Humbug

Austin Farrer’s sermon “Humbug” has been provided for us as preparatory reading for the 2026 conference. This is an extract from: Farrer, Austin. Said or Sung: An Arrangement of Homily and Verse. Portland: Faith Press, 1960, pp. 46-51.

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I met a former member of the College the other day, and he asked me what had been going on in our little world. So I told him this and that, and among other things that a Franciscan had visited us, and that this had been (to judge by outward signs) a success; for that many of us had been and talked to him about serious subjects. The man to whom I was telling this made a face, like that of a well brought up guest disliking his food, but not wishing his host to perceive it. Presently he said, wasn’t this sort of thing a bit tricky, and might and people who tops the Franciscans be in danger of committing a sort of fraud, because they would be giving the impression of the more seriousness than they actually possessed?

 I considered this. I wanted to know who was going to be taken in by the false impression. Not, I suppose, the Franciscan, who could be credited with a long experience in the comedy of human motives. Even less the God, before whose invisible presence such conversations are held. So who? The man himself? But is the danger there so great? If we come up against real wholeheartedness, like that of a man who has given himself to the Franciscan life, we are not very likely to go away from the encounter impressed with our own deep seriousness. It is much more likely that we shall come away impressed with our frivolity, and the feebleness of our interest in what is most worthy of our concern. Was that perhaps what my friend meant? Did he mean that such encounters were likely to make us see what friends we are? But if so, what is the harm? When wholehearted Christians show us what frauds we are, the result is neither cynicism nor despair, for they show us something else at the same time – a glint of what Saint Paul calls the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, array from which the faith, hope and love are kindled in the heart. It is not our initial motives that matter – the motives which bring us to such an encounter – it is the motives which we carry away from it. For if poor motives are replaced by slightly less unworthy ones, we have then the very high and even to be grateful for the poor motives themselves, since it was by means of them that providence put us in the way of undergoing a salutary alteration.

But in fact this whole issue of humbug is much more general than my friend’s remark suggested. You do not have to go and talk to a Franciscan to bring it out. Every Sunday morning when I celebrate Communion I remind myself and you that we are commanded to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength; that is our Christian calling. And we might wonder whether the angels left laugh or weep to hear me repeat this command, and to hear you pray for grace to fulfil it. And yet we believe that they neither laugh nor weep; they praise God for the infinite grace which is given us, and which in the very action of the sacrament lifts us into a care for God, this God who will stop at nothing to make us love him.

It is to God himself that I must go, it is God that I must implore to give me a care for God. But meanwhile it can do no harm for me to consider what it is for which I am asking when I pray to love the Lord my God with all my heart and mind and soul and strength. For it is not on the face of it altogether plain. It cannot mean, for example, that I am to turn away my heart then mind, my whole being and my entire endeavour, from the pursuit of every earthly object and the enjoyment of every earthly friendship. Even if I were called to follow the Franciscan life, it would not mean this. And very few men are called to follow such a life. Yet all men are called, and indeed commanded, to love God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength. Let us ask God to show us what is the way of that love which he has commanded us to practice. Let us advance step by step, seeing what we can see.

First then (for this is the plainest step) we might hope to love God with the love of preference. If I care for my friends it does not mean that I shall think about them always, but it does mean that where their well-being is concerned I shall always give it the preference over my own mere pleasure. If they really need me, I must drop everything and run; and I must dare to hope that if the cause of God required it, I would suffer material loss, and in the extreme case loss of life itself, sooner than disown God's cause. But such heroic thoughts are somewhat remote from to-day's concerns. When does God's will call me to drop what I am doing and run? He calls me to drop my pleasure and take up my work. He calls me to drop my work and take up my prayer. He calls me to break off my sleep and spring from my bed, so that I may be ready to worship him with recollection and without haste. Here are opportunities enough to exercise that love for God which lies in giving him the preference always.

And how do we stand in respect of this most elementary sort of love? How do we stand, even in those obvious cases where the issue is plain? But often the same issue is not plain, and we keep giving ourselves the benefit of the doubt. Does the love of God really require that I should drop the unkind chest I have on the tip of my tongue? I do not think of such good jokes every day; surely it would be a crime to suppress it. No doubt I ought to spare the characters of the absent; but then should I not take trouble to please those present? I say, to please them; it escapes my notice that what I really mean is to make them pleased with me. I am blinded by my vanity, I do not let myself see what God requires of me; and so I fail to give his will the preference. I find the same thing in the treatment of my friends. I think I have a good conscience, that I have given them the preference in all that concerns them, but they do not agree; and the more smug I am in the consciousness of friendship honoured, the more hurt they are to see how little feeling I have for any but their most obvious desires.

