[ p. 51 ]
MODERN writers often speak of the Sermon on the Mount as “the heart of Jesus’ Gospel.” They are mistaken. The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is an utterly vital part of Jesus’ message; it is the “rock” on which every spiritual house must be built. But the Sermon on the Mount is not “gospel.”
The reason is plain. “Gospel” means “good news,” but the tremendous ethical demands of the Sermon are not good news—if nothing follows. If these demands are to be understood simply as the conditions which everyone must fulfill before he can hope for salvation, they are the worst of all possible news, for they ask so much that they leave us in despair. The external legalism, which Jesus condemned, was difficult, but at least it was within the reach of somebody. The zealots, who devoted all their energies to obeying the law, might at times boast without falsehood that they had succeeded in their aim; when the Pharisee in the parable asserts that he has even gone beyond the requirements of the law, he is supposed to be speaking the exact and literal truth. But who can claim to have lived up to the standard set forth in the Sermon on the Mount? So it is not to the Sermon we look for “good news.”
[ p. 52 ]
Where, then, are we to find this Gospel, or “good news”?
When we turn to the records of Jesus’ teaching, we see a curious picture. On the one hand he is described as teaching this splendid but drastic ethical ideal, and preaching it as the only ideal worthy of a follower of God. We hear him denouncing the professionally pious classes of his day as men whose righteousness must be exceeded by all who hope to enter the Kingdom. On the other hand, we see him mingling on the most friendly terms with the despised and outcast “publicans and sinners,” men and women whose moral achievements, by any possible measure, were far below those of the Pharisees. He even goes so far as to declare forgiveness of sins for individuals who appear to us to have made but a slight beginning in the way of righteousness. How are these two seemingly discrepant sides of the picture to be reconciled?
The answer is found in the title Jesus uses for God: he always called God “Father.” We have seen already how he based all direction for moral endeavor on this name, but how did he understand God’s Fatherhood as expressing a religious relationship? And how are we to interpret the corresponding term, “child,” in the same relationship? “Whosoever shall not receive the Kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.” Just what does “as a little child” mean?
In the first place, “as a little child” does not mean that we must accept beliefs with what we nowadays call a “childlike faith.” This phrase, in modern [ p. 53 ] parlance, usually denotes a credulity that accepts a statement purely on external authority, without seeking any further reasons for the belief, and without asking whether the belief is possible or not. A little child believes in Santa Claus without reasoning about the matter at all; are we to believe in God and His promises in the same way? To ask this question is to answer it. Such faith is meritorious only in a child. There are heights, of course, to which the mind cannot reach, heights which we can scale only by a venture of faith; but this faith is not “childlike.”
Nor is the childlike quality “humility,” although humility is an important element. Children, after all, are not very humble beings; in some respects, childhood is the most egotistic period of life. In fact, a child’s innocent pride in its achievements is one of its most charming qualities; a quality that we should miss sadly if it were absent.
If we really seek the answer to our question, we can find it simply by looking at a child; the perfection of Jesus’ comparisons lies in the fact that they are selfevident, if we only know the thing he is talking about. The quality that makes a child attractive is something everyone knows, even though it is perhaps difficult to state in a precise formula. Generally speaking, however, we may sum up this quality as “affectionate naturalness.” There is no bargaining in the child-father relationship. As long as this relationship is kept intact—we must never forget that unworthiness on either side may spoil it—the father’s love is not measured by counting up the acts of service the [ p. 54 ] child has performed each day; nor does the child expect to earn its father’s care by its own scrupulous obedience. If a child should say, “I have done everything you asked me to do, and therefore I claim from you in return my food and clothing,” the genuine relationship would be wrecked. Or when one hears— as, unfortunately, now and then one does hear—an older child say, “I have done my full legal duty to my parents,” the impression is one of heartlessness, a consciousness that this child, at any rate, does not know what real duty is. In other words, the legal quality, which, according to Jesus’ teaching, spoils righteousness, spoils just as thoroughly the true religious relationship to God.
Of course, God is wholly desirous to do his part in this relationship. The parable of the prodigal son tells the story in the simplest and most familiar terms. In this story Jesus, with his eye open as always to the actualities of life, was careful not to select a father extraordinarily wise or unusually generous. He chose for his illustration an ordinary parent of normal qualities, good-hearted but not inclined to trouble himself overmuch about his children. His older son is pictured as possessing the plodding fidelity of a heart naturally but uninspiringly responsive to duty. His obedience is simply taken for granted by the father, quite unmindful of youth’s need of relaxation and diversion; in consequence, the boy brooded over what seemed to him to be neglect. The younger son is a wayward, impatient, “heady” young man, who, tired [ p. 55 ] of the humdrum life of the home, took his inheritance and left to go “on his own” in the venturesome life of the larger world. The father permitted him to depart with his pockets full and without anyone to guide him. Naturally enough there happened what too often happens in such cases: the boy made a tragic failure of the experiment, sank into debauchery, and vanished, to the father’s great distress. Humble and penitent, the son finally returned, willing to begin again on the lowest round of life’s ladder, to find a father now shocked into realization of his loss and ready to receive him with open arms. Nothing was too excessive to express the joy of finding the lost child once more: festal garments, the best food procurable, and even hired entertainers to sing and dance for him.
