THE MALADY OF NOT WANTING

Somewhere in his writings Robert Louis Stevenson refers to "the malady of not wanting," which is an odd statement in a world that obviously wants too much. Surely the malady is greed, not penury. But the context reveals that Stevenson refers to the indifference and passivity toward the higher values that we are inclined to show. We are sick for not wanting the things we ought to want.

 Aristotle, the Greek philosopher, believed that man's nature is such that he is eager to learn and to know. A college professor responded to this with, "But Aristotle never taught in an American university!" Many a teacher, harassed by kids who couldn't care less about learning, would wonder how Aristotle or anybody else could make such a statement. But there may be a vast difference between what man is potentially, or what God has created him for, and what he actually is in any given situation. A wrecked car in a ditch is a far cry from what its makers intended or what it was when it rolled off the assembly line. "God made man upright," the scriptures somberly assure us, "but he has devised much evil." Just so, God has made man to be a learner, a questioner, a seeker even if he is often none of these. It is as natural for us to long for inward filling as it is for us to hunger for food for our bodies. Something is wrong when we want the one but not the other. Stevenson says it is a malady, and it may be so contagious as to threaten both the church and the world.

 Plato, the master of Aristotle, saw this world as but the shadow of reality, due in part to this malady of not wanting. To him the basic sin is willful ignorance, especially ignorance of self. His famous allegory of the cave points to this basic illness of the human race, not really wanting the truth but only professing to. He sees men shackled to each other in a cave, their understanding of things, including themselves, limited to shadows on the wall. One of them is the exception, for he chooses to reach beyond his narrow restrictions and discover a larger world. Freeing himself and making his way out of the precipitous cave, which he found both dangerous and painful, he discovers a world he never dreamed existed. He is dazzled by the change and must adjust both his eyes and his thinking to the new situation. He sees what he himself really is as he looks into a mirror of water, and then proceeds to discover the world around him, which illustrates the ancient Greek concept that true wisdom must begin with a knowledge of self. The way Socrates put it: "The unexamined life is not worth living." It is probable that a life lived uncritically is no more worth living in the 1970's than it was back in the fifth century B.C. when Socrates made the statement.

 This escape from the cave is sometimes described as "the courage to ascend." The prisoner had the courage to get up and get out even if it was dangerous and difficult. He dared to question, to think, to act, to be different. He found truth to be painful at first, but he adjusted himself to truth rather than truth to himself. Above all was his desire to know, to understand, and he was willing to change.

 He also had the courage to descend, to go back into the cave and share his newly found truth with his friends still in bondage. But who was he to teach them? Did they not have the truth already in the flickering shadows upon the wall? At last they rejected him and killed him. Their illness was that they didn't want to know as he wanted to know, and so they turned to violence and persecution rather than change. Plato believed that all those who seek to share truth with those implacable hearts will be treated in some such manner, as was his teacher Socrates.

Do we really want the truth, the truth about ourselves and about the church? It is a sobering question. Our most serious malady may be that we are satisfied and do not want to make any changes. So said Jesus to one church, "Because you say, `I am rich and have need of nothing,' not knowing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked." Those words not knowing weighed heavily against them, for they didn't want to know. Still God's mercy lingers. To that same church Jesus says, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me" (Rev. 3:20). But only people with their want‑to's fixed open the door. The others are afraid of the fresh air!

Let's face it, few of us really want righteousness ‑ the kind that we are to hunger and thirst for, that is. The broken and contrite heart that God desires above all else is all too rare. "You do not want sacrifices, or I would offer them; you are not pleased with burnt offerings. My sacrifice is a humble spirit, O God; you will not reject a humble and repentant heart" (Ps. 52:17). This is the point of religion, not this or that system of externals. Any heart that is not broken before God, ready to make whatever changes He dictates, is to that extent spiritually sick. It is the malady of not wanting God. Such a one may really want the church as he creates it to his own likeness, but not God.

The system in which I grew up sees "the five acts of worship" as the heart of religion, while in fact Ro. 12:1‑2 shows that the whole of life is "the reasonable service (or worship)" that we are to offer to God. Thus a church‑house centered religion is made the essence of the faith. Worship is made to begin and end at some "sanctuary" in a building rather than a 24‑hour commitment of body and mind to Jesus as the Lord of life. Moreover this system of five acts is the only right system and is the mark of the true church on earth.

This creates such a doctrinal hang-up that the farmer who stays home on Sunday morning to help a cow that is about to drop a calf is described as, and sometimes criticized for, "missing worship." He may have missed the assembly but he didn't miss worship, for he was serving God while showing mercy to a helpless animal, and that is what worship is, serving God.

Like the Pharisees, we have our little parties and systems, and we don't want anyone coming around and criticizing them. We make our own little sect the true church and set all others at naught. If they don't have our name and our way of doing things we cast them out of the kingdom of God. And we are not interested in any suggestion that we change our attitude! This is the malady of not wanting.

Nowhere is this malady as evident as in the ugly history of our continuing divisions. We inherited a divided state of affairs ‑ a movement that was suppose to unite the believers in all the sects ‑ and we cannot be blamed for that. But we seem content for the divisions to continue, and we add a few more parties as we go along. The basic problem has to be that we really do not want to do anything about it. We love our parties even while we give lip service to unity.

The tragedy of this malady is that it makes the whole heart sick, turning its victim away from a sincere search for God. "I would have gathered you into my arms," said Jesus as he wept over Jerusalem, "but you would not." God is ready when we are, but apart from a broken and contrite heart man is never ready. We have seen that Ps. 51:17 promises that God will not reject one with a humble and repentant heart even though he be in the church? A proud sectarian has no way of finding God.

There is only one answer to the malady of not wanting, and that is for the heart to be touched by the love of God. As Ro. 5:5 puts it: "This hope does not disappoint us, for God has poured out his love into our hearts by means of the Holy Spirit, who is God's gift to us."

When this happens one can't help but want.  —the Editor