We are highlighting Leadership Journal's Top 40, the best articles of the journal's 36-year history. We are presenting them roughly in chronological order.
As part of the Lenten series for my church, small groups of us met in homes and discussed what the cross meant to us. Very quickly it became obvious that the cross presents an enormous dilemma to modern men and women. Mainly, it cuts directly against the message being taught us by psychology.
"The Bible says I'm supposed to give up myself," one girl said, with lines of anxiety creasing her face, "but I pay $60 an hour to a Christian counselor who tells me I crucially need to find myself. He tells me I let people walk all over me-that I need to become more aggressive and not let others dominate me." Others in the group nodded agreement. All of us had felt a similar Janus-like paradox in our faith.
It troubles me to realize that Jesus' statement "The person who finds his life will lose it; he who loses his life for my sake will find it" made such an impression on the gospel writers that they recorded it more often (four times) than any other saying of his. Those involved in Christian ministry especially struggle with the dilemma of self-sacrifice. We are asked to lose ourselves for Jesus' sake, yet pastors who take on such a goal often end up burned-out and bitter against God. The morgue of former pastors is filled with people who kept giving long after their own personal resources had been exhausted. Isn't there indeed a danger, as psychologists warn, that we can end up with the self-concept of an earthworm, useless to everyone including Jesus?
As a pastor or counselor, how would you respond to the girl who perceives conflicting advice coming from her counselor and her Bible? Have you ever personally felt the sting of Jesus' paradoxical call?
This finding-self/losing-self issue regularly intrudes on my life, and I frequently confront the paradox. A recent poll of youth workers reported that they considered "self-image" as the single greatest problem plaguing young people. Hardly a day goes by that I don't receive on my desk a magazine article or book which deals with the subject of finding myself. I must get in touch with myself, I'm told, and I'm offered a variety of techniques (some of which are quite expensive and require trips to California mountain resorts) to do so. My childhood, I'm told, has been a singular process of burying the real me under layers of guilt, suppression, sublimation, and anger. Somehow I need to find myself. Dutifully, I take quizzes to find out my basic personality types. I follow the instructions on how to learn to love myself. As books like How To Be Your Own Best Friend climb to the top of the bestseller charts, they awaken in me a hunger for the secure fulfillment this self-knowledge will bring.
Over the last few years I have obeyed the advice of these masters, figuring I must know what my self is like before I can contemplate how best to lose it. Your own inventory may be entirely different from mine; it is, after all, my self we are considering as an example:
- I am a Southern fundamentalist by background, and that legacy sloshes over into my attitudes toward people. 1 have shed many of the visible trappings of the fundamentalist milieu in which I was raised: I no longer oppose civil rights, I'm not a Republican, I don't believe dancing, smoking, drinking, and movies will keep a person out of heaven. Yet some parts of fundamentalism I have not shed. I find it hard to have an attitude of grace and forgiveness toward people. When I meet someone, I don't expect the best of him; I immediately start sizing him up, judging him. I view people harshly who aren't good workers. I perceive value in people by what they contribute. A loose, easygoing vagabond, such as the star of Herzog's movie Stroszek, quickly earns my rejection. I judge people by their actions, and they often have to earn my acceptance.
- My personality is that of a writer. My idea of fun for an evening is to sit in a great rounded chair, with stereo headphones blocking out the world, and read a book. I love to take hikes alone through forests or to waterfalls, where I sit and absorb the beauty around me. Having a group of friends along would detract from such an experience. I'm improving with age, but I used to dread parties, and I still feel uncomfortable in any group larger than four. Whenever I attend a group gathering, I relate to it by standing on the edge as an observer, watching what's going on. This weakness becomes an advantage when I ply my trade, because the writing process requires standing on the edge, objectively evaluating, sorting through observations.
- My first reaction to people is suspicion. When a guest speaker comes to my church, I sit in the pew and think, Who does he think he is? What does he have to say that I haven't heard before? Why does he have that fake, phony smile? People can win me over, but it is exactly that, a winning-over process. Over the years I have developed an impenetrable resistance to sales pitches, and it carries over in some degree to my normal responses to people. I envy people who make others feel warm and at ease in the first meeting.
- I am a compulsive worker, labeled "type A" in the studies of potential coronary victims. I prefer working through lunch hours, sticking with a project until it's completely done. The most difficult activity in the world for me is to blankly relax. I love to make lists of tasks and triumphantly cross them off one by one as I complete them. My idea of a vacation is to get out a map and draw a thousand mile line in any direction, preferably west. Then, with the help of an AAA guidebook, I circle any spot of scenic, historical, or cultural interest within 200 miles of that line. Each day of the vacation, I get up about 6:30 a.m. and zig and zag across the topography until 10 p.m., covering all the circled spots and filling my camera bag with rolls of used film. After returning, exhausted but exhilarated, I develop the film and write articles based on my trip.
I have discovered myself, or at least a part of myself. If I were to extend this list ad infinitum, I would have a complete profile of who I am. The unique thing about that profile, of course, is that it is only true of me. The definition of my self is that collection of quirks, traits, tastes, statistics, and preferences which are true only of me out of the four billion people in the world. No one else has exactly my height, weight, nose structure, hair curl, and all these other things I have mentioned. Of course, you have your own list; I have detailed mine merely as an example to ferret some meaning out of Jesus' puzzling statement.