No one, apparently, took the trouble to notify the older son, who, smarting under the sense of long injustice, thought that this lavish expenditure on the prodigal was the last straw. His attitude was not charitable, perhaps, but it certainly was natural. His anger is overcome, however, by the first words of love which, perhaps, the father had addressed to him in years, “Son, thou art ever with me, and all that is mine is thine.” The father suddenly realizes that here, too, is a boy who is priceless to him.
If, then, an earthly father could be so awakened to the value of his children, how much more is God unceasingly alive to the worth of His creatures! The soul that has wandered far from God in devious ways need never fear to return; God will come far more than halfway. And faithful, patient souls, who work [ p. 56 ] on day after day in a life that seems dreaiy and monotonous, must never for a moment let themselves think that God is unmindful of them. [1]
With the same general moral we have two other parables, so simple that they require no explanation; they need only be told:
“What man of you, having a hundred sheep, and having lost one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, [2] and go after that which is lost, until he find it? And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and his neighbors, saying unto them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost.
“Or what woman, having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a lamp and sweep the house, and seek diligently until she find it? And when she hath found it, she calleth together her friends and neighbors, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found the piece which I lost.”
To Orientals such occurrences would be as familiar as the day—the happy shepherd, carrying the sheep and singing songs of joy at the top of his lungs; exuberant women calling in all the neighbors for a joy-feast. “Even so there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth”—and [ p. 57 ] the One who rejoices in the presence of the angels is none other than God Himself.
We must not, of course, try to extract from these stories more than they are meant to teach; they are not concerned with our part in winning forgiveness, but with God’s. If we attempt to define, for instance, just what made the prodigal’s repentance acceptable, we go beyond the lesson in the parable. The stories tell us simply: If any true relationship can be established between the Father and one of His children, God is passionately anxious to receive that child. And it is from this truth alone that further conclusions should be drawn.
This truth, indeed, tells us all that we need know. Our part is to respond to God’s offer as a child accepts its father’s love, gratefully, without attempting to make terms or to plead its own achievements as compelling God’s favor. This was the Pharisee’s error as he blandly recited the catalogue of his own virtues: “I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican who stands near me. I fast twice in the week; [3] I give tithes of everything [4] I get.” The man felt that he had nothing to regret, nothing to desire, no aim he had not reached; he had left nothing undone which he ought to have done, he had even gone beyond the legal requirements; he was perfectly satisfied with himself. How could such a man be made to feel the real meaning of God’s [ p. 58 ] Fatherhood? He was thinking of himself as dealing with God on—as it were—equal terms, he doing his part while God did His. And he pictured the two parties to the contract as cong r atulating each other on their mutual achievements!
This is why Jesus speaks with an extreme of severity of those who were the “good people” of their own day, who were seen constantly at prayer, were never-failing in the observance of religious rites, were leaders in the life of their church, and were pointed out as deserving of all praise and respect. In general, he always saw latent possibilities of good where they were least expected; he seemed, instinctively, to draw the best out of people; he had the greatest patience with the most degraded type of sinners, and never uttered a word that would lead them to despise themselves or to despair of themselves. But for the pharisaical spirit his language was that of stem denunciation, even of scornful derision. In the Pharisee there was nothing to which Jesus could appeal. Just so long as the voice of conscience has not been wholly silenced, so long as there is an occasional sting of self-condemnation, so long as there are some restless longings, love may draw out the better self; but all these were absent from the Pharisee, and therefore the only possible thing was to sting him with contempt, in the hope that at last he might be stung into self-contempt. [5] All this we see in the parable, in one short, sharp sentence which tells the whole story in a line.
[ p. 59 ]
Acceptance of the demands of the Sermon on the Mount would have wrecked pharisaic self-superiority beyond recovery. Knowledge of the real nature of God’s righteousness would have been utterly humbling. To see a vision of an ideal beyond human attainment, with new vistas constantly opening, with ever fresh possibilities of still more exalted advance, would have made him realize how petty his progress beyond the despised publican had been. He would have seen that all his boasted attainments had given and could give him no claim on God; that his whole hope was to approach God as a penitent child approaches its father knowing that it cannot make reparation for its faults, but trusting to the father’s love for pardon. This is why the publican, with the prayer, “God be merciful to me a sinner,” could go down to his house justified rather than the Pharisee.
And this is why the two sides of the picture of Jesus’ teaching—the drastic demand for righteousness and the message of a merciful Father—are not discrepant but supplementary; both sides are needed for the whole truth.
Of course this is a secondary element in the story, but an element which is certainly present. The father’s words of praise and affection for the older son debar any attempt to treat this boy as merely reprehensible and heartless. ↩︎
These sheep are supposed to be in a place of safety. ↩︎
By the Old Testament law fasting was obligatory only once a year, on the Day of Atonement. ↩︎
By the Old Testament law tithes were obligatory only on agricultural produce raised in Palestine. ↩︎
There were perhaps six thousand Pharisees in Jesus’ day. Of course his condemnations were not meant to apply to every individual in the entire group. ↩︎