The Social Principles of Jesus Part 13

The Law of Moses forbade murder; a man-slayer was amenable in the ordinary court. Was this an adequate expression of the sacredness of human life and personality? It never even scratched a man or woman who a.s.saulted the soul of another with anger and curses. Jesus proposed that these sins be restandardized. Plain anger ought to be valued about as murder used to be.

And if anybody went so far as to revile a brother and deny his moral or intellectual worth, the Supreme Court and Gehenna would be about right for him. The lawyers' gauge of culpability can not get down to the subtler expressions of lovelessness which break the prime law of the Kingdom.

_By what methods is contempt expressed in our own social life?_

_How highly do we rate the moral value of self-respect?_

Fifth Day: The Sins of s.e.x

Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt not commit adultery: but I say unto you, that every one that looketh on a woman to l.u.s.t after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart....

It was said also, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement: but I say unto you, that every one that putteth away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, maketh her an adulteress; and whosoever shall marry her when she is put away committeth adultery.-Matt. 5:27, 28; 31, 32.

These two cases deal with s.e.x. The old law forbade adultery, the infringement of family life, and stopped there. Jesus goes back of the act to the l.u.s.tful imaginations and the wandering eye, which may lack opportunity but which are the real spring of all uncleanness. He runs the line of ethical obligation farther back.

The law of divorce (Deut. 24:1), especially as interpreted by the scribes, was very comfortable-for the male. He could divorce his wife for almost any cause. Her only protection was that a formal paper had to be given her which enabled her to marry again. As a woman's economic and social standing in that age depended almost wholly on her family relations, she was at the mercy of the man. Jesus demanded more protection for her. To him the relation was indissoluble. The Mosaic provision for divorce was a concession to the low moral level of the people. The ideal was the "one man, one woman" provision of the Creator. (See Matt. 19:3-8). The disciples ruefully remarked that such a strengthening of the bond did not add to the attractiveness of marriage-for the male (19:10).

Where do we draw the line between the rightful, natural desire of s.e.x and lawless predatory l.u.s.t?

Sixth Day: The Sins of Words

Again, ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths: but I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by the heaven, for it is the throne of G.o.d; nor by the earth, for it is the footstool of his feet; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, for thou canst not make one hair white or black. But let your speech be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: and whatsoever is more than these is of the evil one.-Matt. 5:33-37.

Current morality had reached the point of insisting on truthfulness when a man was under oath. Solemnly to call G.o.d to witness a statement and yet to fool your neighbor by it, was downright wicked. But it was very handy. So they developed a joyful lot of casuistical distinctions as to which kind of oaths were binding and which didn't count. See how Jesus ridiculed this (Matt. 23:16-22). Here he proposed that the obligation of veracity be extended to all statements. A truthful man needs no oaths to a.s.sure a doubting world that this time he is really telling what is so. Oaths are a device of the devil to limit the amount of truth in the world.

How about oaths for legal purposes? Could they be dispensed with? Have they done more good or harm?

Seventh Day: The Sins of Strife

Ye have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: but I say unto you, Resist not him that is evil: but whosoever smiteth thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man would go to law with thee, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go one mile, go with him two. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.

Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy: but I say unto you, Love your enemies, and pray for them that persecute you; that ye may be sons of your Father who is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust. For if ye love them that love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the Gentiles the same? Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.-Matt. 5:38-48.

The Law restricted the natural desire for revenge to the limit of a strict equivalent. If a man knocked out your tooth, you could knock out one for him, but not two teeth, nor all he had. Of course retaliation never heals a feud. Jesus proposes to limit revenge still farther and to retaliate only by acts of kindness. That is, in fact, the only way to end a quarrel completely and victoriously. It reestablishes fellowship and kills an enemy.

The Law called for love for one's neighbors; the scribes had added the permission to hate one's enemies. Jesus raises the standards of good-will.

The law of love applies to all. There is nothing great in loving those who love us. Anybody can do that. Heroic love begins where no love comes to meet it. Those who can win that triumph show the true family likeness of G.o.d, and are now living in his Kingdom.

_What are our personal experiences as to the utility of revenge?_

_What is the difference between the non-resistance which Jesus proposed, and cowardice?_

_Is there such a thing in fact as loving your enemies?_

Study for the Week

I

The Hebrew religion was an unfinished religion. That is one of the best proofs of its divine inspiration. The prophets had the forward look. Great things were yet to come. As one of the most daring expressed it, the old and hallowed covenant, made by G.o.d at the Exodus, would be superseded by a new and higher relation; G.o.d would write his law into the hearts of the people; the old drill in outward statutes would disappear, for all men would know G.o.d by an inward experience of forgiveness and love (Jeremiah 31:31-34).

