SOCIAL SYSTEM

Southland Times, Issue 22728, 2 November 1935, Page 7

SOCIAL SYSTEM

THE KINGDOM OF GOD ON EARTH “RELEASE TO THE CAPTIVES” ARTICLE IV. In this, the fourth of a series of sermons on the existing order of social relationships preached at Knox Church, the Rev. John Chisholm, deals further with the programme of Christ, taking as his text: — “To proclaim release to the captives, To let free them that are bruised, To proclaim the Lord’s year of favour.” An early prophet of Israel once made a great announcement to his people away in exile and waiting for news, an announcement of freedom and restoration (said Mr Chisholm). Much later the greatest of all the prophets takes the same words, but gives to them a wider significance. He makes his announcement not to one race, but to all races, to people economically, socially and spiritually disinherited.

We have already dealt with one announcement; in this address we deal with another: “He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives. To set free them that are bruised (those whom tyranny has crushed) and to proclaim the Lord’s year of favour.” We cannot simply give a spiritual meaning to these great proclamations. Jesus did not simply mean release to the captives of sin. He meant release from everything that suppresses and binds and bruises humanity. Man never attains to his best when he is under a feeling of suppression. A slave under bondage becomes a dispirited and soured creature, and in our Lord’s day there were roughly speaking four slaves to every free man in the Roman Empire. Jesus preached the dignity and worth of man, and no one knew better than He that a man can only attain to his best when he lives in an atmosphere of confidence and fellowship and not in a social system where one class oppresses and suppresses another. . , Class feeling was strong in Christ s day. The Jew held that there were five classes —at the top the Pharisee class, at the bottom the Gentile dogs. Every pious Jew thanked God he was not born a woman, a leper or a Gentile. The Gentile was the stranger and the alien. In the passage in the book of Isaiah from which Jesus quoted, there were these words: “Strangers shall feed your flocks and the sins of the alien shall be your plowmen.” Jesus cut these words out. His programme was not for a particular class or race. He was to bring freedom and restoration to all. Clash With Communism. This is where Christ and Communism again clash. In Russia, only a certain class is privileged. The proletariat is on top, but the bourgeoise class is kept under subjection. Old Simeon, as he held the infant Jesus in his arms in the temple, visioned Him as a “Light to lighten the Gentiles” and Jesus was true to the prediction. He set out to do away with everything that bound and tyrannized men and women. This is why He was so hard on the proud Pharisee. This is why He denounced so strongly the rich man of his day. He started in marked contrast to His forerunner, John the Baptist. John was a hermit—a recluse. Christ declared that he was a great man, but said that for the purposes of the new Kingdom of God, John was of little real worth (Matt. 11, 11). Jesus’s concern was to unite them together in a true brotherhood. To do this He mixed with all classes. He was the friend of taxpayers and sinners and was ready to accept the hospitality of the Pharisee, the man in the class most hostile to Him. When any discourtesies were shown Him, He complained (Luke 7, 44-46).

The idea of Jesus, it seems to me, was to show that in God’s sight there were no cliques or parties. He was out to break down the barriers that divided class from class. His purpose was to create a feeling of confidence and a sense of brotherhood, and so destroy all things that bruised the soul of humanity. Not only are bruises caused by being trampled on by others; they may also come from one’s own falls. Through moral lapses we fall into entanglements from which we have to be set at liberty. Jesus came to get us out of these bondages that bruised our souls, and oppressed our consciences. It is worthy of note that He did not consider what we call sins of the flesh as harmful to the Kingdom of God as sins of the disposition—moral failings such as intolerance, selfishness, bigoted nationalism and racial hatreds. And it is these things that are leaving great bruises on the soul of humanity today. The conscience of many is sore at seeing wasteful luxury alongside grinding poverty, and over-production alongside pitiful want; so uneasy and sore that palliatives are proposed and tried, and the present system tinkered with by reformers. But Jesus was not a reformer; He was a revolutionary. His treatment is not palliative; it is radical. He comes and demands a new birth—a fresh beginning: “Ye must be born again,” He says. The individual must be converted and change his life, and the nation its old systems. Individually and corporately, the world must repent and be forgiven and the bruised conscience released. The Crucial Question. Nfw we come to the crucial question. In the programme of Jesus, must the individual soul be freed and set on the new way before the social order can be changed and the bruised world liberated? If the answer is yes, the changing of the individual is the basis for the changing of the social order; then you throw up your hands in despair, for the Church has been at this business for nearly 2000 years and where are we to-day? It is futile, it is too slow. I have been trying to show that while Jesus always sought the salvation of the individual, He also sought, at the same time, the salvation of the Jewish nation and the Gentile world. Does not our last announcement speak of restoration in the mass?

He came to proclaim the Lord’s year of favour; that is, the Lord’s year of jubilee. What did the year of jubilee mean to these Jews? It is described in Leviticus 25, 10. Every 50 years all slaves were freed and all land went back to its original owners.

The year of jubilee was intended to keep individuals from accumulating wealth and thus gaining control over others by economic means. . This is the climax statement in the programme of Jesus.

As Moses by legislative enactment brought in the jubilee year, so by some kind of legislative effort Jesus would provide for the release of the oppressed and the freeing of those who were bruised. He came to proclaim the “Lord’s year of jubilee.” Has the Church of Christ tried in any way to fulfil this startling announcement of its great Lord and Master ? . This brings us to our final address.

Next, we ask: What is the duty of the church and what should the Christian conscience demand in trying to apply the Christian ideal to the needs and dangers of to-day?