ADVICE TO GOOD PEOPLE

Hokitika Guardian, 6 August 1929, Page 5

ADVICE TO GOOD PEOPLE

MISTAKES OF SCRIBES AND PHARISEES. THE BISHOP’S SERMON. CHRISTCHURCH, Aug. 5. “A little while ago, when I, with others, was listening to Miss Maude Rovden during her visit to Christchurch, she said something that'struck me as being a startling and a daring paradox. She said: ‘As for people who set a good example—l simply loathe them.’ ” “That,” said Bishop West Watson, at the Cathedral yesterday morning, “was, of course,, a paradox. But the more I thought about it the.more I realised that it contained a very deep truth. So often does the person who sets a good example place himself or herself in the foreground that it becomes of matter of ‘I this’ and ‘I that’ all, the time. The result is that that person puts his neighbours very much in the background. We have no business here unless we love bur neighbours as ourselves, for the very spirit of Christ is ministering to others. “I sometimes think that with all our wonderful discoveries and our science, we know too much and should yet go hack to school to learn loving-kind-ness,” said the Bishop. Referring to Christ’s, contact with the publicans and sinners, the Bishop said that those people -were not considered to be respectable, but that was Christ’s work. They were the people’ He wanted to help. How was it to be done? By ex-communicating them and keeping them at arm’s length, or by getting in among them ? Surely the latter only. Christ. went among them and -showed faith in them: 1 The attitude of the Scribes and Pharisees meant that they did not really value the publicans aind sinners as men and women, and they thought that God felt just as they did. Our Lord Found in every man a brother, and found the unfortunate and unsuccessful much more approachable than the solid and respectable. The Pharisees were much defended ‘of late. They were good, worthy men, but nothing seemed more certain titan 'that : tlie Lord could not get on with them. They taught all softs of good tilings, but they did not love their brethren. The publi-’ cans and sinners preyed on their brethren, but then they made no pretence of religion. They considerered themselves outcasts. God being what the Pharisees said God was, they had. not much to expect from Him. But Christ seemed to like them and they could not help liking Him, although He made them wish they had not been what they were. And tlion came the astounding possibility—was '.ood like that? Did He care, and did He believe in them too? Jesus .said. so. ,-v Wliat' was>ithe' : .upshot of alt this? said the Bishop. It made clergy and decent Cliurcli folk rather uncomfortable. Was all our religion and all the time and trouble expended worth nothing? “What are we here for? We are an organisation for loving our brethren, and yet we often do not love one another. What Is the matter? We think we are attracted by God, but are very exclusive about men. We have missed the way. but Christ can lead us back to it,’’ concluded the Bishop.