 So much then for the first step, the love of God which lies in giving him the preference. But even if I could practise this sort of love perfectly – and how far I am from doing so – I should still scarcely have begun to love God. To take again the analogy of friendship; if I say to my friends, or to one tied to me by blood, “What more do you expect? I hope I have done everything you wanted,” there is scarcely anything more arrogant, more insufferable, more wounding that I could say. I am likely to provoke the retort that if that is the spirit in which my help is offered, my friend would rather do without it. If I don't like him, why don't I say so and get out? And God desires that we should delight in him. That is the fact; I hardly dare to say it, still feeling upon me the eye of the man whom I met the other day, and who talked to me about humbug.

The love which consists of preference may be difficult, but at least it is intelligible; the love which is delight may seem not even intelligible; For what could be meant by delighting in God above all things? And if anyone does it is it not some enraptured Mystic? And would it not be mere hypocrisy for me to pretend that I even want to be such a person? But let me consider these words: “the light of the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ, who is the image of God” If I cannot delight more than a moment here and there in God**** yet I may constantly delight in his image so as God sent his son into the world to be his speaking image so the son has multiplied the image everywhere. God is to be loved in his son, and his son is to be loved in all the human race. In as much, he says, yet we have done it to the least of these my brethren, ye have done it to me. And again, he that welcomes me welcomes him that sent me.

According to Moses, God is jealous; he will have our love for himself; he will not endure that we should worship any image. According to Christ, God his generous; for he is content that the love we owe him should be paid to his living images. Yet this strict jealousy and this free generosity are not contrary to each other. For the image Moses prohibits and the image Christ allows are not the same. The accursed image is that we made which we make, the work of our hands; but the blessed image is the image God makes or, rather, the image he begets. And this blessed image you can love. Indeed in the worthy sense you can love nothing else. There are many other things that you can covet, but nothing else you can love, in the sense of ‘love’ which includes appreciation and contemplation, and a prizing of what, in itself, the object of your love is. Nothing can be thus loved except the image and handiwork of God. And the light of the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ reveals the image of God everywhere; for this gospel is able to relate everything to Jesus Christ. He who has seen Christ can see the Christ in all men, and distinguish the Christ in them from the devil that is in them. He who has seen Christ can look with new eyes on the works of nature, and see a glory greater than Solomon’s in common weeds.

Sometimes it seems that the glorious gospel has taught us how to love, and sometimes, rather, that it has taught us whom to love. And yet these two lessons are not in substance different. For nothing can be loved with that purity and disinterestedness which Christ teaches, except God. For though we love men in this manner, yes, and even inanimate things, or the stately order of nature, we shall be loving God in them and them in God, as soon as we begin to love them, and stop coveting or exploiting them. Even a disinterested appreciation of what we study, or of the arts in which we delight, is a certain measure of love for God, so long as we do not pursue these things to the glory to glorify ourselves or to advance ourselves thereby.

For this light of glory, this good news of Jesus the image of God, shedding splendour on the world and making God everywhere present, has one enemy, says St. Paul. It cannot be hidden except for those whose eyes the God of this world has blinded. Nothing blinds us to the true and living image of God except the false man-made idle, worldliness. He who is pushing his fortune sees not the creatures of God, but the materials of his own designs. His friends are not possible Christs, but useful contacts; and if you think that a university at least the spirit is not to be found, read the university magazines and think again.

We would scarcely love God with the love that is delight, if he had not propagated and multiplied his glorious image. And yet he desires of us, even in this world, that we should gather the glory together in pronouncing his holy name, and sum up the delight in our act of praise; blessing him, the source of all good, the cause of all joy, and the sole object of love worthy to be served with heart and mind, with soul and strength.

Besides the love that is preference, and the love that is delight, there is the love that is sacrifice, of which I will not now stay to speak; except to say that it is your special privilege in Lent to practice it. For though what we can offer sacrificially to God is indeed nothing, yet he is pleased with such sacrifices, kindly vowed and faithfully performed. So let us not fail to undertake some small voluntary obligation for his sake.

The 4th chapter of Second Corinthians, this evening’s second lesson, is one of those scriptures which most show up the foolishness of preaching; for what can any preacher add to divine words, capable of bringing heaven itself before our eyes? And looking back at the text, I see that whatever I have said has served only to destroy the balance. For I have spoken only of the light of gospel glory which illuminates the world through the image of God in Jesus Christ. But the Apostle has spoken also of a dying and rising again with Jesus. It is no simple matter to cast out the blind od of this world and to enthrone the true deity in our hearts; so deeply rooted there are covetousness and pride. We must die before we can live, abandon what we are and ask to be reborn; and of this process there is no end. We must die daily, and hope for a daily resurrection; and this is the resurrection-life, the love of God.