The Sermons of Johannes Tauler · 77 of 124

First Sermon for the Twelfth Sunday after

For the letter killeth, but the spirit quickeneth. — II Cor. Hi, 6.

Among God’s friends there are two kinds of people, who may be compared respectively to the old and new testaments. Yon know that until Christ came men obeyed the old law with its ceremonies and customs, and by these they were made pleasing to God; after Christ we are to be saved by the new law and its usages. The old testament was introductory to the new, and was its image, preparing men’s souls — if they but rightly viewed it — for the new dispensation, as every such thing must be announced beforehand and men made ready for its reception. The old testament imposed many heavy burdens, severe penalties for sin, and gave very stern manifestations of God’s righteousness, together with only a dim and distant view of redemption. The gates of heaven were shut for five thousand years, during which men, with all their painful good works, could not enter into eternal life. Their waiting was tedious enough, ere the new testament was vouchsafed them, with peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. And now my lesson to you is this: Some such preparation must each one of us make if he would in all security attain to the privileges of God’s new dispensation; one must first be practiced in the trials of the ancient covenant. A man must bear a heavy load of sorrow; he must humbly bow down under the mighty hand of God; he must endure pains from without and pains within; he must suffer all kinds of hardships, whether he be innocent or guilty.

Insight

Before the new testament, the old. Tauler reads salvation history as a template for each interior life. You can't jump into the peace and joy of the new dispensation. You have to pass through the period of waiting under the old law: bearing burdens, enduring pains, learning what limitation actually feels like. Mistrust in lowliness of heart any consolation offered you before you've done that, he says, because by the way of pleasure no one comes to the kingdom. This is not Christian masochism. It's a description of what character actually requires to form. The Stages of the Path that Mahayana Buddhism uses (the bhumis) have the same shape — early stages are about working with suffering, and the more refined stages presuppose that this work has been done.Dasabhumika Sutra on the bhumis; Galatians 3:24 on the law as schoolmaster; cf. Kierkegaard's stages on life's way.

Children, the case is quite different from what I fear yon suppose — stand fast by God’s teaching, if yon would act prudently, and if, as I trust, you have received the grace of God. If you would come to the new testament, you must endure the old. Mistrust in all lowliness of heart any consolation that is offered you, inwardly or outwardly, for by the way of pleasure no man can come to the kingdom of heaven. He must enter there by the way of bitter pain and much tribulation — turn him which way he pleases, so it must be. Before thou enjoyest the holy sacraments, divine illuminations, sweet sentiments of devotion, to say nothing of human comfort, bow down the old man that is in thee beneath the toilsome yoke of God’s ancient covenant, with its burdens and humiliations and self-renunciation. And rememeber that in very truth His yoke is sweet and His burden is light. Dear children, I exhort you by the servitude of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep that token of His suffering before your eyes, ever carrying it manfully forward, enshrining it in your souls, glad of its heavy weight, embracing it with total abandonment of all things else, according as God wills and has willed for you from all eternity — this I exhort you from the bottom of my heart. May God lend you courage in all your future pains, desolations, disgrace, and calumny. Thus shall you have the old Adam conquered within you under the ancient covenant, till Jesus Christ shall be born in your souls in His new dispensation of peace and joy. The patriarchs must wait thousands of years, sighing and yearning; but in very truth, children, if you will but have their spirit of patient self-renunciation, your time of waiting shall not be a single year long. If you had a quartan fever for a year or for two years, you must perforce endure it to the end; and so must you endure your suffering in preparation for Christ’s coming.

Another trial under the old dispensation were the judgments God visited upon His people; and this represents our interior pains, our suffering from the gnawing of remorse. Some men strive to escape this by multiplying their confessions, little realizing that a thousand confessions of mortal sins are of no avail for solacing the pain of remorse, unless they be accompanied by proper works of penance. Confession being thus made, we can in all humility accept the feeling of remorse that still lingers, full sure of God’s pardon.

Others, again, would still their reproaches of conscience by asking many questions of learned men, hoping thereby for some new comfort

As to the common run of people, let them go here and there and as to you who aspire to be perfect in God’s service, hear good preaching indeed, but turn yourseves inward to God; for if you would acquire true spirituality you must give up running about and you must stay at home in your own souls; many words make no man perfect. Love God from the depths of your heart and your neighbor as yourself, and all the rest will take care of itself. What you see of good in others let it be good in your eyes; what you see bad, judge it not nor question about it. Long to possess God with your whole heart, as did the fathers under the old law; seek what in very truth you ought to seek; as to the rest, leave it all to God’s blessed will.

The third characteristic of the old dispensation was a dim hope towards a distant redemption; for the gates of heaven were fast shut, and no prophet could exactly tell when redemption would come. And so must we resign ourselves humbly to await God’s time and place in perfect humility, for such is God’s will with each of us; and He will come and be born in us in a perfect life at last and without fail. But when? Leave that to Him. Some would arrive at perfection in their youth; some fix their old age as the time; some even at the point of death. Leave all that to His adorable will, only be true to Him from day to day. And to thus submit to Him, thou needest no special kind of spiritual exercise. Learn the commandments of God and keep them; learn the articles of the Christian faith and believe them; all that remains is that thou shouldst place thyself at God’s disposal in all things whatsoever. Do these simple things, and there is no manner of doubt but that Christ will be born in thee in due time to a perfect new testament of peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. Thou shalt be granted the grace of an angel’s life of gentleness and wisdom. That is indeed a splendid gift; and yet a better one is the life more than angelic which the Spirit will work within thee, quite surpassing human understanding. But by this way of patient endurance must it come to thee and none other. One may dream that he understands all this plainly, and then starts with self-formed plans of devotion to achieve this result, and such a man surely fails. He can only succeed by treading the plain way of mortification; succeed he surely will by that way.

Insight

What you see of good in others, let it be good in your eyes; what you see bad, judge it not nor question about it. Long to possess God with your whole heart, as did the fathers under the old law; seek what in very truth you ought to seek; as to the rest, leave it to God's will. Tauler keeps narrowing the field. Drop the editorial commentary on other lives. Drop the running anxiety about how your own life looks. What remains is the single direction of wanting — the orientation that decides everything else. The instruction echoes the Daoist sage who minds his own door and lets the village run itself. The longing is the discipline. Everything else can drop.Romans 14:4 on judging another's servant; Tao Te Ching ch 47 on knowing without going out; cf. Cassian, Conferences XVI on the single intent.

In the old law the Levites carried the ark of God; but in the new law, as we have described it, the ark of God carries the Levites; that is to say, our souls. Whosoever will not submit humbly in this life to God’s judgments, that man without doubt will fall under God’s judgments in eternity. Try what expedient thou mayst, thou must give thyself up to suffering under God. Do that, and then God carries thee forward through all thy pain and trouble; God it is who, as it were, bends His shoulders under thy burden with thee, and helps thee to bear it. Meanwhile, to those who are submissive to God, no burden is unbearable, no misery intolerable. Alas for us if we would do otherwise, and would go forward alone in our weakness bearing our heavy load. In that case suffer we must, labor we must, but all without God. Now may God grant us the grace to carry our burden manfully and with Him. Amen.