The First Circle of the League of Pity

The history of civilisation has been the history of expanding circles. It begins with the individual; it widens into the family; it expands into the tribe; it unites several tribes to form a nation; it joins many nations to make a brotherhood of Man.

The history of the healing work of Jesus is, I believe, an epitome of that progress. This, too, as we have seen, begins with the individual, It works its first miracle in the impulse of a personal courtesy at the marriage feast of Cana. In the opening days of His ministry Jesus goes forth alone. I do not say He is unaccompanied as a ¢raveller, but He is unaccompanied as a missionary. There is as yet no organised band of workers, none

to participate in the ministry to man, But 149 we have seen the first eddy of the pool — we have seen the formation of a league of pity. Jesus has officially associated Himself with other lives. His work has entered on a new beginning. Christianity has become a corporation, a membership. It is as yet a very insignificant membership, but it has vast pretensions — as vast as civilisation itself. It proposes to work them out on the flan of civilisation. I believe you will find, when you reach the real order of the events, that the ministry of Jesus follows this plan. You will see it ever widening its circles till it embraces the representation of the world. The league of pity has been started; what will be its first manifestation, its earliest sphere? If it is to follow the plan of civilisation, its first corporative movement will be round the family altar. Is this expectation realised?

It is. In chronological order the first definite event after the formation of the league of pity is the healing of an illness in the family of one of its members; we read that ‘Simon’s wife’s mother lay sick of a fever,’ and that

Jesus was called to minister. I remember in the days of youth what a peculiar impression I had in reading this narrative. It was like the sensation of seeing a balloon drop into a hay-field. There was a savour of anti-climax about it. Here was a league of pity for the help of the world; and at its first manifestation we were confronted with the recital of an act of favour shown to one of its members. It seemed like a bringing down of the bird in the moment of its upward flight. One looked at the outset for a cosmopolitan act from a movement with such a cosmopolitan aim. We expected, perhaps, a mission to Rome, at the least an immediate journey to Jerusalem. It came somewhat like a shock to be told that this ministry found its inauguration when ‘Simon’s wife’s mother lay sick of a fever.’

But a little reflection, like a little knowledge, is a dangerous thing. A deeper reflection dispels the illusion. As we study the Portrait of Jesus it becomes more and more clear that this seeming anti-climax is on the lines of a

plan — not the plan of Jesus, but that plan of the 4fe of Jesus which has been evolved by the Father. When the earthly life of Jesus was complete, men woke to this plan. They saw that the course of Christianity was to be a movement from the home centre to the outlying circumference. Why did they see that? Because the life of Jesus was before them, and the life of Jesus had revealed it, Why does He say in His very last charge tn His disciples, ‘Teach all nations, beginning at Jerusalem’? Is it a patriotism or is it a principle? It is a principle. What is that principle? It is this, that the primal need of man is the extension of the family instinct. The point is so important and so distinctive of the new religion that I shall offer no apology for devoting to it a moment’s consideration.

In the life of the pre-Christian world it may be said generally and epigrammatically that progress was sought by leaving home. The domestic hearth blazed chiefly for the young and for the female. When the youth went forth into the world, he went forth from home; he left the hearth and the females behind. Woman had no share in the government of the state; the qualities of womanhood were deemed disqualifications for public life. The progress from youth into manhood was essentially a losing sight of the old home. The man conquered the world by forgetting his childhood, by ignoring, if not suppressing, the domestic feelings, by allowing the memories of the household to fade in the far distance. The world was defined by him as the region which lay beyond the family circle.;

But the conception which /esus formed of human progress was not only very different, but in radical contrast. To Him the progress from youth to manhood was not the abandonment of an old field, but the extension of an old field. In A/zs view there should be no going out from the family circle into the world; there should be a bringing of the world into the family circle. Let us say you are a member of a typical household — a Nazareth household. You have a circle of brother:s and sisters for whom you have a devoted affection. There are two possible ways in which a new religion might come to you. It might say, ‘I want you to enter upon a new kind of love — a love which now you know nothing about, but which will be revealed to you when you consent to receive it.” Or it might say, ‘I am quite content with your present form of affection, and I am quite content that you should continue it towards those brothers and sisters. But without changing the form of your love, without diminishing the amount of your love, without leaving the present od7ects of your love, I should like you to extend the privilege to a wider circle. I should like you to ask yourself, not whether you are right in loving your present brothers and sisters, but how many more brothers and sisters you could love in the same way. I should like you, sitting by your own ingle, to consider whether the warmth of your home interest might not be diffused beyond its original limits.’ This latter voice is the voice of Christianity.

