We live in a culture of full schedules and frenetic activity. An aspiring college applicant fills her time with co-curricular activities and volunteer hours to set herself apart from the thousands of other applicants to her dream school. The businessman stays late at the office yet again even though he’s already over 60 hours this week. The homeschool mom teaches her kids in the morning, then runs her daughter to violin practice, and then takes her son with her to the grocery store so that she has what she needs to make tacos for dinner this evening before her husband and son leave for baseball practice. At some point, the labradoodle needs a walk, too.
Busyness is not a bug of modern life; it’s a feature. It’s become a virtue, and that attitude has even crept into our churches. If we are not careful, we can think of serving by doing as the only acceptable worship. It seems that busyness in church-related activities is next to godliness.
To be sure, serving the Lord with our physical gifts and abilities is good and right. Yet we must bear in mind that many in the body of Christ serve Him in other ways out of necessity, and their service is equally important and acceptable to God.
In 1652, English poet, polemicist, and public servant John Milton (1608-1674) went blind after suffering years of steadily declining eyesight. For one who from youth believed poetry was his divine vocation, blindness proved a setback even if not a disqualifying disability. Perhaps the blow of blindness was blunted by its gradual onset. Even so, the threat of blindness to the poet’s plans to serve God through verse preoccupied Milton enough that he mused on the topic in arguably his most famous sonnet, “Sonnet XIX.”
When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my Soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide;
“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’er Land and Ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait.”
Because the form of a sonnet is integral to understanding its meaning, allow me to briefly discuss its formal elements. The sonnet is one of the most recognizable forms of lyric poetry. Its origins date back to the 1300s when it was popularized in Italy by Francesco Petrarca. A couple of centuries later, the sonnet form spread in England where it underwent minor variations at the hands of poets Thomas Wyatt, the Earl of Surrey, and later William Shakespeare.
Both the Italian (Petrarchan) and Elizabethan (Shakespearean) sonnets are poems of fourteen lines written in a consistent rhythm and meter (iambic pentameter) and rhyme scheme. The differences between these two kinds of sonnets lie in the pattern of rhyme and the development of ideas as the poem progresses. In The Book of Forms, Lewis Putnam Turco succinctly describes the characteristics of an Italian sonnet this way:
The Petrarchan or Italian sonnet has an Italian octave which is made up of two Italian quatrains (abbaabba) after which a volta or turn takes place, a shift in the direction of thought which is pursued in the succeeding sestet, which is either an Italian sestet (cdecde) or a Sicilian sestet (cdcdcd). (353)
Although the discussion of form is a bit technical, here is what you need to know about an Italian sonnet. In the first eight lines (the octave), the speaker contemplates a problem or expresses a doubt or question that troubles him. In line nine, the speaker’s perspective shifts or turns (the volta), and the remaining lines of the sestet resolve the problem, quell the doubt, or answer the question.
Returning to Milton’s “Sonnet XIX,” we note how he uses the structure of the Italian sonnet to great effect. The primary question preoccupying the poem’s speaker is what kind of service is acceptable to God. (Service is mentioned in lines five, eleven, and fourteen.) More particularly, the speaker is questioning whether he can serve God now that his eyesight is lost before he has reached middle age (see lines 1-2). This physical obstacle to fulfilling his calling is all the more galling when the speaker considers the consequences of not using his talent to serve his “Maker” (line 5).
In lines three and four, he alludes to the parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30, equating himself with the slothful servant who buries his talent and incurs his master’s wrath. The sonnet’s octave concludes with the speaker venting his frustration over the absurdity that God would call him to a task and then deny him the means of fulfilling that task. The speaker asks “fondly,” which means foolishly, “Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?” (lines 7 and 8).
The volta or turn in perspective begins in the middle of line eight and continues through the sestet to bring the poem to its resolution. The speaker’s frustration, his foolish suggestion that God has perhaps called him to an impossible task, is quickly dispelled by a moment of patient reflection: “But patience, to prevent / That murmur, soon replies” (lines 8 and 9).
Only after the speaker ceases his questioning and complaining does he discover the truth about serving God. He recalls that God is self-sufficient and omnipotent. He “doth not need / Either man’s work or his own gifts” (lines 9 and 10).
Instead, God is looking for those who joyfully resign themselves to His sovereign will. In the words of Milton biographer Neil Forsyth, “In the poem’s sestet, . . . the impatience of the first part is dispelled and he realizes he must trust God’s will: ‘who best / Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best’” (125).
The speaker apparently will not be one of the “Thousands [who] at his bidding speed / And post o’er Land and Ocean without rest” (lines 12 and 13). He concludes rightly, however, that God still uses those who may not be able to serve Him physically by doing this or that and then that again. In a final line that seemingly alludes to Mary’s listening to Jesus while Martha “was distracted with much serving” (Luke 10:40, NKJV), the speaker comes to rest in the truth, “They also serve who only stand and wait” (line 14).
May the message of this sonnet encourage us and remind us that service to God is about so much more than busyness. Many people have full schedules, but they miss entirely the true purpose of our lives. This can, sadly, include Christians we equate busyness with godliness.
May this sonnet especially encourage those who may be frustrated because God has brought hardships that limit their abilities and opportunities to serve Him in active, demonstrable ways. If that describes you, remember that “they serve him best” who bear their burdens gracefully and hopefully.
Remember that God is not dependent on our gifts and abilities to accomplish His work.
Remember, too, that God can use you to serve Him in many other ways. Be an encourager. Be one who faithfully prays for your pastor, deacons, church family, and missionaries. Be one who supports ministries financially, if you are able. Be one who reads, thinks, and, if possible, writes for the benefit of others. In short, be alert to opportunities to serve God in ways available to you, and be ready for God to use you in unique ways.
To hear more about this sonnet, please listen to episode 180 of The Thinklings Podcast.
Sources
Forsyth, Neil. John Milton: A Biography. Oxford: Lion, 2008.
Turco, Lewis Putnam. The Book for Forms: A Handbook of Poetics, Including Old and Invented
Forms. Hanover, New Hampshire: Dartmouth College Press, 2012.
Author Bio
Joshua Boyd (PhD, Baylor University) is an associate professor of English and chair of the general education division at Faith Baptist Bible College.
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