Mere Christianity - Book Four - Is Christianity Hard Or Easy?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Book Four

 

 

Beyond Personality:

Or First Steps In The Doctrine Of The Trinity

 

 

 

8. Is Christianity Hard Or Easy?

     In the last chapter we were considering  the Christian idea of "putting
on Christ,"  or  first "dressing up" as a son of God in order  that you  may
finally become a real son. What I want to make clear is that this is not one
among many jobs  a Christian has  to  do; and it is not  a  sort  of special
exercise for  the top class.  It is  the whole of Christianity. Christianity
offers  nothing else at all. And I should  like  to point out how it differs
from ordinary ideas of "morality" and "being good."

     The ordinary idea which we  all  have before  we become  Christians  is
this. We  take as starting point  our ordinary self with its various desires
and interests. We then admit  that  something  else  call it  "morality"  or
"decent behaviour," or "the good of society" has claims on this self: claims
which interfere with its own desires. What we mean by "being good" is giving
in to those claims. Some  of the things the ordinary self wanted to do  turn
out to be what we  call "wrong": well, we  must give  them up. Other things,
which  the self did  not want to do, turn  out to be  what we call  "right":
well, we shall have to do them. But we are hoping all the time that when all
the  demands  have  been  met, the  poor natural  self  will still have some
chance, and some time, to get on with its own life and do what it  likes. In
fact,  we  are  very like an honest man  paying  his taxes. He pays them all
right, but he does  hope that there will be enough left over for him to live
on. Because we are still taking our natural self as the starting point.

     As long as  we are thinking  that  way, one or other of two  results is
likely  to follow. Either we give up trying  to be  good, or  else we become
very unhappy indeed. For, make no mistake: if you are really going to try to
meet all the demands made  on the natural self, it will not have enough left
over to live on. The more you obey your conscience, the more your conscience
will  demand of you. And your natural  self, which is thus being starved and
hampered and worried at every turn, will  get  angrier  and angrier. In  the
end, you will either give up trying to be  good, or else become one of those
people who, as they  say, "live  for  others" but always  in a discontented,
grumbling  way-always wondering why  the  others  do not notice it more  and
always making a martyr of yourself.  And once you have become that  you will
be a far greater pest to anyone who has to live with you than you would have
been if you had remained frankly selfish.

     The Christian way  is different: harder, and easier. Christ says  "Give
me All. I don't want so much of your time and so  much of  your money and so
much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self,
but to kill  it. No half-measures are any good. I  don't want  to cut off  a
branch  here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don't
want to drill the tooth, or  crown it, or  stop it, but to have it out. Hand
over  the whole natural self,  all the desires  which  you think innocent as
well  as  the ones  you think wicked-the whole outfit. I will give you a new
self  instead.  In fact, I  will give you Myself: my own  will  shall become
yours."

     Both harder  and easier than what  we  are all trying  to  do. You have
noticed, I expect, that Christ Himself sometimes describes the Christian way
as very hard, sometimes as very easy. He says, "Take up your Cross"-in other
words,  it is like going to be beaten to death in a concentration camp. Next
minute  he says, "My yoke  is easy  and my burden light." He means both. And
one can just see why both are true.

     Teachers will tell you that the laziest boy in the class is the one who
works hardest  in the end. They mean this.  If you  give two  boys,  say,  a
proposition in geometry to do, the  one who is prepared to take trouble will
try to understand  it. The lazy boy will  try to learn it by heart  because,
for the moment, that needs less effort. But six months  later, when they are
preparing for an exam., that lazy boy is doing  hours and hours of miserable
drudgery over things the other boy understands, and positively enjoys,  in a
few minutes. Laziness  means  more work in the long run. Or look  at it this
way. In a battle, or in mountain climbing, there is often one thing which it
takes  a lot  of  pluck to do;  but it is also, in  the long run, the safest
thing to do. If you  funk  it, you will  find yourself, hours  later, in far
worse danger. The cowardly thing is also the most dangerous thing.

