_Make to yourselves friends of the Mammon of iniquity_.
_You cannot serve God and Mammon_.-LUKE XVI. 9, 13.
We have seen how the Church of the Prince of Peace must continually be
the centre of war. Let us go on to consider how, as a Human Society
dwelling in this world, she must continually have her eyes fixed upon
the next, and how, as a Divine Society, she must be open to the charge
of worldliness.
I. (i) The charge is a very common one: "Look at the extraordinary
wealth and splendour that this Church of the Poor Man of Nazareth
constantly gathers around her and ask yourself how she can dare to claim
to represent Him! Go through Holy Rome and see how the richest and most
elaborate buildings bear over their gateways the heraldic emblems of
Christ's Vicar! Go through any country which has not risen in disgust
and cast off the sham that calls herself 'Christ's Church' and you will
find that no worldly official is so splendid as these heavenly delegates
of Jesus Christ, no palaces more glorious than those in which they dwell
who pretend to preach Him who _had not where to lay His head!_
"Above all, turn from that simple poverty-stricken figure that the
Gospels present to us, to the man who claims to be His Vicegerent on
earth. See him go, crowned three times over, on a throne borne on men's
shoulders, with the silver trumpets shrilling before him and the ostrich
fans coming on behind, and you will understand why the world cannot take
the Church seriously. Look at the court that is about him, all purple
and scarlet, and set by that the little band of weather-beaten
fishermen!
"No; if this Church were truly of Christ, she would imitate Him better.
It was His supreme mission to point to _things that are above;_ to lift
men's thoughts above dross and gold and jewels and worldly influence and
high places and power; to point to _a Heavenly Jerusalem, not made with
hands;_ to comfort the sorrowful with a vision of future peace, not to
dabble with temporal matters; to speak of grace and heaven and things to
come, and _to let the dead bury their dead!_ The best we can do for her,
then, is to disembarrass her of her riches; to turn her temporal
possessions to frankly temporal ends; to release her from the slavery of
her own ambition into the _liberty of the poor and the children of
God!"_
(ii) In a word, then, the Church is too worldly to be the Church of
Christ! _You cannot serve God and Mammon_. Yet in another mood our
critic will tell us that we are too otherworldly to be the Church of
Christ. "The chief charge I have against Catholicism," says such a man,
"is that the Church is too unpractical. If she were truly the Church of
Jesus Christ, she would surely imitate Him better in that which, after
all, was the mark of His highest Divinity--namely in His Humanity
towards men. Christ did not come into the world to preach metaphysics
and talk forever of a heaven that is to come; He came rather to attend
to men's simplest needs, _to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked_, to
reform society on better lines. It was not by His dogma that He won
men's hearts; it was by His simple, natural sympathy with their common
needs. He came, in a word, to make the best of this world, to use the
elements that lay ready to His hand, to sanctify all the plain things of
earth with which He came in contact.
"These otherworldly Catholics, then, are too much apart from common life
and common needs. Their dogmas and their aspirations and their
metaphysics are useless to a world which wants bread. Let them act more
and dream less! Let them show, for example, by the prosperity of
Catholic countries that Catholicism is practical and not a vision. Let
them preach less and philanthropize more. Let them show that they have
the key to this world's progress, and perhaps we will listen more
patiently to their claim to hold the key to the world that is to come!"
But, surely, this is a little hard upon Catholics! When we make
ourselves at home in this world, we are informed that Jesus Christ _had
not where to lay His Head_. When we preach the world that is to come,
we are reminded that Jesus Christ after all came down from that world
into this to make it better. When we build a comfortable church, we are
told that we are too luxurious. When we build an uncomfortable one we
are asked how we expect to do any good unless we are practical.
II. Now, of course, both these charges were also objected against our
Blessed Lord. For He too had His double activities. It is true that
there were times when He gave men earthly bread; it is also true that He
offered them heavenly bread. There were times when He cared for men's
bodies; there were other times when He bade them sacrifice all that
makes bodily life worth living; times when He sat at meat in the house
of a rich man, and times when He starved, voluntarily, in the desert.
And the world found Him wrong whichever He did. He was too worldly when
He healed men on the Sabbath; for is not the Law of God of more value
than a man's bodily ease? Why can He not wait till to-morrow? He was too
worldly when He allowed His disciples to rub corn in their hands; for
does not the Law of God forbid a man to make bread on the Sabbath? He
was too worldly, too unpractical, too sense-loving when He permitted the
precious ointment to be spilled on His feet; _for might not this
ointment have been sold for much and given to the poor?_ Is not
spirituality enough, and the incense of adoration?
