MacDonald (as selected by Lewis)

Yes - even those of us who might fancy we don’t quite fill the shoes of the rich person (though in reality the majority of us do, living as we do) - but even if we somehow dodged that, we still don’t escape the sting of the challenge. We snicker at the wealthy man’s apparently singular comeuppance, only to turn and encounter with horror the half-dozen prideful gods that have taken up residence in our own hearts.

Excellent point. Thanks.

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Thanks, Merv.
It’s merely observation, though. Certainly nothing brilliant. What just currently feels like an unwinable dilemma.
Kierkegaard put it this way:

[T]o have faith is precisely to lose one’s mind so as to win God.

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Wow, great passage. It reminds me of when God told Gideon to get rid of most of his men, to rely on HIm more, apparently. That’s a hard one. Thanks

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Right! And maybe the point is that some of us are fit for poverty, and some for stewarding wealth for others–but never for ourselves.
Another quote by Macdonald in that vein:

“It is a great privilege to be poor, Peter. You must not mistake, however, and imagine it a virtue; it is but a privilege, and one also that may be terribly misused.”

The OT has a clause to never treat either the poor or the rich with special favor, but to use an equal judgement for each. Perhaps we can also treat ourselves as victims, and make false divisions where we don’t realize the real measure is to do best that we can with the responsibility we have–like the parable of the servants and the coins.

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The last of the quotes selected from the sermon: ‘the Way’

(62) Living Forever

To return to the summing up of the matter:–

The youth, climbing the stair of eternal life, had come to a landing- place where not a step more was visible. On the cloud-swathed platform he stands looking in vain for further ascent. What he thought with himself he wanted, I cannot tell: his idea of eternal life I do not know; I can hardly think it was but the poor idea of living for ever, all that commonplace minds grasp at for eternal life–its mere concomitant shadow, in itself not worth thinking about, not for a moment to be disputed, and taken for granted by all devout Jews: when a man has eternal life, that is, when he is one with God, what should he do but live for ever?

As found in MacDonald’s unspoken sermon: “The Way

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One of the themes I think I’ve heard MacDonald return to often is that life apart from God - i.e. life in the service of self or evil or pursuit of things that cannot fulfill joy - such a life would be a hell, and infinitely more so that it be forced as an eternal endurance. Death - real death - the annihilistic total destruction sort, would be a mercy in such a case. So people who clamor for, or venerate the notion of “life eternal” really have no idea what ultimate horror they may be wishing on themselves or others. What we all need to be asking is: What sort of life does it take to make prolongation (and much more so: prospective eternities!) worth desiring in the first place? We are in desperate need of merely “the life worth living” before we should have any interest in securing “life eternal”.

And yes - granted, there will be the “Lazarus” figures for whom this life offered little to nothing at all (or worse), and who have only the next life to look forward to finally for some tenderness or love. This is not to discount those figures at all. It’s just a fairly sure bet that most of us are not Lazarus.

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The next series of quotes (63-71) come from the sermon: “The Hardness of the Many”

(63) Be Ye Perfect

I cannot be perfect; it is hopeless; and he does not expect it.'–It would be more honest if he said, ‘I do not want to be perfect; I am content to be saved.’ Such as he do not care for being perfect as their Father in heaven is perfect, but for being what they call saved .

As found in the unspoken sermon: “Hardness of the Many

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I just finished reading the article about Lewis and Mrs. Moore. And I couldn’t help but remark on this.

“But more than wondering about the ‘mysterious Mrs. Moore,’ I find it tantalizing to consider the mysterious providence of God in the life of C. S. Lewis, who turned the relationship that once provided an occasion for sin into the occasion for his sanctification.”

There is the work of sanctification (usually unexpected) in this life, and if I have my theology right, there is the promise of glorification or total sanctification in the next. So for those in Christ, there is a real assurance, and no reason to fear they will be lacking in any way

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(64) Carrion Comfort

…or are you so well satisfied with what you are, that you have never sought eternal life, never hungered and thirsted after the righteousness of God, the perfection of your being? If this latter be your condition, then be comforted; the Master does not require of you to sell what you have and give to the poor. You follow him! You go with him to preach good tidings!–you who care not for righteousness! You are not one whose company is desirable to the Master. Be comforted, I say: he does not want you; he will not ask you to open your purse for him; you may give or withhold; it is nothing to him. What! is he to be obliged to one outside his kingdom–to the untrue, the ignoble, for money? Bring him a true heart, an obedient hand: he has given his life-blood for that; but your money–he neither needs it nor cares for it.’

‘Pray, do not deal harshly with me. I confess I have not been what I ought, but I want to repent, and would fain enter into life. Do not think, because I am not prepared, without the certainty that it is required of me, to cast from me all I have that I have no regard for higher things.’