     It  is like that here. The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing,
is to hand over your whole self-all  your wishes and  precautions-to Christ.
But it is far  easier than what we are all trying to do instead. For what we
are  trying to  do is to remain what  we call "ourselves," to  keep personal
happiness as  our  great aim in life, and yet at the same time be "good." We
are all trying to let  our mind and heart go their  own way-centred on money
or pleasure or ambition-and hoping, in spite of this, to behave honestly and
chastely and humbly. And that is exactly what Christ warned us you could not
do. As He said, a thistle cannot produce figs. If I am a field that contains
nothing  but grass-seed, I cannot produce wheat. Cutting the grass may  keep
it short: but I shall still produce grass and no wheat. If I want to produce
wheat, the change must go deeper than the surface. I must be ploughed up and
re-sown.

     That  is why the real  problem of the Christian life comes where people
do not usually  look  for it. It  comes  the  very moment  you wake  up each
morning.  All  your  wishes  and  hopes  for the day  rush at  you like wild
animals. And the first  job each morning consists simply in shoving them all
back;  in listening  to that other voice, taking that  other point  of view,
letting that other larger, stronger,  quieter life come flowing  in.  And so
on, all day. Standing back from all  your natural  fussings  and  frettings;
coming in out of the wind.

     We can only do it  for moments at first. But from those moments the new
sort  of  life  will be  spreading through  our system: because now  we  are
letting  Him work at  the right part  of  us.  It is  the difference between
paint, which is merely  laid on the surface,  and a dye or stain which soaks
right through. He  never talked vague,  idealistic  gas. When he  said,  "Be
perfect," He meant it. He meant that  we must go  in for the full treatment.
It is  hard; but  the  sort  of compromise we  are all  hankering  after  is
harder-in fact,  it is impossible. It may be hard  for an egg to turn into a
bird: it would  be a  jolly  sight  harder  for  it to  learn  to fly  while
remaining an  egg.  We are  like eggs  at  present. And  you  cannot  go  on
indefinitely being just  an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched  or  go
bad.

     May  I  come  back  to  what  I  said  before?  This  is the  whole  of
Christianity. There  is  nothing else.  It  is so easy  to get muddled about
that.  It  is  easy  to  think  that  the  Church  has  a  lot of  different
objects-education, building, missions,  holding services. Just as it is easy
to  think  the  State  has a lot of different  objects-military,  political,
economic, and what  not. But in a way things are much simpler than that. The
State exists  simply to promote  and to  protect  the ordinary happiness  of
human beings in this life. A husband and wife chatting over a fire, a couple
of  friends having a game of darts in a pub, a man reading a book in his own
room or digging in his own garden-that is  what the State  is there for. And
unless they are  helping to increase  and prolong and protect  such moments,
all  the  laws,  parliaments, armies, courts,  police, economics, etc.,  are
simply a waste of  time. In the same way the Church exists for  nothing else
but to draw men  into Christ, to make them little  Christs.  If they are not
doing that,  all  the cathedrals, clergy,  missions, sermons, even the Bible
itself, are simply a waste of time. God became Man for no other purpose.  It
is  even doubtful, you know, whether  the whole universe was created for any
other purpose. It says in the Bible  that  the whole  universe  was made for
Christ  and that  everything  is to be  gathered together in Him.  I do  not
suppose any  of us can  understand how this will happen as regards the whole
universe.  We do not know  what (if anything) lives in the parts of it  that
are millions of miles away from this Earth. Even on  this Earth  we  do  not
know how it  applies to things other than men. After all, that  is  what you
would expect. We  have been shown the plan  only  in so far as  it  concerns
ourselves.

     I  sometimes like to imagine that  I can just see how it might apply to
other things. I  think I can see how the higher animals are in a sense drawn
into  Man  when he loves them and makes them (as he  does)  much more nearly
human than they would otherwise be. I can even see a sense in which the dead
things  and  plants are  drawn  into  Man  as he studies them and  uses  and
appreciates  them. And if there  were  intelligent creatures in other worlds
they might do the  same with their worlds. It might be that when intelligent
creatures entered into  Christ they would, in that way, bring all the  other
things in along with them. But I do not know: it is only a guess.