Jesus not only shared this expectation of a new religious era, but set it in the center of his teaching. Religion to him was not static. He lived in a moving world. A new age was coming, and he would be the initiator of it.

"From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of G.o.d suffereth violence, and men of violence take it by force." John had been the greatest of the prophets; with him a new swift movement had begun; but something far greater was coming; even the least in the new age would have an advantage over John (Matt. 11:11-19).

The popular conception expected the new age to come by divine miraculous interference simply. The Messiah would descend from heaven with angelic legions, expel the Romans, judge the nation, punish the apostate Jews, and then the new Jerusalem, which was already complete and waiting in heaven, would descend from above. That was the Utopia of Jewish apocalypticism.

Jesus never eliminated the direct acts of G.o.d and the significance of divine catastrophes from his outlook. But in his parables taken from biological processes (see especially Matthew 13) he developed a conception of continuous and quiet growth, culminating at last in the judgment act of G.o.d. The Kingdom of G.o.d, he said, is like a farmer who sows his grain and lets the forces of nature work; he goes about his daily tasks, and all the time the tiny blades come up, the ear forms and gets heavy, and then comes the harvest (Mark 4:26-29). Jesus was working his way toward evolutionary conceptions. They were so new to his followers that he put them in parable form to avoid antagonism.

Such a conception of the Kingdom brought it closer to human action. It was already at work; it was in one sense already present (Luke 17:20-21). It was possible then to help it along.

The most obvious duty was for every man to clean up his own backyard and repent of his sins. Every one should approximate the life of the Kingdom by living now as he would expect to live then. But, as we have seen from his sayings, Jesus went far beyond this. He demanded an elevation of the accepted ethical standards. It was not simply a matter of erring and lagging individuals, but of the socialized norms of conduct. He had deep reverence and loyalty for the religion of his nation, and never told his followers to break with it. But he a.s.serted boldly that the customary ethics of Judaism, based on the Decalogue and its interpretation by the Jewish theologians, was not good enough. It was good as far as it went, and he had no destructive criticism of it, but it needed to be "fulfilled"

and to have its lines prolonged.

We have studied the six sample instances which he offered in order to explain his principle of moral and social progress. In each case he accepts the law as it stood, but asks for more of the same thing, more respect for personality, more reverence for womanhood, more stability for the home, more truthfulness, more peacefulness, more love. Thus he combined continuity with progress, conservatism with radicalism.

II

The platform for ethical progress laid down in the Sermon on the Mount is a great platform. When Tolstoi first realized the social significance of these simple sentences, it acted as a revelation which changed his life.

Even men who reject the supernatural claims of Christianity uncover before the Sermon on the Mount. Yet its fate is tragic. It has not been "d.a.m.ned with faint praise," but made ineffective by universal praise. Its commandments are lifted so high that n.o.body feels under obligations to act on them. Only small sections of the Christian Church have taken the sayings on oaths, non-resistance, and love of enemies to mean what they say and to be obligatory. Yet all feel that the line of ethical and social advance must lie in the direction traced by Jesus, and if society could only climb out of the present pit of predatory selfishness and meanness to that level, it would be heaven.

Do you and I believe in it? Do we believe that it is not enough to keep out of the spiritual h.e.l.l and d.a.m.nation of adultery, but that a clean mind would be the most efficient and cheerful mind? Do we believe that a man who forgives and keeps sweet is happier and safer than a man who always resents things and stirs the witches' caldron of hate in his soul? If a man loved his enemy and turned the other cheek, would he be everybody's door-mat or everybody's temple of refuge?

Suppose we mark for the present those parts which we are willing to accept as our own standards of action. If there are portions which do not seem practicable, let us post them in our minds as debatable propositions, as points to be tested by the experience of coming years, or as working hypotheses in the science of living.

But whatever we may think of single points, let us stick to the leading thought of Jesus, that every advance toward the Kingdom of G.o.d, that is, toward the true social order, involves a raising of the ethical standards accepted by society. This is a principle of social progress which every leading intellect ought to know by heart.

III

When Jesus offered his six sample cases of ethical progress, he had no intention of exhausting the principle of advance which he laid down. There was more to say about the Jewish law. It is now for his followers to treat the inherited ethical conceptions of traditional Christianity with the same combination of reverence and courage with which he treated the Jewish law.