Wednesday: How Can We Deal with Parasites?
WEEK 18
WEDNESDAY
HOW CAN WE DEAL WITH PARASITES?
2 Thessalonians 3:7-12
We saw yesterday that life approves of the principle that if a person will not work, neither shall they eat; approves of it by producing mental and emotional illness when we refuse to obey the principle. There is another important consideration: those who inherit money and live only to spend it soon have nothing to spend. “From shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves is three generations,” goes the saying, meaning that those who earn by shirtsleeves pass it on, and in three generations they have run through with it and are back at work in shirtsleeves. Who decrees that? Life! And who decrees that life shall work in this way? God! People who were inspired of God discovered these two principles two thousand years before modern people; experimenting with this business of living they came out at the same place.
So these two principles supplement and correct each other. If we take one principle—to each according to need—and do not require the second—from each according to ability—we have a parasitic group without incentive to work. If we take the other principle—from each according to ability—and do not give according to need, we have slave labor, disgruntled and inefficient.
These two principles are the alternate beats of the heart of economic living; if either beat is absent, the heart stops, and the body of economic relationships breaks down and dies.
Why should Christians look askance at and shy away from two principles deeply embedded in their faith? And why should they turn them over to alien ways of life for them to try to put them in operation? The principles cannot grow in the climate of Communism with its compulsions and hates. They can grow only in the climate of the Christian faith with its liberty and its love. Then let the Christians boldly and gladly accept them and make them operative. Then free enterprise will be free—free from ruthlessness that pushes the weaker to the wall and free to reconstruct through love and good will. Then industry will not be a war; it will be a worship.
O Divine Redeemer, redeem our relationships from wrong attitudes and wrong methods and help us to cooperate with you in making a new world for everybody. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: We must create an economic climate in which Christianity can freely operate.