, alas! easy for most of us to use the lessons of our own experience. At first there was the “riotous living” the thrill of indulged sensation, the excitement of new and unrestricted pleasure, But soon we learned that the resources of life were being wasted and spent, without any reward of real satisfaction. For indulgence only wears out the powers of enjoyment; it cannot satisfy them. Appetite only grows by what it feeds on. There is found to be, sooner or later, a “mighty famine,” an insatiable hunger, in the far country. And the famine leads to slavery. He who set out to be his own master finds himself in the grasp of the tyrant. For there is no tyranny so lawless and pitiless as the tyranny of self-indulgence. The mere beasts are protected against the excess of their own desires by the law of instinct. But if man once parts with the rule of reason and conscience, of God, there is no such limit to restrain and protect him. He knows that he is ruining himself, but he has sold himself to a master who acknowledges no law, feels no pity, and gives no wages of reward. The money-lover must go on accumulating long after the joy of acquisition has passed away. The man of mere ambition is doomed to fretfulness, to the pains of wounded pride, to the disease of envy, even when he knows that the hope of success to which he yielded himself can never be realized. The gambler is held in the vice of restless excitement. The drunkard becomes a sort of embodied thirst. The sensualist, struggle as he may, is the prey of unceasing suggestions of sin, which both entice and torment him, and he can neither resist nor satiate the gnawing pangs of lust.
Lastly, tied as he is, hand and foot, to his sin, the sinner blindly obeys his master-sin, when it sends him into every sort of degradation. He who began by boasting “I will go my own way” is sent to feed swine, and is fain to fill his belly with the husks which the swine are eating.
S. Paul, in that terrible first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, holds up a flaming torch of judgment over the far country that we may see whither it leads.
It marches with hell, for what is hell but this slavery to insatiable sin? “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; he that is filthy, let him be filthy still.” For the sinner, under the tyranny of his sin, “enlarges his desires as hell, and is as death, and cannot be satisfied.” I can never forget the words of a poor sinner who had just escaped from her life of sin, “You need not talk about hell: I know it; I’ve been there for five years.” This is the Nemesis of self-indulgence, of that false craving for independence. If we can think of any part of our life which we keep for ourselves and withhold from God, it is well for us to realize that there we are setting out upon the road to a far country where recklessness, hunger, slavery, degradation, death await us. “What fruit had ye then at that time in the things whereof ye are now ashamed? For the end of these things is death.”
TAGS: [Parables]