It’s Jesus’ own mission you have been given: ‘As the Father sent me, so do I send you’ writes Jason Conroy
Why live? Now there’s a question! To put it another way: what is it that makes life worth living? What are we living for?
Many of us know how to give the ‘correct’ answer; “Why, of course, it’s the Lord who makes life worth living! He’s who I’m living for.” Or we might say something similar, like “love” or “family”.
But do we really believe this?
Personally, most of the time what my mind is occupied with is: myself. I’m either thinking of a smart comeback I could have made to so-and-so or imagining unrealistic scenarios in which I’m the centre of attention. If I’m looking forward to anything, it’s the end of this particular batch of stresses, and maybe bedtime. Meagre lifegoals, like a good job, relationship, some time for myself, flit and dance just out of reach like will-o’-the-wisps; even if I do catch them, I find that they have not magically transformed my life. Not very inspiring, is it?
And yet, this is the monotonous norm that we’re all tempted to cling on to when the Gospel comes calling.
C.S. Lewis says that we don’t know what we really believe until our life depends on it. What you’re living for, what your treasure really is, is what, when push comes to shove, you’ll give up everything else for.
So: Are we like Peter and Andrew, James and John, Philip and Nathanael, or are we like the Rich Young Man?
I’ve always loved Merikakis’ description of the moment when Jesus, walking by the seaside, sees Peter and Andrew mending their nets, and calls them: “At that moment, the whole world surrounding them shone in a bath of glory–the water, the nets, the boat, their hands, their own very clothes and features–but only, they realised, because all of this was illuminated for them in their hearts by the Voice addressing them.” They realised the world would retain this glory for them at the price of leaving it behind for the sake of adhering to the Voice that had transformed it for them. And the Voice speaks out of the brilliance: “Come behind me and I will make you fishers of men.”
Longed
But will following Christ bring us all the good things we’ve longed for in this life? No! “The gate is narrow, and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” If anything, Augustine says, the Christian suffers more, not less, for following Christ. “If we have hoped for this life alone, then we are the most unfortunate of men.” So why live?
“The human race lives thanks to a few; were it not for them, the world would perish.” When we answer the Gospel call, we become one of the few who are responsible for the many. Joseph Ratzinger once wrote “God does not divide into the few and the many with the purpose of condemning the latter, and saving the former… but he makes use of the few like an Archimedean point by which he lifts the many out of their difficult situation, like a lever with which he draws them to himself.”
To put the matter simply, what the soul is to the body, this is what Christians are to the world”
John Chrysostom said something similar to the Christian of his day: “You are the salt of the earth. It is not for your own sake, but for the world’s sake that the Word is entrusted to you. And that world is in a miserable state.” The Letter to Diognetus adds: “To put the matter simply, what the soul is to the body, this is what Christians are to the world… Such is the high post of duty in which God has placed them, and it is their moral duty not to shrink from it.”
Is this far fetched? Is this lionising our own role? Are we guilty of moulding our self-image into a sort of ‘saviour-complex’ to compensate for all the enjoyments we must reject as Christians? Not at all! Here are some real-life examples:
The Kauai longitudinal survey conducted in Hawaii followed children of troubled families over thirty-two years as they grew into adults. Of those who managed to escape their troubled context, can you guess what the distinguishing feature was? One of two factors: either at least one responsible adult in their life who looked out for them; or religious faith.
These are both things that we can offer to the people whose lives we are a part of.
Death row
As an undergrad I interned at a charitable law office representing convicts on death row in Houston, Texas. Our job was to plead for the life of guilty men. What I noticed was that the crime had always happened at the centre of a surrounding life context which was extremely dark, with little light to offer hope of something better. With the Hawaii survey in mind, I ask myself: what one person could have changed the trajectory of such lives? What one person was supposed to be there for them, but didn’t show up? Who wasn’t in the right place at the right time because they were lukewarm or unfaithful in their hidden life with God? Who was it who fell for the aura of futility surrounding everyday life, and thought that their little sacrifices, or their little negligences, wouldn’t one day make the difference between life and death? You will never know how your faithfulness to your own boring, ordinary, repetitive state in life will help bring others to heaven.
“Come behind me and I will make you fishers of men.” What did Peter and Andrew do? “Leaving their nets immediately, they followed him.” Merikakis writes: “Always this wrenching need to leave the familiar, the secure, the cherished, if one would have abundance of life… With the familiar and the known there is always stasis, probable stagnation. To leave everything and to follow promises empty-handed, to feel the beginning of interior movement and the stimulus of anticipation– in other words, life according to the Gospel, following Jesus without conditions–is only for adventuresome and imaginative hearts, hearts that want to go beyond, to go higher, hearts that want to penetrate the divine reality.”
So do not be sad or envious when you feel left out of the world, when everyone else seems to be having fun – even innocent fun – all around you while you’ve got the weight of the world on your shoulders. “For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” Jesus also walked unrecognised in the midst of this world; he also gave up the normal life he might have lived in order to suffer for the salvation of the world; and it’s His own mission you have been given. “As the Father sent me, so do I send you.” This is why we live.