'Once more, then, go and keep the commandments . It is not come to your money yet. The commandments are enough for you. You are not yet a child in the kingdom. You do not care for the arms of your father; you value only the shelter of his roof. As to your money, let the commandments direct you how to use it. It is in you but pitiable presumption to wonder whether it is required of you to sell all that you have. When in keeping the commandments you have found the great reward of loving righteousness–the further reward of discovering that, with all the energy you can put forth, you are but an unprofitable servant; when you have come to know that the law can be kept only by such as need no law; when you have come to feel that you would rather pass out of being than live on such a poor, miserable, selfish life as alone you can call yours; when you are aware of a something beyond all that your mind can think, yet not beyond what your heart can desire–a something that is not yours, seems as if it never could be yours, which yet your life is worthless without; when you have come therefore to the Master with the cry, “What shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?” it may be he will then say to you, “Sell all that you have and give to the poor, and come follow me.” If he do, then will you be of men most honourable if you obey–of men most pitiable if you refuse. Till then you would be no comfort to him, no pleasure to his friends. For the young man to have sold all and followed him would have been to accept God’s patent of peerage: to you it is not offered.

As found in the unspoken sermon: “Hardness of the Many

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Ouch. I fear I live there far to much.

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Nice sermon today, @Mervin_Bitikofer . Hope you don’t mind my drawing it to @Paulm12’s attention. A day ago we were speaking of virtue ethics on a thread he started. This passage lines up pretty well with that by seeing the 10 commandments as a low level approach.

I was thinking about this in that other thread. Morality is developmentally different to serve different purposes based on where we are in development. A kindergarten level is needed. An adolescent level for the fairness obsessed stage and some more mature considerations as we take on roles with some responsibility for others at various levels of development.

I can sign off on this passage up to this point but then it becomes transactional in a way that undermines what was just described as a condition of having strong internal reasons for serving what is greater. Desiring to follow laws because they are the law misses the point, though of course one doesn’t undermine the regard for doing so for those who have need of them. But to bring in the incentive of after life trinkets suggests that one still has need of laws, incentives and disincentives. This has no place in any moral master class IMO.

I think you’re right (if I understand you correctly) that the transactional nature never really disappears, except (far from disappearing to zero) … it flies off to infinity! [I just finished teaching a math section and so have asymptotes on the brain.]

MacDonald has a fairly consistent way of holding up a standard of spiritual communion so breath-takingly high as to leave pretty much everyone realizing that they are “nowhere close” - whether they consider themselves inside some fold of organized religion or not. And maybe that is an important point. The upstanding commandment-following citizen (when his eyes are actually opened) realizes that for all his “obedience”, he still has infinitely loftier airs above him beyond his reach. Not that all his attentions have been for naught - their primary purpose in fact may have been to bring him to this very realization: that minus the love which would provoke the sale of absolutely everything to obtain the “pearl of great price” - that final step, which no ‘attention to law’ can help you with any more - is always and eventually there waiting for each of us. We worry over it and agonize because we would like “salvation” at any cheaper price than that - we’ll even buy into theologies that don’t demand nearly so much of us (after all Jesus paid for all my sins already, right? wasn’t that the whole point of that transaction?) and we’d like to just stop there. Most of us do. But as long as we’re still in transaction mode - feeling that God can’t be trusted to just … love us … unless some piper has somewhere been paid dreadful sums either by us or by Jesus and we have the payment receipt we can shove in God’s face to force His hand; all of that transactional thinking just shows we still prefer mucking around at the base of the mountain, or maybe getting some pitiable distance part way up some foothills with our best efforts at law-satisfaction.

When Love takes over and we get our wings, we still won’t at all be perfect, but now it’s God’s power working through us and we begin (even if faltering) our flight for real - far above where law can reach. And to go back to a life of transactional legalisms would be to try putting our new wine back into old skins … it doesn’t end well.

Okay, that was a long ramble that I think captures some things I imagine Macdonald might say - but probably didn’t so much answer your question or challenge so much as just meandered all around the vicinity hoping to light on something of value.

I’m really impressed that you patiently listen to and even like MacDonald as much as you do, Mark, because frankly, I think he’s too pious for most Christians (including me) on most hours of the day. But his words cut deep for those who are familiar with the task of wrestling with God.

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I find it better to pass over the quotes that seem too pious, formulaic or which remain opaque to me. But that it speaks to you and I consider you an honest broker makes it worth it to look in when I can and comment when something speaks to me.

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Aaach, Merv. I wanted to say something profound and pull in a sermon of Kierkegaard’s from Either/Or, but I’m too tired, and the brain won’t budge that far.
In spite of that, thanks for this.

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This one follows almost directly on the heals of post #64 above - continuing that thought.

