The Sermons of Johannes Tauler · 67 of 124

Third Sermon for the Third Sunday after Trinity

Wbat woman having ten groats, if she lose one groat, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently ontil she find It? — Luke xv, 8.

Our last discourse was about our Lord’s seeking and finding the lost sheep. Children, however you may manage it, you must become like a sheep in meekness, in silence, in all self-denial and patience, and in subjection to all creatures. It is thus that thou shalt submit to God’s seeking for thee and finding thee, when and how He will, directly by Himself, indirectly by thy fellowmen, whether friends or foes, by His creatures in heaven or on earth. Sometimes by very hard words He will search thee out, and thou must be still, not answering Him, no matter in what plight thou art placed. Imitate our Lord Jesus Christ, that meek lamb, who, when He was led before HiB judges, opened not His mouth. Men blinded by pride, men who for forty years have stood on their own self-love, will revile thee and call thee a dumb beast; never mind them, suffer what they inflict on thee. I declare to thee that when men persecute thee it is nothing else than God’s visitation: hold thy peace and let them afflict thee. Follow the example of our Lord, that innocent and suffering lamb. Follow Him in His suffering till thou art brought to His infinite Godhead; there shall be thy place of perfect pasture. Self-willed men would have thee answer back, and not allow thyself to be oppressed. Not so; but do thou take Jesus Christ as thy pattern. That thou must do if thou shalt become holy.

And now thou must know there is something yet higher placed before thee, if thou dost aspire to greater perfection.

Our text tells us of a woman who lost a piece of money, and then lit a candle and looked for it. Consider the woman as the Godhead, the candle as our Savior’s humanity, the groat as our soul. The groat must have three things, wanting any of which it is not good money; the right material, right weight, right form or stamp. Its material must be gold or silver. Ah, children, applying this figure of speech to the soul — how wonderful is the substance of our soul, far beyond our comprehension. And its weight: the soul if spiritual and has no weight, yet does it outweigh all earth and heaven, for God is contained in the soul, which thus weighs as much as God. And it is stamped, is this spirit of ours, with the very Godhead itself, which, indeed, has quite absorbed it. But this thou must attain to by coming much closer in thy life to God, quite otherwise than outward acting men. Thou must pass beyond the mere outward forms and observances of both active and passive life. Notice that the woman of this gospel lit a candle, and then turned her house upside down looking former lost coin. Now it is the eternal wisdom that lights a candle in our soul, and its light is true divine love — it must be lighted in thy heart, and it must burn brightly in thy heart.

Dear children, you know not what love is. You feel great sensible devotion and spiritual sweetness, and that you call love. No, by no ineans; love is the burning and destroying of self, real self-denial, steadfast yearning for God in a spirit of abandonment to Him, the soul melted into God in a persevering state of resignation to Him; such is love, and such is the lighting of God’s candle in the soul.

Then the woman turned her house upside down, looking for her piece of money. And how does this correspond with God’s treatment of the soul? His searching of the soul is both active, in making it act; and passive, in making it suffer His act. In the active searching, God causes the soul itself to work; in the passive, He Himself does the searching. The first is in the external order, the Becond in the interior life; and the interior is as high above the external as heaven is above the earth. The active and outward life is in external devout practices and good works, according to God’s guidance and the suggestion of God’s friends. This is especially seen in the practice of virtue, such as humility, meekness, silence, self-denial.

The other ia far above this, namely, our entering into onr soul’s inmost depths in search of Qod, according to His own words: “Lo, the kingdom of God iB within you” (Lnke xvii: 21) . Whosoever would find God and all His kingdom, all His essence and nature, let him seek Him where He is. It is in the deepest depths of the soul that God is nighest • to it, much nearer to it there than is the soul to its own self. Let a man enter that house, leaving outside all that is self, all that belongs to the life of the seises in forms and images and imagination; yea, he must in a manner transcend even his reason and all its ways and all its activity. When a man thns enters his interior house in search ol God, he finds it all turned upside down, for God it is that is seeking him; and God acts like a man who throws one thing this side and another that side looking for what he has lost. This is what happens in the interior life when a man seeks God there, for there he finds God seeking him.