On its human side the religion of Jesus is the effort to construct a cosmopolitan home; on its Divine side it is the effort to glorify a universal Father. On both sides it is essentially the religion of the famz/y. I have heard it said that Christianity was narrow at the beginning because it exhorted only to ‘love the brethren. But I say that this exhortation expresses, not the beginning, but the final goal of Christianity. What the religion of Jesus contemplates is a brotherhood of Jan. What Jesus seeks from beginning to end is an extension of the family relation from sphere to sphere until it shall include the united world. His first recorded utterance is, ‘ Wist ye not that I should be in my Father’s premises?’ one of His latest is, ‘In my Fathers house are many mansions. The world to Him is ideally a colossal home — the potential scene of a united family group whose union is not the less complete because it exists along with individual varieties, The house has many mansions; but in spite of that, its brotherhood is unbroken, for all its inmates are the children of one Father.

But if this be the Christian ideal of the world’s final goal, where shall we look for the starting-point? Can there be any spot but one — the home? If the consummation is to be the affection of a Father’s house, must not the beginning be the consecration of my own house? The idea of Divine fatherhood derives its beauty from the impression of human fatherhood. If the impression of human fatherhood has been bad, the Divine relationship will convey a repellent association. Many a Sabbath-School child when told that God is its Father and Jesus its elder brother says in its heart, ‘I hope not!’ It has seen only a father’s dissipation and felt only an elder brother’s blow. That is just the reason why every Sabbath-School teacher worthy of the name makes it his or her earliest care to visit the pupils in their own houses. If you want to teach a child that heaven is his home, that God is his Father, that Christ is his brother, that the ties which bind the world are family ties, ‘you must begin by purifying the original ideas. You must make the thought of home endearing, the name of father sacred, the sense of brotherhood protective, the relationship of the family divine.

And now perhaps we can understand the local beginning of the league of pity. We can see how it is that Jesus in teaching His disciples to light the world began by teaching them to light their own dwellings. We can mark the significance and the appropriateness of that method which made the innermost and the narrowest circle the origin of all. I said in the previous chapter that when Jesus put the child in the centre of the ring He meant to symbolise the advantage of the hopefulness of youth. I must add here that He meant to symbolise something more. He designed to emphasise the truth that the home sphere was to be the germ-cell of the new development, and that, however wide the ring might be, this ring was ever to circle round it. It was the revelation of a doctrine which contradicted all former doctrines — that in a deeply significant sense the first was to be the last and the last first. The final stage of man was to be the consummation of his beginning; he was to return at last to the brotherhood of home. Long as seemed the interval between the domestic hearth of Nazareth and the many mansions of the Father’s house, the house with many mansions was to be built upon the model of the home of Nazareth, Indeed, there is to my mind something autobiographical in the ring of this late voice of Jesus. Why should He invest His heaven with the attributes of a home? Is not the word ‘homely’ synonymous with ‘plain’? why make it descriptive of a glorified world? The answer must be, because to Jesus it is mot synonymous with plainness. If to Him the most endearing name for Paradise was the house of a father, we receive a flood of light upon His childhood’s days. The curtain which the historian has not lifted has been lifted by Himself, and we have been permitted to get a glimpse of the truth that His earliest impressions were those of earthly peace.

THOU, who hast planted the family

tree, let me rest under its branches, Help me to sanctify my home, to light it with the lamp of cheer, to warm it with the fire of love. Often have I thought of these words of Israel’s Psalmist, ‘I shall walk within my house with a perfect heart.’ It seemed a very small sphere for perfection to walk in. But I understand its importance now. My home is not to be my primitive state; it is to be my final state. In my own house Thou art training me for my Father’s house. My family virtues are to be the ripest fruit of Thy tree of life. Shine on them, O Lord, that they may grow. Teach me that my home duties are my most religious duties. Teach me that Nazareth is not the beginning but the end. Teach me that the place prepared for man in the many mansions is a place prepared for the household fires. Reveal to me that my hope for brightness lies in the return of the morning star — that star of domestic love which preceded the jealous struggles of the day. Thy call to me ts a calling home.