The Bible Unveiled

by M. M. Mangasarian

Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled.... Woe unto you that are full! for ye shall hunger. **

* Luke vi, 21.
** Luke vi, 21-25.

In the dim, distant day those who hunger now will have all that they can eat, but those who now are filled will starve. What then is the advantage of that future day over the now? Instead of doing away with hunger, it is to be shifted on to another set of people. There will be just as much poverty in the beautiful future Jesus predicts, as there is to-day, only the people who are poor here, will be rich there, and the rich now, will be the poor then. Is there any inspiration in such a prospect? Is it not like clinging to a straw, to expect help from such haphazard utterances as these? What a serious world desires to know is not how to "beat around the bush," but how to remedy real evils. By taking the bread from one man and giving it to another, we neither add to the quantity of food, nor diminish the stress of poverty. Yet that is precisely the solution Jesus proposes with such a flourish of trumpets. Is it any wonder that people do not care for his heaven, or that humanity has turned away from Jesus to look for help elsewhere? Again Jesus says:

Blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall laugh.... Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep. *

* Luke vi, 21-25.

Is it not fantastic? Jesus seems to believe that to laugh now is a crime; and yet he holds it up as a future reward to those who weep now. There is an oriental saying that the food which each one that comes into the world needs, is set apart for him by Allah; he may eat it all at once, and starve the rest of his life, or use it moderately, and have enough to last him all the days of his life. Likewise, Jesus appears to be of the belief that there is just so much happiness set apart for man; he can take it in this world, and go to hades in the next; or he can make this world a place of mourning, and go to heaven in the next. Therefore, "Woe to those who want their heaven here, for they shall be tormented forever after, and blessed are those who mourn and weep here, for they shall laugh in the hereafter." Is this sense?

According to Jesus, as long as a man is weeping and mourning he is "blessed," but as soon as he begins to laugh, then "woe" unto him. In the same way, a man is "blessed" as long as he is hungry, but the moment he is "filled" Jesus turns upon him with a "woe unto you." Who could fail to draw the conclusion from such teaching that to help people to be happy now, is to expose them to the "woe unto you" of God, and to help people out of poverty now, is to bring upon their heads the curse of the future; and that, therefore, we should let the poor be the poor, and the rich, the rich—leaving it to the unknown future to settle all accounts. Such a teacher deserves to have only the unthinking for his disciples.

One Sunday in June, about three years ago, I went to hear the Rev. Dr. Aked, of the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church, in New York city. For his scripture lesson he read the parable of the "Wheat and the Tares." * This is about a farmer who sows good seed in his field. But while he was asleep, his enemies came and sowed tares among the wheat. As the blades sprang up "and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also." The farm-hands, when they saw this, asked the owner for permission to destroy the tares. "Nay," replied the master, "lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn."

* Matthew xiii, 24-30.

What edification is there in such a story? To bring a church full of people together—tired, busy, perplexed, hungering for ideas, for truth, for beauty—only to tell them that the tares must not be touched or separated even from the wheat until some day in the future, some judgment day in the clouds, when the Lord of the harvest shall gather up the tares to be burned, and the wheat to be deposited in his chests! Could anything be more destructive of human endeavor and hope than this shifting of all responsibility upon God and the future? If the parable has any meaning, it is this: Let every field become rank with weeds, and let nothing be done to destroy the weeds now—the future will take care of that. The future is the one great asset of the priest. "Wait until you die," is his answer to every challenge to show present results.