The Social Principles of Jesus Part 6

The actual results of his work proved to Jesus that his success was to be with the simple-minded, and not with the pundit cla.s.s. He accepted the fact with a thrill of joy, and praised G.o.d for making it so. Paul verified the same alignment in the early Church. The upper cla.s.ses held back through pride of birth or education, or through the timidity of wealth. In bringing in a new order of things, G.o.d had to use plain people to get a leverage.

_What really was it that Jesus saw in the lowly to attract him?_

Sixth Day: Jesus, a Man of the People

And when they drew nigh unto Jerusalem, and came unto Bethphage, unto the mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying unto them, Go into the village that is over against you, and straightway ye shall find an a.s.s tied, and a colt with her: loose them, and bring them unto me. And if any one say aught unto you, ye shall say, The Lord hath need of them; and straightway he will send them. Now this is come to pa.s.s, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophet, saying,

Tell ye the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, Meek, and riding upon an a.s.s, And upon a colt the foal of an a.s.s.

And the disciples went, and did even as Jesus appointed them, and brought the a.s.s, and the colt, and put on them their garments; and he sat thereon. And the most part of the mult.i.tude spread their garments in the way; and others cut branches from the trees, and spread them in the way. And the mult.i.tudes that went before him, and that followed, cried saying, Hosanna to the son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest. And when he was come into Jerusalem, all the city was stirred, saying, Who is this? And the mult.i.tudes said, This is the prophet, Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.-Matt. 21:1-11.

Here was a democratic procession! No caparisoned charger, but a burro-though a young and frisky one, carefully selected-no military escort with a bra.s.s band and a drum major, but a throng of peasants, shouting the psalms of their fathers and the hope of a good time coming; no costly rugs to carpet the way of the King, but the sweat-stained garments of working people and branches wrenched off by Galilaean fists. What was he, this King of the future, ridiculous or sublime?

If Jesus is ever to make his entry into the spiritual sovereignty of humanity, will the social cla.s.ses line up as they did at Jerusalem?

Seventh Day: The Final Test for All

But when the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his glory: and before him shall be gathered all the nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as the shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats; and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry, and ye gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in; naked, and ye clothed me; I was sick, and ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee hungry, and fed thee? or athirst, and gave thee drink?

And when saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? And when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my brethren, even these least, ye did it unto me. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry, and ye did not give me to eat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me not in; naked, and ye clothed me not; sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.

Then shall they also answer, saying, Lord, when saw we thee hungry, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of these least, ye did it not unto me. And these shall go away into eternal punishment: but the righteous into eternal life.-Matt. 25:31-46.

"Whence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead." Think of it-absolute justice done at last, by an all-knowing Judge, where no earthly pull of birth, wealth, learning, or power will count, and where all masks fall! By what code of law and what standard shall we be judged there? Here is the answer of Jesus: Not by creed and church questions, but by our human relations; by the reality of our social feeling; by our practical solidarity with our fellow-men. If we lived in the presence of hunger, loneliness, and oppression, in the same country with child labor, race contempt, the long day, rack rents, prost.i.tution, just earnings withheld by power, the price of living raised to swell swollen profit-if we saw such things and remained apathetic, out we go.

_You and I-to the right or the left?_

Study for the Week

No one can turn from a frank reading of the Gospels without realizing that Jesus had a deep fellow-feeling, not only for suffering and handicapped individuals, but for the ma.s.s of the poorer people of his country, the peasants, the fishermen, the artisans. He declared that it was his mission to bring glad tidings to this cla.s.s; and not only glad words, but happy realities. Evidently the expectation of the coming Reign of G.o.d to his mind signified some substantial relief and release to the submerged and oppressed. Our modern human feeling glories in this side of our Saviour's work. Art and literature love to see him from this angle.

I

His concern for the poor was the necessary result of the two fundamental convictions discussed by us in the previous chapters. If he felt the sacredness of life, even in its humble and hardworn forms, and if he felt the family unity of all men in such a way that the sorrows of the poor were his sorrows, then, of course, he could not be at ease while the people were "skinned and prostrate," "like sheep without a shepherd."

Wherever any group has developed real solidarity, its best attention is always given to those who are most in need. "The whole have no need of a physician," said Jesus; the strong can take care of themselves.

So he cast in his lot with the people consciously. He slept in their homes, healed their diseases, ate their bread, and shared his own with them. He gave them a faith, a hope of better days, and a sense that G.o.d was on their side. Such a faith is more than meat and drink. In turn they rallied around him, and could not get enough of him. "The common people heard him gladly."

Furthermore, the feeling of Jesus for "the poor" was not the sort of compa.s.sion we feel for the hopelessly crippled in body or mind. His feeling was one of love and trust. The Galilaean peasants, from whom Peter and John sprang, were not morons, or the sodden dregs of city slums. They were the patient, hard-working folks who have always made up the rank and file of all peoples. They had their faults, and Jesus must have known them. But did he ever denounce them, or call them "offspring of vipers"?

Did he ever indicate that their special vices were frustrating the Kingdom of G.o.d? They needed spiritual impulse and leaders.h.i.+p, but their nature was sound and they were the raw material for the redeemed humanity which he strove to create.

