THE SON OF MAN AND HUMAN INSTITUTIONS

Mark ii. 27, 28 (Matt. xii. 8; Luke vi. 5).

Much may be learned from the way in which Jesus met criticism of His teaching and objections to His conduct. In controversy as such He took no special interest. Neither did He care to merely defend Himself or His views as a matter of vindication. His sole object in taking notice of opposition was to impress more deeply the lesson that had been but superficially learned, to clear and disentangle issues whose complexity had given occasion to cavil, and to secure a wider acceptance of eternal truths.

To this end He adapted His method to the nature of the problem discussed. He had no hard and fast logical ways of dealing. If the issue involved was minor. He reasoned along conventional lines and upon conventional grounds. He used arguments designed to persuade the minds of His opponents. He took up as it were their own weapons and used them. He appealed to the words of the Old Testament and to logical consistency; He used the argumentum ad hominem t the dilemma, the reductio ad absurdum; in such cases it was not necessary so much to insist on the inherent and eternal validity of what He was standing for, as to change the attitude and method of approach of His opponents to the problems of life.

If, however, the question raised affected some vital point, Jesus did not resort to reasoning; argument in such cases ceased to be means of bringing truth into view, and might even very easily obscure it by attracting attention to itself. Since the eternal rock foundations must be reached, and since they must be found only by the divinely given powers of each man, the all-important point was to lead to these primal elements of thoughts and give each one the opportunity to recognise them.

The controversies regarding the Sabbath were of this latter kind. The point at issue involved the whole system of external arrangements by which religion among his fellow countrymen had been promoted and expressed for generations and ages past, — all the institutions of Judaism, as they were from another point of view typified in the rite of circumcision. Jesus' treatment of the Sabbath was therefore representative of His attitude towards all institutions and covered their function in human life, His relation to them and their relation to human freedom.

1. Institutions and their Function.

Institutions vindicate their right to be when they minister to and promote human welfare. This is just as true of the Sabbath as of any other institution. Whether discovered by accident, or developed as a result of long experience, it was surely not a purely human invention. It is not necessary to interpret literally, and in their most superficial sense the words of the establishment of the Sabbath in the Old Testament in order to believe in its divine origin and binding force. Its beneficent operation through human history abundantly evidences this.

"The Sabbath was made for man." This is so obvious a proposition that one wonders why it should have been necessary for such a teacher as Jesus to give utterance to it Yet it is not difficult upon a moment's reflection to see that the Sabbath was not being used for the benefit of man. In order to be a means towards advancing the higher life through it, it must be understood and observed in harmony with its purpose and nature. But as interpreted and applied by the men of Jesus' time it had failed in this. Instead of refreshing and restoring the souls of men, it had been turned into a means of wearying and distressing them. And when the soul is wearied and annoyed, even the secondary blessing of bodily invigoration suffers a check, and fails of its full effect.

One of the first experiences recorded of the patriots in the Maccabean uprising was that in their zeal to conform to the Law, so violently attacked by their oppressors, they observed the Sabbath with absolute and unbending rigidity. They would not even fight their enemies on that day. They consented to be slaughtered without defence rather than break the Fourth Commandment. On discovering this, their Syrian opponents timed their attacks so as to bring them on the Sabbath day. Thus the Law came to be a hindrance rather than a means towards the preservation and promotion of life and welfare. Whereupon, with characteristic sanity and common sense, the early Maccabean leaders relaxed the Law sufficiently to permit them to defend themselves. But the spirit of literalism developed so early continued and even grew through the generations intervening to the days of Jesus. It is from this blind observance of prescriptions without regard to their object and purpose that Jesus recalled His generation through His attitude towards the Sabbath.

