Christianity in Action: Lesson 6: Humility Shown in our Treatment of Strangers and Foreigners
By G.R. Balleine
By G.R. Balleine
[Warning: Balleine was writing in the 1920s and 1930s, and his views and language reflect many at that time. However, as a time capsule of the prevailing beliefs, this can be very useful for the historians of that period.]
LESSON FOR FIRST SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY.
PASSAGE TO BE READ : St. Matthew ii. 1-15.
TEXT TO BE LEARNT: “God hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth “(Acts xvii. 26).
HYMNS: “As with gladness men of old " and " Jesus shall reign."
COLLECTS for Palm Sunday and Ninth Sunday after Trinity.
AIM: To lead the class to think in a friendly way of foreign nations and to support foreign missions.
1 PRIDE OF RACE.
(a) Last week we spoke of Humility. For three weeks we will see some ways in which this Christian virtue improves the character. One common form of Pride is Race Pride. Patriotism is good. If a boy said he loved the women of Timbuctoo as much as he loved his own mother, he would be talking nonsense. If he said that he loved Brazil as much as he loved England, he would be talking nonsense also. It is natural to love best the country that we know best, the country that produced us. But, if we get rude and contemptuous to foreigners, and treat them as though they were inferiors, this is a most objectionable form of conceit.
(b) Punch had a picture of two village louts watching a passer-by. This was their conversation : " Who is that ? " " A stranger." " Then heave half a brick at him." Why should they want to treat him badly just because he was a stranger ? Yet most races have felt the temptation to do this.
(c) The ancient Greeks called all foreigners “Barbarians." Whether they were speaking of educated Egyptians or conquering Romans or savage negroes, it made no difference. If they were not Greeks, they were barbarians.
(d) The Eskimo say that first God made a white man, but He was not satisfied. So He tried again, and made a perfect man, and this perfect race is the Eskimo.
(e) Illinois is one of the states of the United States. This is the Indian word for " Man." The Red Indians of that district used to regard all other tribes as animals. They themselves were the only true " Men."
(f) The Chinese till quite recent times spoke of all other nations as " Foreign Devils," and were prepared to murder foreigners on the smallest excuse.
(g) The Jews were often the worst offenders in this respect. They despised and hated Gentiles. One of their famous Rabbis taught : " The best of snakes ought to have its head smashed. The best among Gentiles deserves to be killed " (Simon ben Yohai).
II. THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE FOREIGNER.
(a) Yet many of the stories in their Old Testament were written to rebuke this spirit. In the Wilderness Moses married a “Cushitic woman “(Num. xii. 1). Now, the Cushites were Ethiopians, and the Ethiopians were negroes. (The word Cush means " black.") Miriam, Moses' sister, strongly objected to a negress as her sister-in-law. She took Aaron with her, and began to scold Moses violently. But God showed that He had no objection to Moses' black wife, for Miriam was punished by being struck with leprosy.
(b) In the Wilderness two brothers came to join the Israelites. They were Kenezites (Joshua xiv. 14), and the Kenezites were a clan of the Edomites (Gen. xxxvi. 40). They did not get much of a welcome. The Israelites called the elder brother Caleb, which means Dog. Yet Caleb rose to be one of their leaders. He and Joshua were the only two spies who were faithful. When the land was conquered, he was given the country around Hebron, and his descendants became one of the chief clans of the tribe of Judah: so a large section of the leading tribe were not Jews but Edomites. Othniel, the other brother, became the first Judge.
(c) A better known story is the story of Jonah. God called him to go and preach to the heathen city of Nineveh, the capital of Assyria. But Jews hated Assyrians, and were often at war with them ; so to escape this call Jonah pretended that he had urgent business in the opposite direction, and took ship for Spain (Tarshish). When the great storm turned him back, and he had to go after all, he just marched through the streets shouting that Nineveh would be destroyed; and, when the Ninevites repented, and God pardoned them, he was furiously angry, and he said: “I do well to be angry even unto death." But the prophet who tells us this story (the Book of Jonah comes among the Minor Prophets) makes us feel all through how wrong Jonah's attitude was. The story was his way of teaching the Jews that they must not hate foreigners, but do all that they could to help them.
d) In the Jewish Law-book there stood the very clear command : " God loveth the stranger. Love ye therefore the stranger, for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt."
III. THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE FOREIGNER.
(a) When we turn to the New Testament, we find it full of the teaching of Christ, Who came to be “a Light to lighteth the Gentiles." In the very first chapter St. Matthew goes out of his way to show that our Lord had foreign blood in His veins. In the list of His ancestors he only mentions four women, but two of these are foreigners, belonging to nations whom the Jews specially hated—Rahab, the Canaanite woman who hid the spies in Jericho, and Ruth, the Moabitess.
(b) In the second chapter we reach the Epiphany story. Christmas was past. Joseph had found a house for Mary and her Baby. One night there came a knock at the door. Mary opened it, and found a group of dark-skinned foreigners who asked if they might come in to see her little Child. They were Magi, Wise Men who thought they could read messages in the stars. In their distant home in the Far East they had seen a star, which seemed to them to mean that a wonderful King had been born in Palestine. They had saddled their camels, and travelled for months, and now had arrived. Did Mary slam the door in their faces ? Did she say that she was not going to have any nasty foreigners in her house ? No. She welcomed them in, and the Baby Christ stretched out His Hands to greet them. Read Passage. Notice the other name for Epiphany in the Prayer Book—" the Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles." Later tradition made one of the Magi a European, one a Negro, and one an Asiatic, to picture all races meeting round our Lord's cradle.
(c) Later in the New Testament we find a big struggle going on. The first Christians were all Jews, for our Lord spent His life in Palestine, and, when the Church began to spread through the world, some of these Jewish Christians said, " We are not going to have any foreigners in our Church." But St. Paul withstood them. Quote text. Christ had said, " Make disciples of all the nations " (St. Matt. xxviii. 19). And St. Paul was so clearly right that in later years the Church took as its name the Catholic Church, which means the Church for every nation.
IV. OUR DUTY TO THE FOREIGNER.
(a) Let us now learn three practical duties. Be courteous to Foreigners. When Edward VII visited Italy, he greatly
pleased the Italians by a little act of courtesy. The carpet laid down from the yacht to his carriage was not long enough. There was a nasty patch of mud in which the King would have to tread. A harbour official covered it with an Italian flag. When the King saw it, he stepped on one side into the mud, and saluted the flag. He would not hurt the feelings of the Italians by treading on their national colours.
(b) Be friendly to Foreigners. In 1920 the Boy Scouts held what they called a Jamboree in London. Ten thousand scouts were there from twenty-five different nations. There were Scouts from Denmark, Spain and China, Chile, Persia and Japan, Holland, Hawaii and Honolulu. They lived together in a great Camp in Richmond Park. Did they quarrel because they belonged to different nations ? No ; they were the best of friends. " Every scout a brother " was their motto. The same year a much more important meeting was held in Paris to form the League of Nations. There had been plenty of national Parliaments, but now there was to be one Parliament of all the nations, meeting at Geneva. There in a big house facing the snow mountains officials are working every day. to help all nations to understand each other better, to smooth away causes of quarrel, to prevent war. The League wants all nations to be like the Scouts in Richmond Park.
(c) Be ready to help Foreigners. The Foreign Missionary movement is the finest thing that England has ever done to help other nations. Think of the thousands of English men and women who have left home, and gone to live among Negroes and Chinamen and Red Indians, to open schools and hospitals, to lead them away from cruel customs, to teach them how to be better men and women. Two hundred years ago there lived in Germany a boy named Nicolaus Zinzendorf. Some boys are fond of forming gangs, and Nicolaus formed his playmates into a society. They said, " A society must have a name," and they called theirs The Order of the Grain of Mustard Seed, for they said, " Though we are small now, we hope to grow very big, and Christ said, A grain of mustard seed is the least of all seeds, but it becometh a tree." Next they said, " We must have a pledge," and at last they chose, " Members of our Society promise to love the whole human race." Then came the question, " What shall we do ? " Nicolaus said, " If we love the whole human race, let us collect money for the missionaries." It was a splendid answer. The Order of the Grain of Mustard Seed became the first Children's Missionary League on record.
