| The Glory of the Common Life |
Chapter 1 |
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God is found usually in most unlikely places. When the shepherds went to seek for the Holy child, they did not go to fine mansions, to the homes of the great or rich, to earthly palaces – they found the Babe in a stable, sleeping in a manger. Lowell’s “Vision of Sir Launfal” is a story for all days and all places. As the knight rode out from his castle gate, at the beginning of his quest for the Holy Grail, he tossed a coin to the leper who sat by the wayside begging. Through all lands he rode in a vain search for the sacred cup. At length, old, broken, and disappointed, but chastened, he returned home. There sat the leper as before, by the castle gate. The knight has learned love’s lesson. He shares his last crust with the leper. He breaks the ice on the stream near by, brings water in his wooden bowl, and gives the beggar a drink. Then the leper is revealed as the Christ.
Ofttimes it is in lowliest ways that God is found, after men have sought long for him in vain in ways of splendour. A disciple asked the Master to show him the Father. He thought the revealing would come in some heavenly splendour. Jesus said that he had been showing the Father in all the years he had been with the disciples. He referred to his everyday life of love and kindness. You say you never have seen God, and that you wish you could see him. You could believe in him more easily if you could see him sometimes. That is what the disciples thought and said. “Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us,” was their pleading. Yet they really had been seeing the Father all the three years.
So it is that Christ comes to us continually in plain garb, in lowly ways, without any apparent brightness. We decline tasks and duties which are assigned to us, thinking they are not worthy of our fine hands, not knowing that they are holy ministries which angels would eagerly perform. Not one of the disciples that night would take the basin and the towel and wash the feet of the others and of the Master. Washing feet was the lowliest of all tasks – the meanest slave in the household did it. But while these proud men scoffed and shrank from the service, Jesus himself did it. Then they saw that washing the feet of others in love is divine in its splendour. The thorn bush burned with fire.
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