THE WORLD AND THE WAY OF JESUS

Is the world changing its mind about the way of Jesus ? As we ask this question, there are many things to enhearten as well as many things to depress. There is still a real danger of the possibility of a pagan England. Yet there are many things which lead us to believe that a gradual change of mind is taking possession of the world. We still have many evils rampant in our midst, but this at least may be said : they are becoming the concern of more and more people, and, most significantly, of more and more leaders of the people both inside and outside the Church.

The attitude of the Church to these evils is not our purpose in this chapter. It must become more passionate in its concern, and must direct against these evils energies which are now absorbed in its domestic affairs. But I wish to suggest here that the leaders of men's thoughts outside the Churches are much more inclining to see in the way of Jesus a solution of their problems than was ever the case before.

That change has not come as we hoped, as a glad acceptance on the part of those who acknowledge Him as Lord. It is being reluctantly tried as the remedy of the desperate. Men are choosing this
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Man rather than Barabbas, not because they believe in the way of Jesus as such, but because Barabbas, for all his violent power and vulgar wealth, is a dismal failure. Frankly, the old way of running the world has proved itself utterly bankrupt, simply because God made human life, and He made it so that it will only work His way, which is the way of Jesus. In his preface to Androcles and the Lion, Mr. Bernard Shaw says, ' I am ready to admit that, after contemplating the world and human nature for nearly sixty years, I see no way out of the world's misery but the way which would have been found by Christ's will if He had undertaken the work of a modern practical statesman.' And, though we are grateful that St. Paul did not take sixty years before he was ready to admit that the way of Christ is the way out of all our dilemmas, yet we are grateful also for this word of a great thinker.

The view of life which supposes that the world that is seen is the only world that matters, that the only things that count are those that can be counted, that religion is a sentimental fringe which may be attended to when there is no more serious business on hand, and that the truly serious things are wealth, power, empire, and social prestige, is going. There is a change of mind due to a recognition that the materialistic attitude to life simply does not work.

For instance, in industry, the spirit of grab on either side only ends in strikes on the one side and lock‑outs on the other, and bitterness on both. In a word, it does not work. The nations, it is being
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realized, are drawing nearer and nearer through the shrinkage brought about by modem communica­tions, and, while you can get on with a man in the next street, whatever he is like, you cannot get on with him if he lives with you. India, for instance, lived, as it were, in the next street. But already, what with wireless, fast steamers, and faster aero­planes, it may be said that she lives next door. The nations have got to find some way of living together. Some spirit of brotherhood is going to be an inter­national necessity. Leaders of nations and parties are gradually stumbling on the fact that we live in a moral universe, and that, apart from the value of idealism as a spiritual asset, the world cannot be understood, and certainly cannot be run, without that spirit which we identify with Christ.

One of the saddest facts of life to‑day is that so many people who are groping to find a way out of difficulties, national, social, and individual, do not consciously and immediately turn to Jesus. They come to His way when aU other ways have failed, and then, even, do not often give the credit of the solution to Him. The ingenuity of those who have tried to solve problems that we all want solving, and who yet have contrived to leave out God, is amazing. And in a measure this is a failure which strikes home to all of us individually. It is as though a number of people are trying to find the way to open a locked door while we walk about amongst them with the key in our pocket. From time to time we offer them the key, but they look at us with a queer kind of
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wistful smile and feel sure that we cannot do much to help them.

When I ask myself why they do not eagerly accept our word that we have the key to every situation, I find the answer may be in some measure their own cowardice and unreadiness in applying it. We could fight cancer if we would give up drink; for what might have been achieved if the money spent on drink had been used for medical research I We could do many Christlike things if we dared. But I feel sure there is a deeper reason which is our concern here. It is that we make great claims, use great words, without convincing the world that a great experience lies behind them. We preach, and are said to believe in a transforming friendship; yet we are not transformed. We belong to a faith which turned the world upside down, yet the world now ignores us to an extent which surely must make us think. Jesus' last bequest was the gift of peace to His followers; but squabbling, dissension, and personal animosity are not unknown even within the Church. We are like those objectionable people Who talk much of money that has been left them and yet who never treat another to as much as an ice‑cream. We function so far below our resources that people who want to find the way out for industry, the way out for social problems, the way out for national problems, and, most of all, the way out for the problems of their own disabled lives, look at us a little wistfully and pass on. The power we claim to possess is not apparent enough to make them believe in it. We make claims which leave
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the poets far behind, yet, as Dr. Maltby once said, "The poet could say '0 wind!' with far more meaning than we say '0 God!' "  We make vast claims, but we do not seem able to convince the world that we are in touch with the resources advertised.