(65) The Same

'Does this comfort you? Then alas for you! A thousand times alas! Your relief is to know that the Lord has no need of you–does not require you to part with your money, does not offer you himself instead! You do not indeed sell him for thirty pieces of silver, but you are glad not to buy him with all that you have!

As found in the unspoken sermon: “Hardness of the Many

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(66) How Hard?

It is life they must have; there is no enduring of existence without life . They think they can do without eternal life, if only they may live for ever! Those who know what eternal life means count it the one terror to have to live on without it.

Take then the Lord’s words thus: ‘Children, how hard is it to enter into the kingdom of God!’ It is quite like his way of putting things. Calling them first to reflect on the original difficulty for every man of entering into the kingdom of God, he reasserts in yet stronger phrase the difficulty of the rich man: ‘It is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.’ It always was, always will be, hard to enter into the kingdom of heaven. It is hard even to believe that one must be born from above–must pass into a new and unknown consciousness. The law-faithful Jew, the ceremonial Christian, shrinks from the self-annihilation, the Life of grace and truth, the upper air of heavenly delight, the all-embracing love that fills the law full and sets it aside. They cannot accept a condition of being as in itself eternal life. And hard to believe in, this life, this kingdom of God, this simplicity of absolute existence, is hard to enter. How hard? As hard as the Master of salvation could find words to express the hardness: …

As found in the unspoken sermon: “Hardness of the Many

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(67) Things

The man who for consciousness of well-being depends upon anything but life, the life essential, is a slave; he hangs on what is less than himself. He is not perfect who, deprived of every thing , would not sit down calmly content, aware of a well-being untouched; for none the less would he be possessor of all things, the child of the Eternal. Things are given us, this body first of things, that through them we may be trained both to independence and true possession of them. We must possess them; they must not possess us. Their use is to mediate–as shapes and manifestations in lower kind of the things that are unseen, that is, in themselves unseeable, the things that belong, not to the world of speech, but the world of silence, not to the world of showing, but the world of being, the world that cannot be shaken, and must remain. These things unseen take form in the things of time and space–not that they may exist, for they exist in and from eternal Godhead, but that their being may be known to those in training for the eternal; these things unseen the sons and daughters of God must possess. But instead of reaching out after them, they grasp at their forms, reward the things seen as the things to be possessed, fall in love with the bodies instead of the souls of them.

The above already begins before what Lewis included, but ends where Lewis ends it. I also include more below here where MacDonald continues his thoughts about the rich young ruler, which finishes out the above paragraph with a hard observation.

There are good people who can hardly believe that, if the young man had consented to give up his wealth, the Lord would not then have told him to keep it; they too seem to think the treasure in heaven insufficient as a substitute. They cannot believe he would have been better off without his wealth. ‘Is not wealth power?’ they ask. It is indeed power, and so is a wolf hid in the robe; it is power, but as of a brute machine, of which the owner ill knows the handles and cranks, valves and governor. The multitude of those who read the tale are of the same mind as the youth himself–in his worst moment, as he turned and went–with one vast difference, that they are not sorrowful.

As found in the unspoken sermon: “Hardness of the Many

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”With all the energy we can put forth, we are but unprofitable servants.”

In Ultimatum from Either/Or Kierkegaard examines the common phrase “One does what one can” in relation to our service to God.

He concludes (in this section) that, while we wish to console ourselves (as we recognize ourselves to be unprofitable servants, perhaps) with the thought that we have done all we could, if we think about what we are saying or if we have ever striven to determine the bounds of what we can do to serve God, we remain in uncertainty, in anxiety. We are unprofitable servants.


And to the second half of this quote from MacDonald:

The way MacDonald expresses this passage sheds new-to-me light on it. In directing the young man to sell everything, give to the poor and “follow me” Jesus seems to be suggesting that the selling and giving were not the focus, neither was some eventual eternal reality, but that He himself was the fulfillment of the young man’s desire for eternal life. Sell everything, give the money to the poor (those who really need it and won’t be hindered by having some of it) was the way to move the man’s attention and pride from his stuff, so that he could redirect it toward the one he would follow and in whom he would find fulfillment.

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I remember Lewis driving home the point somewhere to the effect that it is rather a matter of embarrassment for us, how much more resource we can suddenly find of ourselves underneath the crack of a driving whip than we manage to find in our motivations of what we think we should love. Not that I think this is at all any model for service to God and I wince at the comparison. But his point wasn’t about the necessity of whips at all - it was about our human nature when it comes to self-appraisal of what we can do.

A more positive comparison might be what we already have at hand to ourselves if we’ve had experience in the world of romance. Percy Sledge in his song “when a man loves a woman” showcases it well … “will spend his very last dime” … “will sleep out in the cold and rain if she thinks that’s the way it oughta be…” In short - it’s amazing how much we decide we can do once real love takes hold. We’ll move mountains or die trying.

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And that is where the rest of the sermon goes – in a way.