LESSON FOR FIRST SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY.
PASSAGE TO BE READ : St. Matthew ii. 1-15.
TEXT TO BE LEARNT: “God hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth “(Acts xvii. 26).
HYMNS: “As with gladness men of old " and " Jesus shall reign."
COLLECTS for Palm Sunday and Ninth Sunday after Trinity.
AIM: To lead the class to think in a friendly way of foreign nations and to support foreign missions.
1 PRIDE OF RACE.
(a) Last week we spoke of Humility. For three weeks we will see some ways in which this Christian virtue improves the character. One common form of Pride is Race Pride. Patriotism is good. If a boy said he loved the women of Timbuctoo as much as he loved his own mother, he would be talking nonsense. If he said that he loved Brazil as much as he loved England, he would be talking nonsense also. It is natural to love best the country that we know best, the country that produced us. But, if we get rude and contemptuous to foreigners, and treat them as though they were inferiors, this is a most objectionable form of conceit.
(b) Punch had a picture of two village louts watching a passer-by. This was their conversation : " Who is that ? " " A stranger." " Then heave half a brick at him." Why should they want to treat him badly just because he was a stranger ? Yet most races have felt the temptation to do this.
(c) The ancient Greeks called all foreigners “Barbarians." Whether they were speaking of educated Egyptians or conquering Romans or savage negroes, it made no difference. If they were not Greeks, they were barbarians.
(d) The Eskimo say that first God made a white man, but He was not satisfied. So He tried again, and made a perfect man, and this perfect race is the Eskimo.
(e) Illinois is one of the states of the United States. This is the Indian word for " Man." The Red Indians of that district used to regard all other tribes as animals. They themselves were the only true " Men."
(f) The Chinese till quite recent times spoke of all other nations as " Foreign Devils," and were prepared to murder foreigners on the smallest excuse.
(g) The Jews were often the worst offenders in this respect. They despised and hated Gentiles. One of their famous Rabbis taught : " The best of snakes ought to have its head smashed. The best among Gentiles deserves to be killed " (Simon ben Yohai).
II. THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE FOREIGNER.
(a) Yet many of the stories in their Old Testament were written to rebuke this spirit. In the Wilderness Moses married a “Cushitic woman “(Num. xii. 1). Now, the Cushites were Ethiopians, and the Ethiopians were negroes. (The word Cush means " black.") Miriam, Moses' sister, strongly objected to a negress as her sister-in-law. She took Aaron with her, and began to scold Moses violently. But God showed that He had no objection to Moses' black wife, for Miriam was punished by being struck with leprosy.
(b) In the Wilderness two brothers came to join the Israelites. They were Kenezites (Joshua xiv. 14), and the Kenezites were a clan of the Edomites (Gen. xxxvi. 40). They did not get much of a welcome. The Israelites called the elder brother Caleb, which means Dog. Yet Caleb rose to be one of their leaders. He and Joshua were the only two spies who were faithful. When the land was conquered, he was given the country around Hebron, and his descendants became one of the chief clans of the tribe of Judah: so a large section of the leading tribe were not Jews but Edomites. Othniel, the other brother, became the first Judge.
(c) A better known story is the story of Jonah. God called him to go and preach to the heathen city of Nineveh, the capital of Assyria. But Jews hated Assyrians, and were often at war with them ; so to escape this call Jonah pretended that he had urgent business in the opposite direction, and took ship for Spain (Tarshish). When the great storm turned him back, and he had to go after all, he just marched through the streets shouting that Nineveh would be destroyed; and, when the Ninevites repented, and God pardoned them, he was furiously angry, and he said: “I do well to be angry even unto death." But the prophet who tells us this story (the Book of Jonah comes among the Minor Prophets) makes us feel all through how wrong Jonah's attitude was. The story was his way of teaching the Jews that they must not hate foreigners, but do all that they could to help them.
d) In the Jewish Law-book there stood the very clear command : " God loveth the stranger. Love ye therefore the stranger, for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt."
III. THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE FOREIGNER.
(a) When we turn to the New Testament, we find it full of the teaching of Christ, Who came to be “a Light to lighteth the Gentiles." In the very first chapter St. Matthew goes out of his way to show that our Lord had foreign blood in His veins. In the list of His ancestors he only mentions four women, but two of these are foreigners, belonging to nations whom the Jews specially hated—Rahab, the Canaanite woman who hid the spies in Jericho, and Ruth, the Moabitess.
(b) In the second chapter we reach the Epiphany story. Christmas was past. Joseph had found a house for Mary and her Baby. One night there came a knock at the door. Mary opened it, and found a group of dark-skinned foreigners who asked if they might come in to see her little Child. They were Magi, Wise Men who thought they could read messages in the stars. In their distant home in the Far East they had seen a star, which seemed to them to mean that a wonderful King had been born in Palestine. They had saddled their camels, and travelled for months, and now had arrived. Did Mary slam the door in their faces ? Did she say that she was not going to have any nasty foreigners in her house ? No. She welcomed them in, and the Baby Christ stretched out His Hands to greet them. Read Passage. Notice the other name for Epiphany in the Prayer Book—" the Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles." Later tradition made one of the Magi a European, one a Negro, and one an Asiatic, to picture all races meeting round our Lord's cradle.
(c) Later in the New Testament we find a big struggle going on. The first Christians were all Jews, for our Lord spent His life in Palestine, and, when the Church began to spread through the world, some of these Jewish Christians said, " We are not going to have any foreigners in our Church." But St. Paul withstood them. Quote text. Christ had said, " Make disciples of all the nations " (St. Matt. xxviii. 19). And St. Paul was so clearly right that in later years the Church took as its name the Catholic Church, which means the Church for every nation.
IV. OUR DUTY TO THE FOREIGNER.
(a) Let us now learn three practical duties. Be courteous to Foreigners. When Edward VII visited Italy, he greatly
pleased the Italians by a little act of courtesy. The carpet laid down from the yacht to his carriage was not long enough. There was a nasty patch of mud in which the King would have to tread. A harbour official covered it with an Italian flag. When the King saw it, he stepped on one side into the mud, and saluted the flag. He would not hurt the feelings of the Italians by treading on their national colours.
(b) Be friendly to Foreigners. In 1920 the Boy Scouts held what they called a Jamboree in London. Ten thousand scouts were there from twenty-five different nations. There were Scouts from Denmark, Spain and China, Chile, Persia and Japan, Holland, Hawaii and Honolulu. They lived together in a great Camp in Richmond Park. Did they quarrel because they belonged to different nations ? No ; they were the best of friends. " Every scout a brother " was their motto. The same year a much more important meeting was held in Paris to form the League of Nations. There had been plenty of national Parliaments, but now there was to be one Parliament of all the nations, meeting at Geneva. There in a big house facing the snow mountains officials are working every day. to help all nations to understand each other better, to smooth away causes of quarrel, to prevent war. The League wants all nations to be like the Scouts in Richmond Park.
(c) Be ready to help Foreigners. The Foreign Missionary movement is the finest thing that England has ever done to help other nations. Think of the thousands of English men and women who have left home, and gone to live among Negroes and Chinamen and Red Indians, to open schools and hospitals, to lead them away from cruel customs, to teach them how to be better men and women. Two hundred years ago there lived in Germany a boy named Nicolaus Zinzendorf. Some boys are fond of forming gangs, and Nicolaus formed his playmates into a society. They said, " A society must have a name," and they called theirs The Order of the Grain of Mustard Seed, for they said, " Though we are small now, we hope to grow very big, and Christ said, A grain of mustard seed is the least of all seeds, but it becometh a tree." Next they said, " We must have a pledge," and at last they chose, " Members of our Society promise to love the whole human race." Then came the question, " What shall we do ? " Nicolaus said, " If we love the whole human race, let us collect money for the missionaries." It was a splendid answer. The Order of the Grain of Mustard Seed became the first Children's Missionary League on record.
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