with God, rather than with human beings. Righteousness, that means primarily being right with God. The person who is right with God begins to live right with their fellow human beings. This is a fundamental thing. I was at works recently trying unsuccessfully to arrange a C.C.C. meeting. The answer I got was this (concealing the real nature of the works) “Our job is making pork pies, your job is religion. We had better keep the two separate.” I replied at once that it was because people kept pork pie making and religion distinct that the world was in the state we know. And I’m sure that is right. The principle of that works (and I say nothing behind their backs that I do not say to their face) is Hitler’s—let religion concern itself with people’s souls, and dressing them up in white robes all ready for heaven, but let it not touch politics, industry, social life. That won’t do. That is not Christianity. The person who is right with God will live right. He lives to put life straight. This leads to peace.
PEACE
Again that is primarily peace with God. It means, “God and sinner’s reconciled.” Prodigals back in the Father’s house. But it has meaning beyond that. It also means human beings at peace with one another. It means peace between individuals, for how can you think of the Christ who died to bring you to God, and look with hatred upon the woman who shares your home, the man who shares your office? And maybe, when there are enough individuals with the peace of God in their hearts, we shall find even world-wide reconciliation. And joy.
JOY
Not merely when everything is put right, but now. Have you read of the man that Wesley visited when he was ill and in great pain? Wesley asked how he was and the man admitted that he had much pain, “but,” he said, “I praise him for all, I bless him for all, I love him for all.”
Or to take a different picture. I met (on a campaign) a young man, a layman, who looked a quite ordinary sort of fellow until he began to speak. Then he said, “I know some of the thrills of life, for example I hold some of the records at Brookhurst motor-racing track. But the greatest thrill and joy I have in life is being a disciple of Christ.” And I can add my own word to that and I want to. My joys haven’t been the same. But, I’ve scored a try at Rugger, I’ve knocked some good scores at cricket, I’ve had a sort of University success. And I’d throw the lot down the drain in comparison with the joy of commending Christ.
Righteousness, peace, joy—in the Holy Spirit. You see what that means don’t you? These things are not innate, and they are not simple acquired characteristics. They are God’s gift. And the only question that remains is whether you are going to take it.
•
“PLEASING OURSELVES”—Romans 15.1–3
[Preached twenty times from 7/29/45 at Bondgate, Darlington to 2/20/94 at Howden-le-Wear]
“Not to please ourselves” yet that is precisely what most of us spend most of our time doing. Or if “most of us” is wrong, then at least “most of our generation.” And so many of them, and so plausibly, that I suspect the principle has even invaded our faith itself. I shall make plain later what I mean by that. I warned you in the Christian Talk last Sunday morning that I was going to preach this sermon, when I told you about a small boy who announced decisively “I’m looking for me.” It’s all about me and sometimes the excuses are hilarious.
For example, here’s a recent note in the paper—the headmistress of a school preserved for posterity this excuse note she once received: “Miss—Please will you excuse Mary from being away last Wednesday as her Aunty got buried and also had a Cold in her Glands and still has a cold now. Kindly Oblige, Mrs.—.” One is sorry for Aunty still suffering from her cold, but you see the point no doubt, and the misplaced modifier in the sentence as well.
If I were in the habit, which I am not, of preaching on subjects rather than texts, I should tell you that my subject was Hedonism. That title would at any rate have the merit of concealing my intentions from some of you, but I will draw the curtain by giving you a definition. This is the Chamber’s Dictionary—“Hedonism: the doctrine that happiness is the highest good.” So you see we are back again to the text—“pleasing yourself.”
Now if there is a prevailing characteristic of this age, it is this hedonism, pleasing yourself, pursuing happiness. I could give you plenty of proof if there were time. For example, a few days ago in a house where I was visiting, I picked up a copy of John Bull and looked over an article, written by a young married man, to explain why young people of today were unwilling to have children. This young man who thought himself very badly paid at three pounds a week more than your minister receives (that is not a complaint) explained that he and his wife were rather fond of dancing and pictures and were not minded to give them up. And that was that. I am not surprised that the article was anonymous, but I am sure that millions of people would write to the same effect. But you say, “How are we to judge? Do you want us to always be miserable?” I borrow the title of a book I am reading and ask what are the tests of life?
THE TESTS OF LIFE?
How can you tell when you are living the right kind of life? What are the things to aim at? Of course life is a tricky, complicated thing to handle at best. You buy an electric battery in a shop. The assistant puts a lamp holder across the terminals. The lamp gleams good, signaling the battery is alright. Or the examiner takes the examination papers, makes them and lists his candidates 55 percent, 53 percent, 50 percent—draw the line! These have passed, and these have failed.
But life doesn’t work like that. As I say, it is nothing like so easy. It is as if you took a bulb holder with an electric bulb, out it across the terminals and then—no light appeared but a bell rang. Or as if when you looked at your list of candidates today, Mr. X had scored 70, and when you looked tomorrow, only 30. Where is he, and how can you draw the line? Enough of talking in pictures. Let’s have some facts (though my pictures were facts).
What is wrong with living for pleasure, living to please oneself anyway? I think we ought to be quite realistic about this, and very many people aren’t. It won’t do for us to be forever busy condemning people seeking for happiness in a purely sensual way when we are doing the same thing in our Christian faith. Most people agree—perhaps rather unfairly—to condemn “rice Christians,” folk on the mission field who have been attracted into the Church by financial and material benefits they hoped to obtain. Isn’t it equally bad to be a Christian for the sake even of spiritual profit? For the sake of a future life? For the sake of some more or less emotional experience now?
I don’t want anyone to be a Christian because it is nice to be a Christian, because it gives him a glow of comfortable self-satisfaction, a Jack Hornerish sentiment of “Oh, what a good boy am I.” Listen to some words of Francis Xavier (we shall have more of them later), who apparently did not get much out of his religion. “My God, I love thee, not because I hope for heaven thereby, nor because those who love thee not are lost eternally.” But we are jumping ahead too quickly. The question still is—Why not? Why not do this, that, and the other for the happiness it brings? Shall I surprise you? I don’t know the answer to that question. At least I don’t know a purely negative answer. I cannot prove that this is not a logical attitude to life. I cannot break it down by the weapons of dialectic. It is perfectly true that many who have pursued pleasure have found it turned into something different in their hands, like Proteus in the grip of Hercules. But that is not universally true.
I think for example of Epicurus, founder of the Epicureans, the most thorough-going of all hedonists. He wrote this in a letter on the day of his death—“I write to you on the blissful day which is the last of my life. The obstruction of my bladder and internal pains have reached the extreme point, but there is marshalled against them the delight of my mind in thinking over our talks together.” You may brand this Epicurean doctrine as escapism, but you cannot deny the man’s
