The services of the despised
I. The lesson I would draw from the scene is, on the one hand, the lesson of Christ's own gospel to poor, humble, ill-endowed, ungifted persons, and at the same time the encouragement, the blessing, the multiplication which He gives to little things. These ought not, I think, to be fantastic or meaningless lessons for us. For the immense majority of us are neither rich, nor great, nor noble, but just such humble, unknown persons; and very few among us have more than little gifts to offer. By far the most of us have not ten talents to offer for Christ's use, nor even five talents; we have at the best but one talent, and perhaps not even that. Well, the world thinks everything of this, but God thinks nothing of it. When the Master comes He will not ask how great or how small were our endowments and capabilities, but only how we have used them. If we have not neglected our poor talent, or even fraction of a talent, we, no less than the most richly gifted, shall be thrilled with the words, "Well done, good faithful servant!" which will atone for ever for all afflictions.
II. Do not let us imagine, then, that we are too poor, too stupid, too ignorant, too obscurely situated, to do any real good in the world where God has placed us. Christ loves the humble and accepts the little. Take but one instance kind words. A kind word of praise, of sympathy, of encouragement it would not cost you much, yet how often does pride, or envy, or indifference prevent you from speaking it. The cup of cold water, the barley loaves, the two farthings how often we are too mean and too self-absorbed to give even these. And are we not to give them because we cannot endow hospitals, or build cathedrals, or write epics? Ah! if we be in the least sincere, in the least earnest, let us be encouraged. The little gifts of our poverty, the small services of our insignificance, the barley loaves of the Galilean boy on the desert plain, the one talent of poor dull persons like ourselves, are despised by the world; but they are accepted of, they will be infinitely rewarded by, Him without Whom no sparrow falls, Who numbers the very hairs of our heads, Who builds the vast continents by the toil of the coral insect, and by His grains of sand stays the raging of the sea.
F. W. Farrar, Sunday Magazine,1886, p. 164.
References: John 6:9. Preacher's Monthly,vol. vi., p. 281; Ibid.,vol. ix., p. 187; H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Sunday Sermonettes for a Year,p. 37. John 6:10; John 6:11. G. Huntington, Sermons for Holy Seasons,2nd series, p. 147.