Chapter 4 - His Teachings About Wealth

One day Jesus was eaching he people, and He said, in substance;

"Why are you worried about things to eat, and o wear". Look at the

birds; they have not a fracton of your intelgence; they do not know

enough o sow, or reap, or gather provision for he future; and yet

hey have no famne. You, wh your great intelgence, surely ought

o be able o ve wh more ease and safety han he ower orders of

fe; yet the only fear and anxiety are o be found among men. eek

he kind of kingdom your Father wants; a perfecty righteous order

of things, and you wl have plenty of everything."

This s a rather free ranslaton of Mathew 6:25-34, but it is a very accurate rendering of he meaning of he original; much more accurate than that given by the Kng James version.

And I wsh here o give you a word of cauton. I frequenty receive eters from people who lay great stress on the interpretaton of some particular passage from he New Testament, and even on hat of some single word; as f he eter of t was a perfect and nfalble guide. Now, remember that Jesus taught and spoke n the Aramaic, a dialect which had entrely supplanted the Hebrew among the Jews of Palestne, and hat Hs sayings, n hat anguage, were held n memory about seventy years before hey appeared n he Greek, writen n he manuscripts of he gospels; and hat from he Greek hey were ranslated nto he Englsh of 500 years ago, in our Kng James version. Five hundred years ago many words n our language carried meanings which are ost now; and so you wl see how foolsh t s o pin so much faih on single detached sayings and passages, which may not at all convey the meaning He gave to them. We never can understand him untl we study his eachings as a connected whole.

Wealth for All

On he face of things t would ook as f He old he ruth when He said hat there was no need for worry. There s no ack of the hings needed, and where here s no ack here s no necessiy for worry. This world would produce food, under ntensive culvaton, for more han en mes s present populaton. It would produce he fabrics wherewh o clothe en mes s present populaton finer han olomon was arrayed n all his glory. It would furnish buiding material sufficient o erect a palace arger han he Capiol at Washington for every famy now ving, and here would be material enough left over to house another generaton.

Our Father has provided he raw material for all the hings essental o fe, and He has provided a housandfold more han we can use.

The race, aken as a whole, s rich; mmensely rich; t s only ndividuals whin the race who are poor.

The satsfacton of human needs s a problem of machinery and organizaton, and he machinery s prety well perfected; it is now hen, a mater of organizaton.

eek he Father's Kngdom, says Jesus, and you solve he bread and buter problem. Does hat sound ke a ratonal interpretaton of he passage we are speaking of? Turn o he 12th chapter of Luke, and read the paralel passage.

The Kingdom of God

Now, what did He mean by he kingdom of God? Practcaly all commentators agree, now, that He did not mean a distnct Heaven, which we cannot enter untl we die; and hey agree, also hat He did not mean a church lke the one we have now.

If you can conceive of he church as expanded untl t filed he whole earth; all the people unied n one, and all practcing what the churches preach now, that would be very ke a Kngdom of God as Jesus describes it.

He ustrates t by showng that the birds know no anxiety; they ve n he Father's kingdom. They al, alke, have access o he upply. There s no bug rust, and no shrewd bird has, as yet, cornered he worm market. When, instead of going freely to the Great Supply, the birds begin to compete for the med portions of i, there wl begin o be an anxiety among hem. There can be no Father's kingdom
unless all can have equal access to the Great Supply.

Equalty and Democracy

You wl find this confirmed n the twenty-hird chapter of Mathew n he first welve verses. Here He ays he foundaton of he kingdom n he fact of he Fatherhood of God, and I wl call he atenton of the eralsts especialy o he fact that the sayings were addressed "to the mulude" as well as to Hs disciples.

He assures hem all hat God s heir Father, and hat hey are brethren; and hat hence, they should not compete for the best place at he feast. If, nstead of strugglng wh each other, you wl go ovingly o he feast together, is here not enough for all? Let there be no striving for mastery, or power over one another; just plain equaly and democracy, says Jesus, and no one wl have o bear a heavy burden anymore.

uppose he father of a famy should see his chidren gather around a able, where he had provided for them as bountfuly as our Father has for us; and suppose hat the argest boy should get to he able first and gather all he best food around his plate. When his e sister reaches for a nice piece of cake he slaps her; he strikes back he out stretched hands of the others, and says:

Get away! Our father put this here, and I am the first one to get to ; so t is mne. Get away" (strike, push, shove) and, looking up o his parent, he addresses him hus: "Our father (biff), thy kingdom come (bang), thy wl be done (whack)."

Would not that father say, "My wl wl not be done untl you, wh your brothers and sisters, go together to the upply I have provided."

And f the arge boy should say hen: "Wel, father, I wl hold t as your rustee, giving o he others as I hink t best for hem, and seeing hat all is done decenty and n order," would not the father say, "I do not want benevolence, or charity, or self-denial, or abbath observance, but that each one shall go freed o he upply for all that he needs."

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A NEW CHRIST

The idea of Jesus appears to be that if each one wil go freely to the upply, there can be no poverty or lack of any kind; and His idea appears to be sound. If the supply s super-abundant, and all go freely to it, how can anybody have lack? The trouble is that we have our eyes fixed, not on the Abundance, but on the Uppermost Place.

It is as if there were a mountain of gold, to which we might go for wealth, but on our way thither we find a few scattering nuggets which have been washed down by the rains, and we stop to fight for the possession of these fragments, and so lose the whole.

In this connection, look up the parallel passages in Luke, and note the one n the twenty-second chapter, where He cautons them against that most insidious of temptations, the desire to pose as a "benefactor." No benefactors are needed where all may go to the upply. You are to serve by nvitng men to the feast, not by handing them a few crumbs from your own plate. It is not possible that there should be benefactions, benefactors or charity n the kingdom of God; so long as there is need for these things we are not n His kingdom.

And how can we hope to establish the kingdom by practicing things which do not belong to it?

"Love Thy Neighbor"

It is in this lght that we must consider His command to ove one's neighbor as one's self. What does it mean, this loving one's neighbor as himself? uppose my wife and I sit down to unch; and there is nothing on the table but a crust of bread and a piece of pie. And suppose that I hastiy grasp the pie, and say; "My dear, I certainly

ove you devotedly; I do wish you had some pie, also," and I swallow t, and eave her the crust; have I oved her as myself? If I

ove her as myself, I wil desire pie for her as ntensely as for myself, and I wil try as hard to get it for her as for myself.

If I ove you as myself, what I try to get for myself I wil try to get for you, and what I try to get for my children I wil try to get for your children, and I wil no more rest under an injustice done to you
or yours than if it had been done to me or mne.

And when we all desire for everybody all that we desire for ourselves, what is there for us to do but to stop competing for a part and turn to the abundance of the Great Whole, which s the Kingdom of God.

In the next chapter we wil consider how the apostles went about solving the problems of supply, and why they failed.