AGAINST NATURE
Nonresistance to evil is profoundly repugnant to our nature, but to obey the teachings of Christ means that our nature will come to feel disgust for what now pleases us, and find happiness in what now fills us with horror. His every word takes for granted this total renovation of the human spirit: He fearlessly contradicts our most ordinary inclinations and the deepest of our instincts. He praises what every one avoids. He condemns what all men seek. He not only gives the lie to what men teach (often very different from what they really think and do), but He contradicts what they actually think and do every day.
Jesus does not believe in the perfection of the natural soul, of the original soul. He believes in its future perfection, only to be reached by a complete overturning of its present nature. His task is the reform of man; more than that, the making-over of man. With Him begins the new race; He is the model, the arch-type, the Adam of humanity remodeled and recast. Socrates tried to reform the mind, Moses the law, others went no further than altering a ritual, a code, a system, a science; but Jesus did not aim at changing one part of man but the whole man from top to bottom, changing the inner man who is the motive-power and origin of all the facts and the words of the world. Therefore we need not expect Him to compromise or to wheedle. He will make no concessions to evil and imperfect nature; He will not find specious reasons to justify it as the philosophers do. You cannot serve Jesus and Nature. He who stands with Jesus is against the old animal nature and is working for the higher nature which must conquer it. Everything else is idle talk, dust and ashes.
Nothing is more common among men than the thirst for riches. To heap up money by any means, even the most infamous, has always seemed the sweetest and most respectable of occupations. But he who wishes to come with me, said Jesus, must go and sell that which he has and give it to the poor and he shall have treasures in Heaven. Poverty is the first requisite for the citizenship of the Kingdom.
All men anxiously take thought for the morrow. They are always afraid lest the ground give way under their feet, lest there may not be enough bread to last to the next harvest. They fear that they will not have enough clothes to cover their bodies and the bodies of their children. But Jesus teaches us, “Take therefore no thought for the morrow: sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”
Every man would like to stand first even among his equals. He wishes to be superior to those who surround him, to command, to dominate, to seem greater, richer, handsomer, wiser. The whole history of men is only the terror of standing second; but Jesus teaches us, “And whosoever of you will be the chiefest shall be servant of all.” The greatest is the smallest, the most powerful shall serve the weakest, he who exalts himself shall be humbled, he who humbles himself shall be exalted.
Vanity is another universal curse of men. It poisons even their good actions, because nearly always they perform those insignificant good actions so that they may be seen. They do evil secretly and good openly. Jesus commands us to do just the opposite. “But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth;... And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men.... But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet.... Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disguise their faces, that they may appear to fast.... But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face.”
The instinct of self-preservation is the strongest of all those which dominate us. No infamy, cruelty or cowardice is too much for us to pay for the safety of this handful of animated dust. But Jesus tells us: “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake the same shall save it.” For what we call life is not true life and he who gives up his soul ruins also the flesh which houses it.
Every one of us has a hankering to judge his fellows. To sit in judgment makes us feel that we are above those judged, better, more righteous, innocent. To accuse others is like saying, “We are not thus.” As a matter of fact it is always the hunchbacks who first cry out on those whose shoulders are a little bent. But Jesus says, “Judge not that ye be not judged, condemn not and ye shall not be condemned, forgive and ye shall be forgiven.”
Every man boasts of being really manly, that is, a grave, mature, wise, substantial, worthy person, who understands the nature of things and who can reason and have an opinion on all subjects. A speech that is too sincere is said to be childish; a simple person is scornfully called childish. But when the disciples asked Him who is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven, Jesus answered, “Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the Kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein.”
The serious-minded man, the devout, the pure, the Pharisee, avoids if possible the company of sinners, of the fallen, of the defiled, and receives as equals at his table only the righteous. But Jesus tirelessly announces that He has come to seek for sinners and not for the righteous, the bad and not the good, and He feels no shame in sitting down to dinner in the house of the publican, where a prostitute anoints his feet. The truly pure man cannot be corrupted by the corrupt, and does not feel that for fear of soiling his garments he needs leave them to die in their own vileness.
The avarice of men is so great that every one tries to take as much as he can from others and to give back as little. Every one seeks to possess; praises of generosity are only an attempt to cover professional beggary with a decent mask; but Jesus affirms, “It is better to give than to receive.”
All of us hate most of the people we know. We hate them because they have more than we, because they will not give us all we would like to have, because they do not pay enough attention to us, because they are different from us; in a word, because they exist. We even go so far as to hate our friends, even our benefactors. And Jesus commands us to love men, to love them all, to love even those who hate us.
No one who disobeys this command can call himself a Christian; though he is on the point of death if he does not love his slayer, he has no right to call himself a Christian.
Love for ourselves, the origin of our hatred for others includes all other tendencies and passions. He who conquers self-love, and the hatred toward others, is already entirely transformed; the rest flows from this as a natural consequence. Hatred toward oneself and love for enemies is the beginning and end of Christianity. The greatest victory over the fierce, blind, brutal man of antiquity is this and nothing else. Men cannot be born again into the happiness of peace until they love those who have offended against them. To love your enemies is the only way to leave not an enemy on earth.