It is, therefore, not much use the Church boasting, 'We'll show you.' It seems to me that the greatest contribution we can make to our age is to show forth the power of God in our own life in such a way that, as the leaven spreads, those who lead in industry and State will gradually begin to believe in the efficacy of spiritual power ; a power greater than any released by devices made only by the intellect. They won't believe in it till they see it controlling our lives. The Kingdom cannot come without to the many until it has come within to those who claim to be members of it. If we cannot master, control, and empower our own life by getting back to those resources which are ours in Christ, is it to be won­dered at that the world does not hit on Christ's way out when it is confronted by the vast problems which now oppress it? If the kingdom of my own life is full of strikes and lock‑outs, of rebellion and unrest and strife, because it has not yet succumbed to the spirit of Christ, can I expect that the leaders of industry and politics, with so much to lose, will believe in and try the Christ spirit?

When, as individuals, we catch fire and really live the life of radiance, adequacy, and strength which is possible to us, the Christian Church will impress the world again with a sense of power, as it did in
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the first century. You will remember the thrill you had when first you read the book of Acts, and contemplated the lives of ordinary men and women who infected everybody with the sense that they were in touch with resources that the worldling knew nothing about. They convinced the world that they could go into any set of circumstances certain of victory, and their message spread like a glorious infection to the far borders of the known world.

What is the way for us? That is really the ques­tion for the individual. If you go and realize Christ's presence in some quiet place, He will tell you what is His way for you. Some self‑love, perhaps, or self‑pity stands in the way ; some secret sin, or some inhibiting fear. When that is rooted out, power will come, and you will go out and translate the spirit of Christ into terms of your job. As Paul Harris, the founder of Rotary, said recently, 'It would be a short cut to the millennium if every one regarded his vocation as his best contribution to society.' That is our contribution to the world's problems. That would be the finest revival the world has ever known.

There is one vivid picture from my life in India which I should like to paint here. One Sunday night a young Indian graduate, on whose forehead were painted the symbols of a heathen god, came to tell me that he had decided to become a Christian. As we talked in the moonlight in my garden at Madras, it came out that he was a keen student of the Gospels, and had been captivated by Christ. I discovered that for some time he had been gathering
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little outcaste children on to his verandah and teach­ing them their letters. When I asked him why he did this, since it involved the breaking of his caste rules, his reply was as simple as it was sublime : ' I thought it was the kind of thing Jesus Christ would do.' I discovered also that in an important examination, when pens would not go round and a man next to him was writing in pencil, with the risk of having his papers disqualified, this man lent him his fountain‑pen and himself took the pencil. His reason was the same : ' I thought it was the kind of thing Jesus Christ would have done.' I asked him the question any one would have asked ‑, ' If you have studied the Gospels, and been so attracted to Christ and so caught His spirit, why did you not become a Christian before?' I shall never forget his answer. ' I am attracted,' he said, ' but Christ demands the carrying of a cross and absolute surrender, and I would not become a Christian before because I wasn't prepared to go all the way. Now I am prepared to go all the way.'  We stood there in the garden, I with the collar that symbolizes the Christian ministry, and he with his forehead painted with the marks of a heathen god, but I knew who was the better Christian of the two, and it wasn't I.

When we can bring ourselves to that point of dedication, things will soon begin to happen. When all Christ's followers do that, the world will know that we really have the secret of life, and a way out of every problem. Perhaps Jesus is bending over many of us at this moment with that great tender­ness which you see in a mother as she draws a wilful
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child to her breast, when the child's disobedience has brought him, hot, flushed, angry, exasperated, frightened at his helplessness, to some impasse from which he can see no way out. And perhaps the Master of Life is saying what such a mother might say, '"Why didn't you come to Me before?"