Wednesday: A Classless Society
WEEK 20
WEDNESDAY
A CLASSLESS SOCIETY
Revelation 20:4 (MNT)*
We have been looking at characteristic marks of the church in the New Testament. We are now meditating on the fact that the church at Antioch was raceless and classless. Unless we can produce a modern expression of that, we will be no match for the Communists, who boast of a raceless and classless society. A friend of mine, a minister, was arrested in the Communist zone of Berlin. When he was taken before the authorities, the first question he was asked was, “How many lynchings of African Americans did you have in America last year?” He could answer “none for three years,” but the question was significant—very. Unless we can sound a clear, unmistakable note on a raceless society, we are simply out of the running for a new world. Other hands will take it over and shape it.
The same with class. In the church at Antioch, Manaen, a member of the court of Herod, was obviously of high social standing. But he is not mentioned in the prominent first place or last place—he is stuck in the middle or near the end without any special emphasis on the “big name” they had won to their group. A new measuring stick had been brought into being: It is not who you are but Whose you are. If you belong to Christ, you stand equal with every other who belongs to him. You become great as you greatly give yourself to him and to others. Greatness was now in greatly giving, and only in greatly giving. That opened the gates of greatness to all. It was a new standard and a new opportunity for all.
One reason Christianity spread in that ancient world, which was founded on race and class exclusiveness, was because it was raceless and classless. The depressed multitudes saw in it new hope and an open door. The same thing is happening today. The maharaja of India once had a palace near where we have an Ashram in India; connected with the palace were kennels for two hundred dogs, with doctors taking their temperature twice a day. Today the maharaja is dethroned, and his palace is being used as a public school. The masses are pushing out the maharajas; they are on the march.
O Lord, your children, aroused and marching, are looking for a spiritual home. Help us to make the church that home, where all classes and races are at home. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I belong to the highest class on our planet—a child of God—let that suffice.
* “And I saw thrones with people sitting on them, who were allowed to judge—saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and God’s word, those who would not worship the Beast or his statue, and who would not receive his mark on their forehead or hand; they came to life and reigned along with the Christ for a thousand years.”