Word of Salvation – Vol. 20 No.50 – September 1974
Survival Of The Weakest
Sermon by Rev. A. I. de Graaf, B.D. on Matt. 5:7
Scripture Reading: Amos 5:6-24; James 2:1-17
P/Hymnal: 204: 1,2,3,5; 301:2,3; 326:1,2,3; 326:4 (dox)
You all know how Darwin’s evolution doctrine tells of THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. According to him, one of the main-springs of the evolution of simple, limited organisms into complex and resourceful ones, is the way the weak ones don’t make it and die off in the hard struggle for life.
And so the strong ones are left over and they breed on. And they bring new strong ones into the world, passing to their offspring the changes they gained by their battle, the changes needed to adapt better still to the hard environment.
Well, it seems to fit in pretty well with the way people live, does it not? The law of the Survival of the Fittest! There was a proverb in my native language that said this quite coldly:
“Each one for himself and God for us all…!”
Oh in church we hear another message. We hear strange vibrations in church about the other cheek and about love for the oppressed and about forgiving 70 x 7 times.
And so there were plenty of elders even, and Church Committee Chairmen and other big shots who were quick to point out that “ONE CANNOT MIX RELIGION WITH BUSINESS!” For in business you go broke if you’re not hard, living by the law of survival of the fittest!
But not only in business!
Look at the social life of the average human being! Even the church-going human being!
Some people have plenty of friends. They are safe and snug in a circle of good companions. They have ‘made it’. But if you’re not IN, well, of course they will be sort of ‘nice’ to you, well-mannered and so, but really, you’ll never quite get ‘in’. You’re not fit enough.
You’re on the outside. Young people, too, have that tendency. A certain youngster is somewhat different. Maybe the way he walks? Maybe the way he talks or something? He is different anyway, just like the chicken in the chook- house that has a bit of a game leg, or a wing that droops somewhat. You know what happens to the chicken do you? How the other animals pounce on it and pick it to death?
And among elephants it is custom to throw the ‘rogue’ out of the herd. No time and no love for the one that’s different. Human social life is basically just as selfish.
“Too bad,” we say.
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST
Fine if you’re fit. Then you’ll fit in. But what if you’re the odd type? Do you know what it feels like to be left out? Do you know what it feels like NOT to have a solid bunch of friends to fall back on at any time?
Once there was a young boy who had had polio. He had not a very nice character, but he longed for fellowship and for social contact. He went to a Sunday School, but – since he was a bit odd – he was not ‘taken in’ by the other boys. He tried, but was left out. Invitations for parties always just missed him. At outings he was forgotten, until some day there was a ragged, lonesome fellow like himself:
A lonesome chap with haunted eyes and burning visions who cared for him and invited him and became great friends with him. That meant the end of church and Sunday School for that young boy. He went along with the friend, who cared and this changed the course of world history.
For the boy with polio was Joseph Goebbels, and the ragged youth who be-friended him… was Adolf Hitler.
They became such close friends, that they together planned the Nazi regime. And in a way when they had come to power, they took out their hatred and bitterness on a world that had not loved them when they were down. And they themselves in turn, began in THEIR wicked way to preach the hard doctrine of the survival of the fittest.
That is our world, and was Darwin right? Somehow there is always money for guns and fast bombers because we know that otherwise we might not survive! But when there is money needed for the hungry and the maimed and the downtrodden, somehow there is never enough!
I hit you back – for otherwise you keep hitting till I’m through –says a hard tough world. And the veneer of good manners – under which this business has been going on quite merrily anyway – is slowly disappearing.
Life is getting rough, and the “right of the strongest” is becoming more and more the morals of the street.
The law of the jungle is frightening
especially in the jungle of concrete.
Well, how do you look at all that? How do you look at the cruel life of the nations, the cruel battle of business, the cruel social customs even in churches?
With disgust? With fear? With hatred?
Jesus looked at it, and he – says the Bible – was moved with compassion about them, for all those roughies and elbow-artists punching because they WERE pushed around themselves – they were to Him like sheep that had no shepherd. He allowed Himself to be man-handled by them, and he did not fear them or hate them – even when they nailed him to the cross.
Even then he prayed for them. He was moved with compassion about them – and the word Compassion used in that text is the word mercy used in our text tonight/this morning.
The vicious circle of Darwin’s saying “the struggle for life and survival of the fittest” can be broken only by a God who COULD squash and force His way in but chooses to enter by the back door and by becoming weak and small.
The weakness of God – that’s stronger than man
and the foolishness of God that’s wiser.
Blessed the MERCIFUL.
Those that have inside them that movement of compassion. “Bowels of mercy” says the Bible, and that hints at a charity that’s not just coldly doing its duty by writing a cheque, but a mercy, an outgoing and embracing care and love that is felt within and acted upon.
When we look around in a world full of dashed hopes, why do we get angry when we see young people dress in the rough garb of protest?
They’re still young people like we were, and maybe they haven’t got all their answers straight.
We hadn’t either
and can we say we have now?
But many of our young people care a lot, as the lyrics of their most popular songs bear out. And they cry out for the very thing THAT Jesus talks about here: for mercy instead of sacrifice,
for a heart and a pair of hands that show concern and love
instead of just going the age old path of doctrinal righteousness.
A woman caught in the sin of adultery. “STONE HER!” cried the Righteous Judges of the Jews. “It’s in the Book! Moses says: Stone her!” But when Jesus tells them that the one who is without sin can start stoning, they begin to see what’s in their own heart! And when they have gone, one by one beginning by the eldest, then He looks upon the woman in mercy. He does not say: “It’s alright, there’s nothing wrong with you.” For THERE WAS!