If institutions are normally mere means towards ends, then the moment the ends fail to be attained by them they become useless. There are some things in nature which, being means towards ends, are always and everywhere effective, hence imperishable and unalterable. Their connection as means towards the ends attained by them is vital. Language is a means of intercommunication of thought, and always will be. Cultivation of the soil is a means towards larger fertility, and it is impossible to conceive of its being dispensed with. Social amenities are necessary in order to co-operation and advancement. But even in these, though the instrumentality is necessary, the special form of it may vary. Vehicles are needed for transportation; but their exact forms may change and the power that drives them may be superseded by better. This, according to Jesus, is exactly the case with all institutions. The Sabbath is a necessary means for the promotion of human life towards its ideal, but it is not the same form and kind of Sabbath that brings about the same degree of spiritual and moral uplift always and under all circumstances. It may, indeed, occur that apparently contrary paths may lead to the same goal. If the Sabbath was designed to develop manhood in its entirety, then in certain circumstances the only way to observe it would be to give the whole man, body, soul, and spirit, as nearly as possible to absolute quiet. For it is only with this complete relaxation of attention and energy, this perfect abandonment of the whole being to the processes of unconscious physical life, that manhood will regain its elasticity and power of resistance.

But manifestly this is not a typical, or frequently recurring, situation. Men are not often so completely exhausted that the lapse to absolute inactivity is the best form of rest. In the vast majority of cases perfect rest is best secured by a change of employment. If the Sabbath is to advance manhood to a stage further in its growth, it must in such cases include acts of worship, meditation and prayer, as well as abstinence from the usual thoughts and actions of daily life.

But even this may not be the best means of securing the end for which the Sabbath was instituted. "Works of necessity and of mercy" have been usually construed as exceptions to the Sabbath law of rest. But there is a point of view from which they appear not exceptions at all, but instances of perfect obedience to it. They are not merely permitted by the Law, but required in its very operation. The man who went to the rescue of a beast fallen into a pit on the Sabbath day was not doing so with compunction, as if he must resort to this act as a last step in a desperate situation; he was not making a choice between the law of the Sabbath and the law of life. He was rather obeying the spirit of the law, which required of him to build himself up morally and spiritually. In the act of kindness, the deed of mercy to man or beast, he who remembered the Sabbath law was to see a means of bringing into exercise, and thus of strengthening, the finer spiritual impulses, the godlike intuitions of his nature.

Thus it may come to pass that the same end may be attained by exactly opposite, and apparently contradictory, means. In the one case the inner man may be built up by conscientious abstinence from all active forth-putting of energy, even of the subtlest spiritual kind; in the other case it may be uplifting and ennobling to engage in the hardest, most menial, muscular, sweat-producing work. The result in both cases will be the self-realisation and spiritual growth of the man. And again in both cases this will take place because of obedience to the same law. "The Sabbath was made for man."

2. The Authority of Institutions.

When Jesus said, "The Son of Man is the Lord of the Sabbath," it would be easy to interpret the phrase as though He presumed to make exceptions to the Sabbath law on His own personal responsibility, either privately or officially exercised. What it means, however, is that the needs of humanity determine the establishment, the modification, or the abolition of institutions. What a splendid illustration He furnishes of this in the new sacraments which He substituted for those of the Old Testament. The needs of such an age and of such a race as those of the Old Testament were best served through the Levitical institutions and the rite of circumcision. But, when a new type of life was to be inaugurated, designed to extend to the whole human race, scattered over all the earth, living under all kinds of climatic conditions, through centuries and millenniums to come, it was needful that its sacramental symbolism should be limited to simpler and more universally adaptable forms.

The Sabbath and all other institutions owe their power to compel to the authority of the Son of Man. It is because humanity in its entirety agrees, and thus decrees, that it shall use an institution for its own advancement that the institution secures its hold on men's minds and hearts and becomes a power to reckon with.

The force of this principle is not limited to the religious sphere. Such a great and complex institution as modern jurisprudence is clearly under its sway. The Son of Man is the Lord of the Civil and of all Law. It is because humanity has needed prescriptions to move it towards the exercise of rights and prerogatives, and safeguards to restrain it from the abuse of that exercise, that there has emerged a vast and complex system of precedents and regulations, of statutes and prohibitions, recognized as of real authority by the private citizen.