And He was too otherworldly when He preached the Sermon on the Mount.
What is the use of saying, _Blessed are the Meek_, when the whole world
knows that "Blessed are the Self-Assertive"? He was too otherworldly
when He spoke of Heavenly Bread. What is the use of speaking of Heavenly
Bread when it is earthly food that men need first of all? He was too
otherworldly when He remained in the country on the feast day. _If He be
the Christ_, let Him be practical and say so!
It was, in fact, on these very two charges that He was arraigned for
death. He was too worldly for Pilate, in that He was Son of Man and
therefore a rival to Caesar; and too otherworldly for Caiphas, since _He
made Himself Son of God_ and therefore a rival to Jehovah.
III. The solution, then, of this Catholic Paradox is very simple. (i)
First, the Church is a Heavenly Society come down from above--heavenly
in her origin and her birth. She is the _kingdom of God_, first and
foremost, and exists for His glory solely and entirely. She seeks, then,
first the extension of His kingdom; and compared with this, nothing is
of any value in her eyes. Never, then, must she sacrifice God to Mammon;
never hesitate for one instant if the choice lies between them. For she
considers that eternity is greater than time and the soul of man of more
value than his body. The sacraments therefore, in her eyes, come before
an adequate tram-service; and that a man's soul should be in grace is,
to her, of more importance than that his body should be in health--if
the choice is between them. She prefers, therefore, the priest to the
doctor, if there is not time for both, and Holy Communion to a good
breakfast.
Therefore, of course, she appears too otherworldly to the stockbroker
and the provincial mayor, since she actually places the things of God
before the things of man and "seeks first His Kingdom."
(ii) "And all these things shall be added" to her. For she is Human
also, in that she dwells in this world where God has placed her, and
uses therefore the things with which He has surrounded her. To say that
she is supernatural is not to deny her humanity any more than to assert
that man has an immortal soul is to exclude the truth that he also has a
body. It is this Body of hers, then--this humanity of hers which
enshrines her Divinity--that claims and uses earthly things; it is this
Body that _dwells in houses made with hands_ and that claims too, in
honour to herself and her Bridegroom, that, so long as her spirituality
is not tarnished, these houses shall be as splendid as art can make
them. For she is not a Puritan nor a Manichee; she does not say that any
single thing which God has made can conceivably be of itself evil,
however grievously it may have been abused; on the contrary, she has His
own authority for saying that _all is very good_.
She uses, then, every earthly beauty that the world will yield to her,
to honour her own Majesty. It may be right to set diamonds round the
neck of a woman, but it is certainly right to set them round the Chalice
of the Blood of God. If an earthly king wears vestments of cloth of
gold, must not a heavenly King yet more wear them? If music is used by
the world to destroy men's souls, may not she use it to save their
souls? If a marble palace is fit for the President of the French
Republic, by what right do men withhold it from the King of kings?
But the world does withhold its wealth sometimes? Very well then, she
can serve God without it, in spite of her rights. If men whine and
cringe, or bully and shout, for the jewels with which their forefathers
honoured God, she will fling them back again down her altar stairs and
worship God in a barn or a catacomb without them. For, though she does
not _serve God and Mammon_, she yet _makes to herself friends of the
Mammon of iniquity_. Though she does not and never can serve God and
Mammon, she will and can, when the world permits it, make Mammon serve
her. For the Church is the Majesty of God dwelling on earth. She is
there, in herself, utterly independent of her reception. If it is _her
own_ to whom _she comes, and her own do not receive her_, they are none
the less hers by every right. For, though she will use every earthly
thing to her honour, though she considers no ointment wasted, however
precious, that is spilled by love over her feet, yet her essential glory
does not lie in these things. She is _all glorious within_, whether or
not her _vesture is of gold_, for she is a _King's Daughter_. She is,
essentially, as glorious in the Catacombs as in the Roman basilicas; as
lovely in the barefooted friar as in the robed and sceptred Vicar of
Christ; as majestic in Christ naked on the Cross as in Christ ascended
and enthroned in heaven.
Yet, since she is His Majesty on earth, she has a right to all that
earth can give. All _the beasts of the field are hers, and the cattle on
a thousand hills_, all the stars of heaven and the jewels of earth; all
the things in the world are hers by Divine right.
_All things are hers, for she is Christ's._ Yet, nevertheless, _she will
suffer the loss of all things_ sooner than lose Him.