Have We No Rights? Part 1

Have We No Rights?

by Mabel Williamson.

CHAPTER 1

_Rights_

"Well," said mother, setting down a cup she had just wiped, and picking up another, "the older I get, and the older my children get, the more I realize how little right a person has even to her own children. By the time they get--well--into high school they aren't yours any more."

"But, Mother," I protested, dropping a dripping dishcloth into the dishpan and looking at her in amazement, "of course we are yours!

Whose else would we be?"

There was silence for a moment. Then, "You--you belong to yourselves,"

she said quietly.

America--the land of freedom and opportunity! The land where everyone's rights are respected! The land where the son of a s.h.i.+ftless drunkard can grit his teeth and say, "I'm going to be rich and famous some day!" Here in America we pride ourselves on the fact that everyone has the right to live his own life as he pleases--provided, that is, that he does not infringe upon the rights of someone else.

Rights--your rights; my rights. Just what are rights, anyway?

A group of half a dozen missionaries were gathered for prayer in a simply furnished living room of a mission house in China. For a few minutes one of the group spoke to us out of his heart, and I shall never forget the gist of what he said.

"You know," he began, "there's a great deal of difference between _eating bitterness_ [Chinese idiom for 'suffering hards.h.i.+p'] and _eating loss_ [Chinese idiom for 'suffering the infringement of one's rights']. 'Eating bitterness' is easy enough. To go out with the preaching band, walk twenty or thirty miles to the place where you are to work, help set up the tent, placard the town with posters, and spend several weeks in a strenuous campaign of meetings and visitation--why, that's a thrill! Your bed may be made of a couple of planks laid on sawhorses, and you may have to eat boiled rice, greens, and beancurd three times a day. But that's just the beauty of it! Why, it's good for anyone to go back to the simple life! A little healthy 'bitterness' is good for anybody!

"When I came to China," he continued, "I was all ready to 'eat bitterness' and like it. That hasn't troubled me particularly. It takes a little while to get your palate and your digestion used to Chinese food, of course, but that was no harder than I had expected.

Another thing, however"--and he paused significantly--"_another thing_ that I had never thought about came up to make trouble. I had to 'eat loss'! I found that I couldn't stand up for my rights--that I couldn't even _have_ any rights. I found that I had to give them up, every one, and that was the hardest thing of all."

That missionary was right. On the mission field it is not the enduring of hards.h.i.+ps, the lack of comforts, and the roughness of the life that make the missionary cringe and falter. It is something far less romantic and far more real. It is something that will hit you right down where you live. The missionary has to give up having his own way.

He has to give up having any rights. He has, in the words of Jesus, to "deny himself." He just has to give up _himself_.

Paul knew all about this. If you do not believe it, look at I Corinthians 9. "Have we no right to eat and to drink?" he asks. "Have we not a right to forbear working?... Nevertheless," he goes on, "we did not use this right.... Though I was free from all men, I brought myself under bondage to all, that I might gain the more" (vv. 4, 6, 12, 19).

Paul, as a missionary, willingly gave up his rights for the sake of the Gospel. Are we ready to do the same?

"But," someone will ask, "why should this be especially true for the _missionary_? What rights must be given up on the mission field that a consecrated Christian at home would not have to give up?"

The following chapters picture some of them.

CHAPTER 2

_The Right to What I Consider a Normal Standard of Living_

_"Have we no right to eat and to drink?"_--I Corinthians 9:4

The white-haired mission secretary looked at me quizzically. "Well,"

he said, "it's all in your point of view. We find that these days in the tropics people may look upon the missionary's American refrigerator as a normal and necessary thing; but the cheap print curtains hanging at his windows may be to them unjustifiable extravagance!"

My mind goes back to a simple missionary home in China, with a cheap rug on the painted boards of the living-room floor. I can see country women carefully skirting that rug, trying to get to the chairs indicated for them without stepping on it. Rugs, to them, belonged on beds, not on floors, and they would no more think of walking on my rug than you would on my best blanket! I think of our dining table set for a meal, and visitors examining with amazement the silver implements instead of bamboo chopsticks; and white cloth instead of a bare table.

I think of having overheard our cook say proudly to a chance comer, "Oh, of course they have lots of money! Why, they always eat white bread; and they have meat every day, nearly; and as for sugar--why, you just can't imagine the amount of sugar they use!"

English service was over, and we went home with a lady doctor and nurse of another mission. They had invited us to Sunday night supper.

The sermon, delivered by a missionary of still another mission, who was stationed in the city, had been striking and thought-provoking.

The text had been Luke 8:14: "And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection."

"This verse must refer to missionaries," the speaker had begun, "because it says that when they have heard, they go forth."

He had gone on to describe a picture he would like to paint. All around the border were to be the "cares" and "riches" and "pleasures"

that hindered the real work of the missionary. Subjects that hit home were mentioned--there would be a big account book that tied the missionary down so that he had no time for a spiritual ministry; a teacup, symbolizing the round of entertaining that may develop in a city where there is a relatively large missionary community; a house and its furnis.h.i.+ngs, needing constant attention; and so on. The conclusion of the sermon had been very solemnizing, because of all these cares and pleasures and things that are second to G.o.d's best, it is tragically possible that the missionary may "bring no fruit to perfection."