And now I will Bay something that not every one can understand, though I always speak good plain German; but only those can now understand me who have had some previous experience of such matters. For you must know that this turning inwards is not to last for only awhile, to be followed by turning back again to busy oneself with created things. No, by no means. For when one goes deep into his heart in search of God and thus finds God in search of him, and when all his interior life is thereby thrown into confusion, then it happens that all his pious practices seem set at nought, and the spiritual lights heretofore granted him seem to have gone quite out. And yet — supposing that nature could endure it — if a man could be thus day and night thrown into confusion by God’s seeking for him seventy-seven times over, it would profit him more than any favor that had ever been granted him. He would hereby be advanced farther in perfection, than by all the good deeds and good purposes he ever could do or think ol doing -happy is he who is rightly guided in this, for everything will soon become plain and easy to him. As often as he wills he can elevate his soul far above all created things.

The trouble is that poor human nature is so tenacious of its own, that it cleaves obstinately to it. Like uneven ground, nature requires a sharp, heavy'harrow to level it down; but when once leveled, even a feather duster will finish the work. So is the soul of some men fall of lumps and clods, all crude, and quite unsubmissive to God. A sharp harrow must tear across it, that is to say, many temptations and much

Devout and self-denying men go straight against self always, and are more quickly and easily transformed — are regenerated in a blessed manner. They strip off and cast away all that nature loves, and they stand before Qod truly poor in spirit, truly submissive, blindly led by Clod in all His own chosen ways. Ah, child, when thou allowest thyself thus to be sought after by God, and thy house turned upside down, then art thou indeed found by Him, as the piece of money was found by the woman in the Gospel. And thou shalt be led far beyond thy own good works and self-chosen devotions, beyond all this world can do for thee, whether inwardly or outwardly. And this was what our Lord guaranteed when He said: “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me” ( Luke ix: 23) . So must a man renounce all that hinders true spiritual progress.

But when an unmortified man encounters severe trials and temptations, and when the sharp harrow cuts him deep, then he thinks all is lost. He is tormented with doubts, he is haunted with terrors. He says: Alas, O Lord, all light is gone, all grace is withdrawn, and all is lost. And yet I say to thee that if thou wert but a well-practiced and really self-denying man, thou wouldst know that thou never hadst been in so good a state as now. When the Lord is searching for thee in thy soul, then thou shouldst be well contented. Does He demand of thee to be dark, cold, destitute? Tield lovingly to Him. Ah, dear children, how do you suppose God is going to deal with a soul He leads in thiB way? He will elevate it above all creatures. Beloved soul, fortunate soul, fear nothing. As to those who do not aspire to this high state, I bid them not to lose courage, for there are many men who support life well enough, and who yet have no better food than bread and water.

But the woman’s piece of money must have its proper weight, and also be rightly coined and stamped. The weight means the sinking of the soul down into the abyBS of God’s being, out of which it first came forth. This includes its stainless purity when it. has become entirely detached from creatures, all emancipated and uncontaminated, having in itself but one image — not only that by which it is made like God in its nature, but also an image which is a gift of grace, even the uncreated God Himself in His very essence, in which God loveB it, knows it, enjoys it and is active within it. Here it is, then.

All this is, of course, not by nature, but by grace. God and the soul are one in this union of grace — not simply the union of nature.

If, on the contrary, one could behold a soul far its real essence, a soul that had wilfully given up its entire love to the service and enjoyment of created things, and in them was clothed, by them colored, it would certainly behold something no Iras insufferably horrible than the demon himself. It would be a sight to wither one up with terror. Yet this is what a lost soul will behold in itself for all eternity. But the souls in Heaven will be seen by God as if He beheld Himself, so close will be their union with Him, drawing all their blessedness from Him, and beholding their glory as if it were His. O how happy are they who permit themselves to be sought and found by God, to be led into Him, to be made one with Him — happy beyond words to tell or mind to conceive. Whosoever will come to this glorious end must carefully follow the way we have pointed out; therein he cannot go astray. If he will not undertake it, if he will rest absorbed in the joys of Mb senses and in creatures, then he must eternally be excluded from this blessed lot. May God the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, grant us thus to be sought after and thus to be found. Amen.