Bread upon the waters; or, rules and reasons for practicing beneficence.
I. RULES. Beneficence should be practiced:
1. Without doubt as to its result. One's charity should be performed in a spirit of fearless confidence, even though the recipients of it should appear altogether unworthy, and cur procedure as hopeless and thankless an operation as "casting one's bread upon the waters" (verse 1), or "sowing the 'sea' (Theognis).
2. Without limit as to its distribution. "Give a portion to seven, yea even unto eight" (verse 2); that is, "Give to him that asketh, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away" (Matthew 5:42). Social economics may, bug the sermon on the mount does not, condemn indiscriminate or promiscuous giving. One's bread should be cast upon the waters in the sense that it should be bestowed upon the multitudes, or carried far and wide rather than restricted to a narrow circle.
3. Without anxiety as to its seasonableness. As "he that observeth the wind will not sow, and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap" (verse 4), so he who is always apprehensive lest his deeds of kindness should be ill-timed is not likely to practice much beneficence. The farmer who should spend his days in watching the weather to select just the right moment to plough and sow, or reap and garner, would never get the one operation or the ether performed; and little charity would be witnessed were men never to give until they were quite sure they had hit upon the right time to give, and never to do an act of kindness until they were certain the proper, objects to receive it had been found.
4. Without intermission as to its time. "In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand" (verse 6). Who would practice beneficence as it should be practiced must be as constantly employed therein as the husbandman is in his agricultural operations. Philanthropy is a sacred art, which can only be acquired by pains and patience. Intermittent goodness, charity performed by fits and starts, occasional benevolence, never comes to much, and never does much for either the giver or receiver. Charity to be efficient must be a perennial fountain and a running stream (1 Corinthians 13:8). The charitable man must be always giving, like God, who maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, etc. (Matthew 5:45), and who giveth unto all liberally (James 1:5).
II. REASONS. Beneficence should be practiced for the following reasons:
1. It is certain in the end to be recompensed. (Verse 1.) The kindly disposed individual, who fearlessly casts his bread upon the waters by doing good to the unkind and the unthankful (Matthew 5:45; Luke 6:35), may have a long time to wait for a return from his venture in practical philanthropy; but eventually that return will come, here on earth, in the inward satisfaction that springs from doing good, perhaps in the gratitude of those who experience his kindness, hereafter in the welcome and the glory Christ has promised to such as are mindful of his needy brethren on earth (Matthew 25:40).
2. No one can predict how soon himself may become an object of charity. As surely as the clouds when full of rain will empty themselves upon the earth, and a tree will lie exactly in the place where it falls (verse 3), so surely will seasons of calamity, when they come, descend on rich and poor alike; yea, perhaps strike the wealthy, the great, and the good with strokes which the indigent, the obscure, and the wicked may escape. Hence the bare consideration of this fact, that bad times may come—not only depriving one of the ability to practice beneficence, but rendering one a fit subject for the same (the latter of these being most likely the Preacher's thought)—should induce one to be charitable while he may and can. This may seem a low, selfish, and unworthy ground on which to recommend the practice of philanthropy; but does its meaning not substantially amount to this, that men should give to others because, were bad times to strip them of their wealth, and plunge them into poverty, they would wish others to give to them? And how much is this below the standard of the golden rule (Matthew 7:12)?
3. No amount of forethought will discover a better time for practicing beneficence than the present. As no one knows the way of the wind (John 3:8), or the secrets of embryology (Psalms 139:15)—in both of which departments of nature, notwithstanding the discoveries of modern science, much ignorance prevails—so can no one predict what kind of future will emerge from the womb of the present (Proverbs 27:1; Zephaniah 2:2), or what shall be the course of providence on the morrow. Hence to defer exercising charity till one has fathomed the unfathomable is more than merely to waste one's time; it is to miss a certain opportunity for one that may never arrive. As today only is ours, we should never cast it away for a doubtful to-morrow, but "Act in the living present, Heart within and God o'er head." (Longfellow.)
4. The issues of beneficence, in the recipients thereof, are uncertain. That an act of charity, or deed of kindness, whensoever done, will prosper without fail in the experience of the doer thereof, has been declared (verse 1); that it will turn out equally well in the experience of him to whom it is done is not so inevitable. Yet from this problematical character of all human philanthropy as to results should be drawn an argument, not for doing nothing, but for doing more. Art atrabiliar soul will conclude that, because he is not sure whether his charity may not injure rather than benefit the recipient, he should hold his hand; a hopeful and happy Christian will feel impelled to more assiduous benevolence by reflecting that he can never tell when his kindly deeds will bear fruit in the temporal, perhaps also spiritual, salvation of the poor and needy. "The seed sown in the morning of life may bear its harvest at once, or not till the evening of age. The man may reap at one and the same time the fruits of his earlier and later sowing, and may find that both are alike good" (Plumptre).
LESSONS.
1. "As therefore ye have opportunity, do good unto all men" (Galatians 6:10).
2. Weary not in well-doing (Galatians 6:9).
3. Take no thought for tomorrow (Matthew 6:34).
4. Cultivate a hopeful view of life (Proverbs 10:28).