At the supper table we had an interesting discussion of the sermon and its implications. Then the lady doctor made a remark that I have never forgotten.

"When Frances and I set up this house," she said, "we agreed that one principle must never be violated. We would have nothing in our house--its furnis.h.i.+ngs its arrangement--nothing that would keep the ordinary poor people among whom we work from coming in, or that would make them feel strange here."

A standard of living--what does it amount to? How important is it?

Does it matter whether we missionaries sleep on spring beds, or those made of boards (I prefer the latter myself!), whether we eat with chopsticks, or fingers, or forks; whether we wear silk or homespun; whether we sit on chairs or on the floor? Does it matter whether we are poor or rich? Does it matter whether we eat rice or potatoes?

Does it matter whether we live in the way to which we are accustomed, or adopt the way of living of those to whom we go?

It may matter quite a lot to ourselves. Most of us like potatoes better than rice. That is to say, most of us like things the way we are used to having them rather than some other way. What is to be our att.i.tude on the mission field? Are we free to try to have things the way we would like them, and to live, as much as possible, as we would at home? Or ought we to attempt, as far as we can, to conform to the way of life of the people among whom we live? This, of course, brings us to other questions: Does it matter to the people to whom we go whether we conform or not? And, more important, does it matter insofar as the progress of the Gospel is concerned? Will our conforming help to win souls to Christ?

The first thing to be said in answer to these questions is that the standards of missionary living necessarily must vary with local conditions. In some places there is a mixture of races and peoples, each in general keeping with its own customs and dress, and yet mixing freely with the others. In such places there may be many Westerners, and Western ways may not only be familiar, but even adopted to a certain extent by the local people. In situations like this there may be little or no need for the missionary to change his ordinary way of life.

Most missionaries go to places where the way of life is different from their own, and to people to whom their way of life is strange and by whom it is not understood. It is natural for us to like people who do things in the way in which we like them done. We are attracted to those who seem the same as ourselves, and turn (perhaps unconsciously) from those who seem queer and different. People of other lands are the same. When we see someone whose complexion, features, clothing, language, manners, and customs are different from our own, our natural reaction is to stare, or laugh, or both. It is not natural to be attracted to those who are different from ourselves. The missionary wants to attract people. People must be attracted to him before they can be attracted to his message. They must accept him before they will accept his message. The more we can conform to their way of life, the easier and more natural and more rapid their acceptance of us will be.

The report of a China Inland Mission conference of missionaries held in England a few years ago includes as one of the lessons learned from past experience of missionary work in China, "the will to conform as nearly as possible to the social and living conditions of the people to whom we went." This means, of course, that different missionaries will live according to different standards. For example, my sister Frances and I are both members of the China Inland Mission. During the past few years I have been living in the modern and wealthy city of Singapore. I lived according to an ordinary middle-cla.s.s standard--which meant running water, electricity, gas, and modern plumbing. I was conforming to the social standards and living conditions of the people to whom I went. During the same time my sister was in the Philippines, living in a palm-leaf hut in a clearing in the jungle, carrying her own water and sleeping on the floor. She was conforming to the social standards and living conditions of the people to whom she went. Paul says: "I am become all things to all men, that I may by all means save some" (I Cor. 9:22). He found what the present-day missionary finds, that to some extent he must adopt the way of life and the standard of living of the people to whom he was sent.

Now, in what measure will it be desirable to adopt the local way of life? What principles will guide us? Well, in the first place we will certainly want to become familiar enough with it so that we feel at home in their homes. If we find their way of sitting uncomfortable, and their food unpleasant, they are not going to enjoy having us as guests. I may think it disgusting to eat my rice off a banana leaf with my fingers, but if I show that disgust, I probably will not be invited again. And my hostess may decide that I am merely an unmannerly foreigner, and that there is no profit in pursuing my acquaintance, or in listening to the strange stories of Someone called Jesus that I am so fond of telling. It is also in their homes that we may become really acquainted with them, and learn to know their needs.

When we have become familiar with how they eat, how they sleep, how they work, how they play, what they like, what they dislike, what they hope, what they fear, how they think, how they feel--when we really understand them, then, and only then, will we be able to present the Gospel to them in an adequate way.

In the second place, we will want to live in our own homes on the mission field in such a way as to make our neighbors feel at home when they come to call on us. The fundamental attraction will not be externalities and material things. Even though I live in a little hut that is identical with their own, if in my heart I just do not like to have them around, they will know it, and they will not be attracted to me. But if not only the love and the welcome are there, but also a way of life that corresponds to their own, the approach will be made still easier.

This does not mean, of course, that I will unthinkingly accept all local standards. If I go to Central Africa, I probably will not decide that wearing clothes is an unjustifiable luxury. There is no need for me to neglect to sweep the floor of my palm-leaf hut just because my neighbors do not sweep theirs. The fact that everyone else chews betel nut, or plays mah-jongg, does not mean that I will take up these practices. But I will want, as far as possible, to live the sort of life that it would be suitable for a native[1] Christian to imitate.