     What we  have  been told is how we men can be  drawn  into Christ  -can
become part of that wonderful present which the young Prince of the universe
wants to offer to  His Father-that present which is Himself and therefore us
in  Him.  It is  the  only thing  we were made for. And  there  are strange,
exciting  hints in the Bible that when we are  drawn in, a great many  other
things in  Nature will begin to  come right. The bad dream will be over:  it
will be morning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

An attempt to harmonize the hard and easy aspects of the Christian life.

1. According to Lewis, what is the whole of Christianity?
2. What happens to a person (who is not a Christian) when they attempt to obey their conscience completely?
3. Lewis says the Christian way is both harder and easier than the "give in to conscience" way. Can you explain why? Can you cite some of the bible verses which give support to the way of Christ being harder and easier than life outside of Christ?
4. The first thing a Christian should do every morning is...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Putting on Christ is not just one job that Christians have, it is the one job that Christians have.

• It's not something only a special class of Christians do, it's what Christianity is all about.
• This is completely different from any other idea of 'morality' or 'being good.'

The ordinary idea for young Christians, or non-Christians is

• We start with ourselves
• We admit that there 'morality' or 'decent behavior' or 'the good of society' has some claim on our lives
• Those claims interfere with our own desires
• We try to do all of the 'right' things and not do all of the 'wrong' things and have something of ourselves left over to pursue our own interests.
• Lewis likens it to paying taxes, and hoping we have something left over to live on.

Following this method of the 'Christian life' leads us to

• Being very unhappy, because
  • as we try to meet the demands of our conscious, more demands will be placed on us
  • our natural life will be starved and frustrated, becoming increasingly angry
• leading you to either give up
• or become one of those unhappy, grumpy people who 'live for others,' and generally end up being a far greater greater pest than they would have been had they remained selfish

The Christian way is different -- harder and easier

• Christ demands all of us
• Not some of our time and some of our money and some of our work
• ALL of us
• Not to torture our natural self
• but to kill it
• Half measures are no acceptable
• Not pruning a branch here and there
• Cutting down the hole tree
• He wants to whole self -- the good, the bad and the ugly
• In it's place, he wants to give us a new self
• He wants to give us Himself!
• His will will become our own

Harder and easier than trying to do it on our own

• One time he says, "Take up your Cross," "in other words, it is like going to be beaten to death in a concentration camp."
• The next minute he says, "My yoke is easy and my burden light."
• He means both.

We can very often see that the lazy student takes shortcuts, but months later has to work much harder than the student who put the hard work in learning the principles earlier in the school year. The same is true in any craft for field.

The terrible, almost impossible thing is to hand over all of our wishes and fears to Christ

• It's far easier for Him to do His work through our submitted lives than for us to try to do 'good' on our own
• By trying to do it on our own, we are trying to be honest, chaste and humble, while letting our heart follow the desires of money, pleasure and success
• Interestingly enough, Christ told us we couldn't serve two masters
• Thorn bushes don't produce figs
• Lewis' illustration of a grass field not producing wheat -- it has to go deeper than mowing the grass, it has to be plowed up (deep change) and resown

That is why the real problem of the Christian life comes where people do not usually look for it. It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day. Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings; coming in out of the wind.

We can only do it for moments at first

• but in those moments His new life is spreading through us, because we are allowing him to work on the right parts of us
• it's the difference between paint (which is on the surface), and die or stain, which soaks into the clothe or wood
• He never talked idealistic gas
• When he said, 'Be prefect,' He meant it. He meant that we must go in for the full treatment.
• It is hard, but the compromise we are asking for is impossible

• It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird : it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.

This is what Christianity is all about

• The Church is not object or programs: education, buildings, missions, services, etc.
• The State is not armies, politicians, building, institutions, laws, police, economics, etc.
• The Church exists to draw men into Christ, to make little Christs
• If the Church is not doing that, everything else, even the Bible itself, [is] simply a waste of time

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://lib.ru/LEWISCL/mere_engl.txt 

http://www.opendiscipleship.org/Mere_Christianity_leaders_notes

http://www.gordy-stith.com/Mere%20Christianity/mere_christianity_study_guide.htm