The Virus of Being Uncommitted
THE virulent virus I would like to consider with you is a seemingly innocent-looking creature. It was markedly present in the days of Gideon. There was a real epidemic in the early days of David. I sometimes think it is hereditary and some small strain is in the race and part of our make-up from birth. It is the virus of being uncommitted.
From the Chicago Tribune I quote: "The decisive battles of the world are fought between militant minorities, with the great masses of men on the fence watching the struggle, but having no part in it. On the one side are the 'children of darkness,' so to speak, and on the other side the 'children of light.' Between these two sides are the neutral who take no sides.
"It is the uncommitted neutrals who make possible the triumphs of the 'children of darkness.' The people of Chicago did not want the Kelly-Nash machine, but they got it because so many people stood on the side lines saying, 'That's not my fight.' A handful of Fascists took Italy. A few Nazis took Germany. A minority of Communists took Russia."
This happened not because these minorities had power to do what they did, nor because there was a lack of power to prevent them, but because so many, many good people were sick, victims of the virus of the uncommitted.
Cortez with a small band of Spanish adventurers landed on the shores of Mexico. He had a few small cannon, a few horses, and a dream of gold. This small band of men conquered a country with a large and well-disciplined army and advanced civilization. Time and again the adventurers could easily have been stopped and entirely destroyed but for one element of fate which was in their favor. There was at the time of their invasion an epidemic of the virus of the uncommitted, and the disease was prevalent among many tribes nominally subservient to the Aztecs. Thus they either directly and openly aided the invaders or sat on the side lines with no care or concern as to the outcome of the battle. The end result was that these uncommitted, who watched history made from the balcony without entering the arena on either side, lost their gold, their homes, their daughters, their society, and their freedom, and in the end they themselves became slaves.
David went forth to meet Goliath while the army of the uncommitted stood by and watched the conflict. Gideon marched against Midian while the great masses of Israel went back to their caves or wine presses or barley fields or vineyards, taking no part in the great conflict between good and evil in their day.
Centuries slipped through the fingers of God like grains of sand, then Christ came to earth, was born in a manger, reared in Galilee, and ministered on the grassy banks of Galilee or in the hillsides of Judea or in the villages of Samaria. The most amazing part of the story of Christ is the revelation of the love of God; but the next most amazing part is the smallness of the number of those involved on either side. On the one hand are Christ and a small band of disciples, and on the other side, bent on His destruction, is a small band of powerful Jewish leaders, while the great masses of people continue in their normal habits of life, humbly earning their daily bread by the simple toil of their economy, rearing their children, reading to them from the ancient scrolls, attending the feasts, offering their sacrifices, saying their prayers, giving their alms, going through all the machinations of their sacerdotal worship and taking no sides, while their Redeemer is crucified.
Again the centuries fall through the fingers of God. Two thousand years slip by as a tale that is told, and the church comes to our day, a day in which God Himself has prophesied that the virus of neutrality in the great work of the church and the moral issues of the day would be most virulent. It is prophesied of our day that the good, pious, religious people would be neither hot nor cold, victims of the virus of neutrality, and for such God Himself has nothing but contempt.
In our age great economic systems are seemingly opposed to one another and each appears bent on triumph premised on the wrong assumption that the economics of the world come in black and white, with one all right and the other all wrong, overlooking the obvious fact that in a world as small as ours today there can be no such thing as victory. Even in this economic and ideological conflict the masses in our land stand on the balcony and watch, seeking only to exploit any system, even their own, for their own personal gain; and while this economic and ideological conflict takes place, science has outrun the morality of the world. In an endeavor to advance science we have taught skepticism, until today the eternal verities of right and wrong are no longer believed.
All of this happens to men made in the image of God—a generation who have assigned the responsibility for the welfare of mankind to the government and the Red Cross; an impersonal generation who no longer respect law and order, who are not ashamed of wrong in themselves or outraged by wrong in others; a generation valuing electric dishwashers above the arts, and gain above integrity. For this confused, misguided, deluded generation Christ died, and we know it. The church has been given a message for this generation, a message that teaches that possessions are temporal and that only character prevails beyond the shadow of the tomb.
Where, then, is our zeal, our sense of urgency, our determination to be completely committed to a great unfinished task.
The Declaration of Independence was written by men who were fully committed. It closes with these words, "We pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor." The curse of the church is the delusion that its sole mission is to develop in its membership the absence of evil. The hope of the church, and for that matter for the world today, is in a sense of conviction and commitment, a dedication not just to the absence of evil, but to a great unfinished task.
Pizarro and his small party of adventurers were stranded on the shores of South America and nearly given up for lost. A boat from Panama came to rescue them but Pizarro would not be rescued. Instead he drew a line with his sword in the sand of that little beach and said these words to his few men: "South of this lie hunger, storm, and death. On the other side lie pleasure and ease. South lies Peru with riches; North, Panama and poverty. For my part I choose South." Eighteen men stepped across the line with him.
The day is passed for us to compromise the work of the Lord with our ideas of ease and luxury and plenty, the climate, and compatible conditions. It is time for us to draw lines in the sand, for south lie hours without count, devotion usually without recognition or applause. But south lies gold, in the city of God.
These are the virtues, Lord, that I would seek—
I would be kind and loving, patient, meek.
And clothe with charity each word I speak,
With gentle tact most rare.
Nor feel above the erring feet that stray,
Remembering mine are also made of clay,
But being good, not overgood, I pray,
And thus become a snare.
Deliver me from avarice and greed,
Deliver me from virtues that exceed,
And make me mindful of my brother's need
And zealous for his care.
But most of all, I pray, deliver me
From lack of clear convictions. Set me free
From zealless, spineless, base neutrality.
This is my humble prayer.
