The Sermons of Johannes Tauler · 74 of 124

First Sermon for the Tenth Sunday after Trinity

There are diversities of operations, bat the same Lord, who worketh all In all, and the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man onto profit To one. Indeed, by the Spirit, is given the word of wisdom; and to another, the word of knowledge, according to the same Spirit; to another faith In the same Spirit Bnt all these things one and the same Spirit worketb, dividing to everyone according as He will. — I Cor. xli, 6-11.

Here the apostle names a variety of gifts, but which are all the work of the same Holy Ghost. In the days of the apostles, the Holy Ghost wrought wonderful things among His friends for the proof of the Christian faith, including prophecies; and His final work was the martyrdom of the apostles and their disciples. Miraculous signs are not needed in our days, although it must be confessed that living Christian faith is as little evident in some among us as in pagans and Jews.

Let us consider this teaching — that there are diversities of work in God’s service, and yet that one and the same Spirit is in them all. Children, look at the human body, with all its different members and senses, each part having its separate office. Not any sense or member usurps the office of any other, or acts otherwise than as God has ordained for it. So are we all members of the same body, and of this body Christ is the head. Now, the eye in the body of holy Church, that is her teachers. It is an office that does not concern yon, for we ordinary Christians must note carefully what our place is, the office to which enr Lord has called ns, and in the performance of whose

Well, then, we live among the lowest members. One can spin, another can make shoes, some being skilful at one trade, others at another. And these are all graces that are made active by the operation of the Spirit of God. If I were not a priest, and were only a brother in a community, I should consider it a great thing to be able to make shoes, and I would be very glad to earn my bread by the labor of my hands. Children, the foot or hand should not wish to be the eye, but each should fulfill the office assigned by God; for however lowly that may seem, it could not be done by the other members. Thus our sisters do their part, as, for example, in piously chanting the psalms. St. Augustine says: “God is a most simple being; and yet He works in a most manifold way, being all things in each single thing, and one in all of them together.” Every least little work of ours comes to us as a duty from God and each has its particular grace. Let us do it gladly for the sake of all our brethren, who cannot do it as appropriately as we. Thus do we all mutually exchange grace for grace. Believe me, the man who does not pray nor work for his neighbor’s sake shall have much to answer for before God, when, as the Gospel tells us, it will be said to him: “Give an account of thy stewardship” (Luke xvi: 2). And each of us is appointed as a steward to do a certain work for God, and to render account of the same.

Insight

Among the lowest members, Tauler says, one can spin, another make shoes, some skilful at one trade, others at another — all graces made active by the Spirit. If he were only a brother and not a priest he would be glad to earn his bread by the labor of his hands. The point lands hard against the persistent assumption that some kinds of work are spiritually superior. The foot doesn't envy the eye. Each office is held by God in the same regard, because each is the place this particular person was given. The Gita's svadharma teaches exactly this: better one's own duty well done, however small, than another's done with more apparent dignity. Your station is the work, and the work is the way.1 Corinthians 12:14-26; Bhagavad Gita 18:47 on svadharma; cf. Luther, Freedom of a Christian on vocation.

How does it happen, then, that so many complain that their occupation in life hinders their serving God? God makes no limitations to His service, and how, then, does it happen that thy conscience is afflicted at having to do what He appoints for thee? Dear children, make up your minds that it is not your occupation, but your own ill-regulated way of performing it that disturbs your interior peace. Do thy duty rightly; have God alone in view; be disengaged from all self-conceit and self-love; look not to what is pleasant or unpleasant as thy end in doing or not doing; fear nothing and desire nothing but God; seek no profit, think of no joy in thy work; regard nothing except what is wholly for God’s honor: — act this way, and it is impossible that thou shouldst feel distress of conscience in thy usual occupations. It is a shame for any spiritual man to have it said of him, that he is disorderly in doing his daily round of duty, for one

By this slovenly carelessness thou makest manifest that it is not for and in God thou art laboring; and herein is shown the cause of thy unrest of soul. Our Lord did not reprove Martha on account of her work, for that was holy; he chided her for her excessive solicitude. A man should practice approved spiritual exercises, attend to his bounden duty, and then cast all his care upon God, attending meanwhile to his obligations diligently and in all calmness of mini. And he should be careful to remain at home in his own spirit, looking often there in search of God, with inward intentness and very devoutly, meanwhile carefully attending to every call of doty in his external life. And, besides, he should carefully watch for the inspirations ol the Holy Ghost, whether to action or to suffering for God’s sake. By this means he does or he leaves undone according to the guidance of the Holy Ghost, now resting quiet and again pushing onward: such is the way to fulfil thy part in life in all Godliness and peace.

