What Comes First?                                                              8/21/49

 

Scripture:  Matthew 6: 25-33

 

Text:  Matthew 6: 33;  “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness .....”

 

Undisciplined imagination often runs far away from reality.  Comic strips are probably a top example of the ramblings of an undisciplined imagination.  This accounts in part for both their fascination and their possible harmful effects upon the myriads of children who read them with avidity.

 

Some of the children are fairly mature in years, like myself.  For, while I spend no time on comic books, I do look at some of the short strips in the newspaper.  One of the current items of interest for the comic addict is Alley Oop’s trip to the moon with the non-moral and occasionally warped genius, Oscar Boom.  The author of that comic strip is able, by a sweep of unfettered imagination, to accomplish what others like to speculate over as a remote possibility.  And a lot of people seem to expect that scientific investigation and technological genius will eventually find a way for man --- at least a few investigating representatives of mankind --- to travel to the moon, if not to the celestial bodies farther distant.

 

Yet it is interesting to observe that we people who get interested in flights to the moon, either via comic strip or scientific speculation, seem confused as to certain more fundamentally realistic matters.  Suppose one of us should arrive on the moon as a passenger on some inter-planetary rocket ship, and should encounter there a being capable of communicating the question, “Who are you?”  We should probably flounder around with some such answer as, “I come from the Earth.  I am a man.  I am known among others of mankind as Jones.” (or Kingdon or Lipscomb of Brown).  Hardly to be satisfied with such scant and sketchy identification, the Moonian might persist in the question, “But who are you?”  To which many a man might have to answer, “I know not.”  And not knowing, fundamentally, who we are, we do not know the secret of life or the secret of love, nor can we solve some of the basic problems of living that constantly haunt us.

 

We are concerned with food, with shelter, clothing and comfort; we seek safety; we develop certain values; cherish certain hopes; we become concerned, and intricately involved with the pursuit of these purposes.  But who of us has found and formulated a satisfactory answer to the basic question: “Who am I?”

 

Here and there a philosopher or theologian wrestles with the problem, and now and then comes to at least a little light upon it.  But most of us just shrug it off.  Yet Jesus thought this sort of thing important enough to admonish his listeners not to be exclusively concerned with food and clothing, nor to be even primarily concerned with them.  “But seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these other things will be added unto you.”  For more important than clothing is the body; and more significant than food is life.  And when this is recognized, and known, the secondary matters take their rightful place of subordination to the things that are first.

 

We are troubled today because of our interest in everything but who we are and the secret of life.  We are looking for more technology and more social power.  Morally we are not ready for even power that we do have.  Technologically, ours is a race of supermen.  Morally we still hover too close to the realm of the beast.  Supermen actually revert to the beastly, as did Adolph Hitler and some of his more avid followers.  The result of that piteous condition is that a whole nation reverted to the morally primitive and dropped the rest of the world some of the way down with it.

 

No responsible person would advocate that we stop giving attention to the harnessing of power and to technological advance.  But we do need to understand vividly that this is not our main problem nor should it be our first concern.

 

I am thankful that so much is being done in research on physical illness.  I should like to see a further speeding up in research on cancer and on the various disorders of the heart and circulatory system.  It would seem to be a boon to humanity if some such mighty effort by the American and Canadian people as resulted in the development of atomic fission were to be undertaken in the attack on cancer.  We might know how to control or prevent cancer within this generation - within this decade -- perhaps within the coming year!

 

But important as are the problems of physical health, they are not first nor basic.  Health of the body is not our first concern.  Somebody -- many somebodies -- kept Mussolini alivee.  How did he serve the welfare of mankind?  What did we learn from him about the righteous purposes of God for human well-being?  To cultivate healthy bodies can mean only that we have powerful beasts.

 

We Americans, through our government, are spending a billion dollars in research on how to kill - in the arts and supposed necessities of warfare.  So far, we are spending, through our government, nothing at all for research on mental health.  Yet the US Army rejected 1,300,000 men during the second World War for lack of mental fitness alone!  More than 14 millions of us Americans suffer from some kind of mental maladjustment on any given day.  Much more than half [nearly 70%] of all hospital beds in our nation are occupied by patients who have mental and nervous troubles rather than physical ailments.  And we do nothing more than scratch the surface with private, and some local and state funds, to cope with this problem which is more important than bodily welfare.  What good is a sound body if it be not at the disposal of a healthy mind and a righteous purpose?

 

[Verbatim text in pen and ink ends here; what follows is notes in pencil.]

 

Professor (  ) of Columbus, Ohio:  “Ramparts of peace are healthy minds in healthy bodies.”

 

Requirements of war are severe.  We haven’t yet faced the fact that the requirements of peace are higher than those of war.  And rejection for peace is more widespread than rejection for war.  Measured by efficiency in keeping peace, mankind has always been abnormal or sub-normal.

            Able to conduct war efficiently and thoroughly.

            Never yet able to conduct peace as thoroughly.

We can be good at war - able to handle its machines.

Not so good at peace - unable to handle its people.

 

Men who are social misfits at peace become aggressors in war.  Hitler “thanked God” for World War I.  (Might thank himself for World War II)

 

Of such peace time misfits as are able to wage war, a great soldier of World War II, Air Marshal Tedder, had this to say: “They know war from A to Z but they lack the final insight into the cause of events.  They are able to convert peace into war, normality into abnormality; but are unable to reverse the process and convert war into peace.”

 

Without doubt - one of the troubles of this generation -- we are not asking the right questions.

 

How be healthy of mind and spirit?  By what exercise or discipline or spiritual diet?

 

Who are we?   (we who are concerned with problems of family, of economics, of war, of race, of government) -- Young people eager to understand love.

 

Some are insecure, lonely in a desert of buildings and conveniences.  Radio, television, swift transportation; lonely in crowds of human beings; all these only add to the loneliness, unless we find the secrets of life and love.

 

Do parents really love their children and so have a real family?  (Less parental contact)

 

Do husband and wife really know and care each for the other and so make a true home?  Too many folk live in these intimate relationships as though basically and spiritually strangers.  Young people may feel that they can do little about the world, but want to do much about the little unit that is the family.  For it is within their power to shape and fashion.

 

Albert Einstein:  “All the problems of the world are symptomatic of the problems of the human heart.”

 

Research in what we are (not what we have or will have in our house)

 

Research on the brain - electrons in the brain cell.  70 year-old person has had 10 (replaced) brains.     But memory can persist and grow through all of them.

 

Dr. J. B. Rhine of Duke University says that the mind can transcend time and space and can influence moving objects.

 

Psalm 8: 4:  “What is man that thou art mindful of him?”

 

The true self will build up that ego not outside Christ, but within the spirit that is Christ.

 

Four steps in solving the problem:

 

1)  Wanting to solve it

 

2)  Finding the secret of prayer; prayer is being aware of Christ who will make us aware of our true nature.  The church should be research foundation in the life of prayer.  Prayer is family life and personal life.  We need corporate worship as a leaf needs its tree.

 

3)  Discover the signs of increasing freedom.  We are free insofar as we live by love and by faith.

4)  Witness our freedom.

            “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and these other things shall be added unto you”  in proper perspective and relationship.

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, August 21, 1949 (Union Service).