But He was going to do something about that in the bitter agony of a death on the cross. A death for adulterers both in deed AND in thought.
“I will not condemn you – “said He, “ – but go and SIN no more.” It’s still SIN – and new morality, is not merciful, because it delivers people to the destructive slavery of our own selfish passions and rebellion, God came to set us FREE. So: “Go and sin no more!” – and mercifully He not only said that but He would come along in the power and grace of His Holy Spirit to make sure we could obey that command.
cand
For to be merciful… that cannot be done without getting INVOLVED. You can only be merciful when you feel it inside your bowels – I’d almost used a stronger word for that, but it isn’t quite fit to use in the pulpit without upsetting people…!
The merciful… those who refuse to say: “Each to himself and God for us all” because God is not like that. God got involved and He calls us to follow Him in that involvement. The lepers He cleansed, and the publicans He hobnobbed with, the hungry multitude could count on Him and the disciples got told off when they wanted to send them home… or to social security for that matter.
Oh sure we owe it to the beautiful influence of the Gospel that nowadays we HAVE social security. That we HAVE government pensions for widows and aid for the old and the unemployed.
And yet how many Christian people are there still who reckon…
– that if you get poor that’s your own fault and so you’d better help yourself?
– that riches are a sign that God loves you extra good and
– that poverty some: how is a punishment that had better be borne patiently.
The friends of Job are still alive in places and they are still today the miserable comforters they ever were….!
But the man born blind was to find out what GOD could do – and don’t you think that God places the poor, the lonely, the social outcasts and the ragged misfits on our road so that now by our MERCY they might find out – and the world with them – what the Lord can do?
Amos’ prophecy thunders into a hard and materialistic church hardening into a social club and James’ letter was written in the New Testament by the very brother of the Lord Jesus: blessed are the merciful, and when you are not merciful there are blessings which you will never know even though you one day might be saved as through fire.
We are – says Francis Schaeffer – not only to BELIEVE the truth, we are before a watching world to PRACTICE truth, for then alone will they believe us. Blessed are the merciful – says Jesus. It is NOT each to himself and God for us all… but it is:
I FOR THE OTHERS… AND SO GOD IN ME AND THROUGH ME!
And then the vicious circle gets broken and I begin to receive mercy, too, not only from God –
I have that already –
but also from people
who – at last –
get melted out of the hard crust of bitter ice around their heart.
Do not wait till someone else is merciful to you. You start…!
Jesus says it in Matthew 5: If you only greet your brother, what’s so special about that? If you’re only nice to the bunch of cronies that you’ve got in your church, the warm little hole you have dug yourself into – which is closed to the outsider because well after all you can’t get about with EVERYBODY can you?
Well, if you thus only greet your friends, that’s not especially Christian – even the pagans do the same. But are we a church where THE WEAK can survive? Are we a church where the weak – who is beset by sin and haunted by Satan – can survive?
Does he have a chance to find the Lord? Do we give to those who cannot give back… ever? Do we lend to those who wants to borrow and may be unable to be prompt in repayments?
A heart open… a purse open… and time for others. A place at our table and a spare bed.
Our miserable little flats and homes aren’t even made for receiving guests, unlike the old rambling places where there had to be a place for old parents (now packed off to institutions) maiden aunts (now spending lonely days in a flat) and lots of children (now feared as too bothersome).
Whoever thinks of guests when buying a house? Whoever plans for guests when doing his weekend shopping? The world is getting fuller and fuller, yes, and unbelieving people get into panic! Many pigs make the slops so thin! “Less children!” cry the prophets of doom, “then we can keep eating!”
But God’s child knows: WE NEED MORE MERCY! Not the self-righteous mercy that gives a tip to some old swaggie and feels good (hoping the swaggie won’t come back) but the real mercy that opens heart and life for the other person.
I know there are professional bludgers and hard-as-nails exploiters who make it difficult, and spoil it for the good ones. But then – even though we must be careful with money for a drunkard (lest he sin more and get more trapped by it) and even though we must try and spot the professional beggar (who would take from me what someone in REAL need then could not get).
Yet is it not better to be caught on the side of being too generous than on that of the stingy?
Merciful… it is to give something for nothing. The way our Lord gives.
Merciful….. it opens roads for the weak, the outcast.
It is something Darwin had not thought of. It does not fit in his system. But then: God’s world is more than a zoo, is it not? In God’s Kingdom not just the fittest survive.
There the lame and the halt
the beggars and the vagabonds
are invited to the dinner of the King.
And the servants who pass on the invitations try to look as loving as the King does, for they had been beggars and no-hopers before too.
People matter with God. It’s about time they begin to matter with God’s church. This is one of the points of concern for Christian social and political action: to proclaim freedom for those snared and imprisoned in the hard cells of jungle law.
Somewhere along your road this week, a victim may lie bleeding while priests and Levites pass by – too busy. Well, are you going to look out for him a bit? If you drive fast enough you might not see him. But if God would have driven fast, would He have noticed me, little sinner on a little earth? But He stopped and Jesus stepped out and on the way to a cross, where He was to die for ungrateful scoundrels, He said – yes on the way to the cross He said it – what I hope will haunt you and me a bit:
“Blessed are the merciful” – He said – “for THEY will OBTAIN mercy.”
Survival of the fittest?
But He DIED that the WEAK may survive, and that the DEAD might LIVE!!
Amen.