II

There is one more quality which we shall have to recognize in the att.i.tude of Jesus to "the poor." He saw them over against "the rich." Amid all the variations of human society these two groups always reappear-those who live by their own productive labor, and those who live on the productive labor of others whom they control. Practically they overlap and blend, but when our perspective is distant enough, we can distinguish them. In Greek and Roman society, in medieval life, and in all civilized nations of today-barring, of course, our own-we can see them side by side. Each conditions the other; neither would exist without the other. Each cla.s.s develops its own moral and spiritual habits, its own set of virtues and vices. Some of us were born in the upper cla.s.s, some in the lower; and in college groups the majority come from the border line. By instinct, by the experiences of life, or by national reflection, we usually give our moral allegiance to one or the other, and are then apt to lean to that side in every question arising.

Now, Jesus took sides with the group of toil. He stood up for them. He stood with them. We can not help seeing him with his arm thrown in protection about the poor man, and his other hand raised in warning to the rich. If we are in any doubt about this, we can let his contemporaries decide it for us. Plainly the common people claimed him as their friend.

Did the governing cla.s.ses have the same feeling for him? It seems hard to escape the conclusion that Jesus was not impartial between the two. Was he nevertheless just? To the aesthetic sense, and also to a superficial moral judgment, the upper cla.s.ses are everywhere more congenial and attractive.

To the moral judgment of Jesus, as we shall see more fully in a later chapter, there was something disquieting and dangerous about the spiritual qualities of "the rich," and something lovable and hopeful about the qualities of the common man. Was he right? This is a very important practical question for all who are disposed to follow his moral leaders.h.i.+p.

The perception that Jesus championed the people can be found throughout literature and art. Our own Lowell has expressed it in his "Parable" in which he describes Jesus coming back to earth to see "how the men, my brethren, believe in me."

"Have ye founded your thrones and altars, then, On the bodies and souls of living men?

And think ye that building shall endure, Which shelters the n.o.ble and crushes the poor?

"With gates of silver and bars of gold Ye have fenced my sheep from their Father's fold; I have heard the dropping of their tears In heaven these eighteen hundred years.

"Then Christ sought out an artisan, A low-browed, stunted, haggard man, And a motherless girl, whose fingers thin, Pushed from her faintly want and sin.

"These set he in the midst of them, And as they drew back their garment-hem For fear of defilement, "Lo, here," said he, 'The images ye have made of me.' "

III

We shall get the historical setting for Christ's champions.h.i.+p of the people by going back to the Old Testament prophets. They were his spiritual forebears. He nourished his mind on their writings and loved to quote them. Now, the Hebrew prophets with one accord stood up for the common people and laid the blame for social wrong on the powerful cla.s.ses.

They underlined no other sin with such scarlet marks as the sins of injustice, oppression, and the corruption of judges. But these are the sins which bear down the lowly, and have always been practiced and hushed up by the powerful. "Hear this word, ye kine of Bashan, that oppress the poor, that crush the needy.... Ye trample upon the poor, and take exactions from him of wheat; ... ye that afflict the just, that take a bribe, and that turn aside the needy in the gate from their right.... For three transgressions of Israel, yea, for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have sold the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes; they that pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor" (Amos 4:1; 5:11-12; 2:6-7). Micah describes the strong and crafty crowding the peasant from his ancestral holding and the mother from her home by the devices always used for such ends, exorbitant interest on loans, foreclosure in times of distress, "seeing the judge"

before the trial, and hardness of heart toward broken life and happiness (Micah 2:1-2; 2:9; 3:1-2). We cannot belittle the moral insight of that unique succession of men. Their spiritual force is still hard at work in our Christian civilization, especially in the contribution which the Jewish people are making to the labor movement.

IV

Among the Greeks and Romans political and literary life was so completely dominated by the aristocratic cla.s.s that no such succession of champions of the common man could well arise. Yet some of the men of whom posterity thinks with most veneration were upper-cla.s.s champions of the common people-Solon, for instance, Manlius, and the Gracchi.

In recent centuries the vast forces of social evolution seem to have set in the direction toward which Jesus faced. Since the Reformation the inst.i.tutions of religion have been more or less democratized. The common people have secured some partic.i.p.ation in political power and have been able to use it somewhat for their economic betterment. They share much more fully in education than formerly. Before the outbreak of the Great War it seemed safe to antic.i.p.ate that the working people would secure an increasing share of the social wealth, the security, the opportunities for health, for artistic enjoyment, and of all that makes life worth living.

Today the future is heavily clouded and uncertain; but our faith still holds that even the great disaster will help ultimately to weaken the despotic and exploiting forces, and make the condition of the common people more than ever the chief concern of science and statesmans.h.i.+p.

Jesus was on the side of the common people long before democracy was on the ascendant. He loved them, felt their worth, trusted their latent capacities, and promised them the Kingdom of G.o.d. The religion he founded, even when impure and under the control of the upper cla.s.ses, has been the historical basis for the aspirations of the common people and has readily united with democratic movements. His personality and spirit has remained an impelling and directing force in the minds of many individuals who have "gone to the people" because they know Jesus is with them. In fact we can look for more direct social effectiveness of Jesus in the future, because the new historical interpretation of the Bible helps us to see him more plainly amid the social life of his own people.

V

So we must add a third social principle to the first two. The first was that life and personality are sacred; the second that men belong together; the third is that the strong must stand with the weak and defend their cause. In his description of the Messianic Judgment, Jesus proposed to recognize as his followers only those who had responded to the call of human need and solidarity. He created the apostles.h.i.+p and therewith the germ of the Church in order to serve the people whose needs he saw and felt.