If there is any poor, old, feeble, helpless creature, do thou run quickly to his help. One should outdo the other in this work of charity, thus bearing one another’s burdens. If thou failest in this, be sure that God will bestow the privilege upon another with all the accompanying graces, leaving thee empty. Dost thou feel a special joy in any work? Be on thy guard carefully — do the work for God alone, be not carried away by thy feelings. Here, then, children, is the way to acquire virtue, and a very necessary way, if thou wouldst come to God. Do not dream that by counselling quiet waiting for God, I mean that thou art to sit down idle till God shall come and infuse virtue into thy soul.

Put no trust in immature virtue, unearned virtue. If a man claims that the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost have taken up their abode within him, there is nothing in what he says, unless he has attained to this state by devout exercises of religion, interior as well as exterior, the same that we have been considering. A farmer stands and threshes his grain with his flail uplifted, and suddenly falls into a trance; now the flail will fall on him and strike him, unless an angel from Heaven shall catch it. So with you. None like to thresh, all would wish to be entranced — all 'the members of the body would be the eye, all for the contemplative and none for the active life. Now this iB a sign of stupidity. I knew a man who was a very dear

Insight

Put no trust in immature virtue, unearned virtue. The farmer threshing his grain falls into a trance, but the flail keeps falling and would strike him if an angel did not catch it — meaning, the contemplative claim that bypasses the diligence of ordinary work is unsafe. All would wish to be entranced, none to thresh. Tauler is steady on this point: there's no shortcut past the ordinary forming of character through repeated action. The Buddhist Eightfold Path makes the same insistence. Right View doesn't get you out of Right Action. The mystic peaks rest on the lived practice underneath, and an alleged peak without the practice underneath usually turns out not to be a peak.James 2:17 (faith without works); Dhammapada 19-20 on the talker who does not practice; Rule of Benedict Prologue on the workshop of the spiritual craft.

Children, it is in this self-departure, this going forth from selfwill, that the essential peace of the soul is born within us, which means the acquisition of well-seasoned virtue. Believe me that essential peace never comes otherwise — it is false to assert such a thing. Outwardly practiced and inwardly cherished virtue produces peace of soul; though it is to be said that the peace that arises from the more interior exercises of religion is a treasure that no man can rob you of. Men wise in their own conceit will bid you do this and do that to become perfect— and it is all a set of observances of their own contrivance. Such men have sometimes been forty years in religion, and to this day they do not appreciate their state of life. They are far bolder in devotional things than I would dare to be.

My vocation is that of a teacher of the people. And yet when I hear confessions and ask my penitents how this is and how that, having in view their spiritual direction, at the last' I am often unable to form a judgment about them. Then I pray to our Lord for light; and if He does not grant it to me, I can but say: Dear children, you must yourselves pray for the divine guidance, and it will certainly be granted you. Not so the rash men of whom I have been speaking; they praise or they condemn quickly, each of them according to his own chosen standard, and strive to fasten on others their own favorite devotional customs. And by this means many a plant in our

Lord’s garden is worm-eaten in the bnd. They say to yon: Your way is a novelty and we do not approve of it, it is full of the spirit of innovation; and meanwhile Ood’s ways are wholly unknown to them. Ah, strange things may be expected from men of that kind.

Now says St. Paul: “But all these things the same Spirit worketh, dividing to everyone according as He will.” Children, to what kind of men, think you, does God give the knowledge of the divisions He makes among men? Who are they that have the judgment and discernment of different spirits in men? Be sure that they who have this gift are well exercised in the ways of God. The trialB of flesh and blood are familiar to them, for they have suffered them in the severest form. The enemy of souls has gone through them, aye, and they have gone through him. Bone and marrow have been searched through and through, and all their souls have been perfected — such are the men to whom God grants the discernment of spirits. If they will but turn their attention to any souls and consider them, they at once discover whether or not their spirit is of God; and they can decide what is the right step to be taken in the road of perfection, or what it is that stands in the way. Meanwhile let us lament how trifling a thing it is that causes us to turn out of the straight road to everlasting truth, doing ourselves a grievous and eternal harm — for God and His love are eternal, and if we neglect His love on earth it will never be ours in the life to come. May God help us to do His work in all truth, and just as His Holy Spirit Bhall guide us, each one according to his particular inspirations. Amen.