Look at a more specific instance, that of trial by jury. The beneficent intention of this institution and in general its successful operation in civilised society can scarcely be called into question. But how did trial by jury acquire its hold and place in modern social organisations? By proving itself to be a satisfactory means of avoiding injustice, eliminating prejudice and putting passion into the background. Its authority is the authority of the Son of Man; and so long as it harmonises with the will of the Son of Man it is above challenge.

Yea, as long as institutions express and execute the authority which has created them, they gain in strength. They become the centres around which associations gather and cluster; and with these associations, institutions come to win more and more respect and recognition. Their power to accomplish the good for which they have been set up is enhanced and multiplied. And the authority upon which they first secured: their acceptance is more clearly perceived and more effectively exercised. • But a time is apt to come in the life of institutions when they stand no longer for the good desired through them, but for some inscrutable good within themselves. The overgrowth of their own branches and foliage, as it were, conceals their connection with the root and life from which they sprang. Like parasitic vegetation, they sap the life of the stock on which they had fastened. They threaten to, and sometimes actually do, dominate the very thing which they were designed to serve. The authority on which they were based, which, indeed, made them possible, is superseded by a fictitious authority of their own. The Sabbath tends to become the lord of the Son of Man, instead of recognising the Son of Man as its own Lord. When this point is reached the time has clearly arrived for a protest and a revolution in the name of the Son of Man.

What has been said is in general true of all institutions; but it is more especially true of those practices and forms which are associated with the worship of God. Worship is good in any form and obligatory in some form; but when it becomes fixed and rigid, and when traditional pressure gives it a standing apart from the obligation carried by its intrinsic value as a means to an end, the time has come either to end it or to mend it.

3. Institutions and Human Freedom.

When Jesus said, "The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath," He did not mean that man as man, or any man, had a right to abrogate or change the law of periodic rest. None but He who instituted the law had a right to do that. But He did mean that when a man learns how to realise the true value of life, and of the things which minister to its abundance, he will neither overestimate the external and prescriptive features of the institution, nor minimise its inner power and usefulness. He will use the Sabbath as a master uses a servant, commanding him to do his bidding. He will no more allow the Sabbath law to work him injury in body, soul, or spirit than a master permits his employees to wantonly damage his property or harm his person.

In the end, therefore, Jesus places the Sabbath law, and by implication all other institutions, under the free interpretative power of those for whose benefit they have been erected, provided that such have attained the high point of vantage upon which He, the Son of Man, places them.

But, is it not putting a considerable weight of responsibility on the shoulders of individuals to ask them to interpret for themselves as to when and how they shall conform to the law? And is it not, from the point of view of the law itself, taking a considerable risk? Is the Sabbath law safe when left to every man to interpret for himself? May it not be completely interpreted away? These questions will trouble only him who forgets that the lordship of the Sabbath is not vested in any man, but in the man who recognises the Son of Man as his Lord.

No man who so puts himself under the dominion of the Son of Man will allow himself for a moment to use the Sabbath for any other than its proper and ideal purposes. He would be denying his distinctive nature were he to act otherwise. He who for the mere sake of asserting his freedom, or serving a lower end than the ideal, would disregard the Sabbath is like a man who would reject the advantages of friendship, wealth, or happiness simply to demonstrate or promote his own self-sufficiency.

In the last analysis the whole problem resolves itself into one of the development of the highest ideals. Men aim to produce and maintain human welfare through legislative enactments. When these prove insufficient they endeavour to amend and fortify them by other enactments more minute and comprehensive, until in the end life is enslaved, u cribbed, cabined, and confined" within a network of rigid prescriptions. When the Son of Man would add abundance to life, he begins by implanting his own image and spirit in men. Then he leaves them to use the external expressions and meanings that have proved most helpful with the freedom that those who have his image and spirit within them ought to have. "Against such there is no law."