Now that I have found myself, what are the implications of Jesus' statement that I need to lose my life for his sake? What does he mean, specifically, when he says I should deny that self which I have been so carefully exploring, take up a cross, and follow him?
Christians give cacophonous interpretations of what Jesus meant. I have actually heard some preachers say that God's will for a person's life will probably involve what he or she least likes to do. Scared of snakes? You'll likely end up in the Amazon jungle dodging pythons. Thus some would advise me to gouge out my guarded, introspective personality and to replace it with one that smiles more often, relaxes more easily, and trusts people more readily. Many seminars for pastors or Christian leaders attempt to solve the dilemma by having us remold our selves to a more acceptably Christian personality type. I listen to them, but even if I did agree with them, I'm not equipped to make those changes. My efforts have usually failed miserably. And, reading the Bible has impressed me with the wide variety of misfits God uses to accomplish his will on earth–without forcing major personality overhauls upon them.
I don't think Jesus wants me to deny my role as a writer and editor and go into evangelism or the pastoral ministry or used car sales. I cannot annul the peculiarities which conspire inside me, and I've accepted that those patterns will probably never change. I doubt I'll ever choose a week's vacation on Miami Beach, for example.
Obviously, though, Jesus meant something important by those statements or the gospel writers would not have repeated them so often. After much reflection, I have come to the following conclusions about what he meant.
Self-denial first strikes at my basic identity. I am by nature a selfish creature, and I spend my time inside a body and a personality which is unique in all the world. It inevitably follows that I begin observing the world through a viewpoint, making value judgments based on how things align with my perspective, and imposing my likes and dislikes on others around me. In his essay "The Trouble with X," C.S. Lewis points out that we spot a fatal flaw in almost everyone we meet, even our closest friends. We say about them, "He's a very fine fellow and I enjoy his company. If only it weren't for his . . ." Yet we almost never see that fatal flaw in ourselves. We rationalize our weaknesses, explaining them away with references to our backgrounds or our good intentions.
Denying myself starts with a full and repentant acceptance of the fatal flaw within me. Regardless of all my accomplishments, all my sophistication, all my admirable traits, I must come to the humbling ground where I acknowledge I am not different from, but like every person who has ever lived. I am a sinner. In Solzhenitsyn's words, "It was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually, it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes, not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts."
I cannot imagine a more difficult stumbling block in Christianity. It is relatively easy to inspire people with the Christian ethic of love; much liberal humanism is built on similar feelings. But every mechanism of self-protection within me cries out against this painful renouncing step of identifying myself as a sinner. In that act, I lose all the collected aspects of my identity and am known simply as a rebel against God.
Fortunately, however, I do not remain in that state. "Christianity is strange," said Pascal. "It bids man recognize that he is vile, even abominable, and bids him desire to be like God. Without such a counterpoise, this dignity would make him horribly vain, or this humiliation would make him terribly abject." Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.
After going through the humiliating act of losing myself by letting go of that protective pride, I suddenly find myself with a new identity-the exalted state that Paul describes as "in-Christness." No longer must I defend my thoughts, my values, my actions. I trade those in for the identity I am given as a son of God. I relinquish the responsibility for setting my ethical standards and my world view.
My sense of competition quickly fades. No longer do I have to bristle through life, racking up points to prove myself. God, not other people, becomes the central answer to my need for approval. Paul demonstrated this hope in his letters to the Corinthians, a "problem church." Despite his evident failure there, he could confidently say his singular goal was to please God and to live not for himself or for the Corinthians, but for Jesus Christ. His standard of success was God's approval alone. My role should ideally become to prove God, to live my life in such a way that people around me recognize Jesus and his love, not the other set of qualities which separate me from the world. I have found this process to be healthy, relaxing, and wholly good. All of us will realize it incompletely, but I believe the extent to which we realize it will determine our psychological health. Tensions and anxieties flame within me the moment I forget I am living my life for the one-man audience of Christ, and slip into living my life to assert myself in a competitive world.
Previously, my main motivation in life was to paint a picture of myself filled with bright colors and profound insights, so that all who looked upon it would be impressed. Now, however, I find that my role is to be a mirror, to brightly reflect the image of God through me. Or perhaps the metaphor of stained glass would be better, for God will illumine through my personality and body.
Self-denial, then, initially involves a radical transformation in my basic identity. I no longer find my identity in my apartness from the rest of the world in the way psychology coaxed me to do. Now, I find it in my sameness. I am exactly the same as every one in the world in terms of my standing before God-I am a sinner. And yet I am breathlessly redeemed, and now find my identity as a member of Christ's living body.
That is the general, overall way in which denying my self has changed my life. The theology is basic but indispensable. "You gotta serve somebody," Bob Dylan growls in his caveman voice. "It could be the devil or it could be the Lord." It could also be your self. Redemption is a conscious choice to serve the Lord, and that act is a denial.
The denial process, however, does not stop at conversion. Practically, it can affect me in hundreds of specific actions as I choose Christ and his way over my natural preferences. For me, losing my life has included working in difficult management situations in a Christian organization when my natural bent would have kept me at home, earphones plugged in, writing articles and books. (For you it may include less desirable tasks in your ministry.) God called me at that specific time to do a specific task. It has also meant several hundred (should be thousand) incidents of willingly giving up my own desires for those of my wife. Self-denial for me has included acts of pain such as seeking out a sick, whining friend in a hospital, and even firing an employee at work. It has meant spending time with emotionally needy people who want to ramble while I want to get work done. It has meant a constant scrutiny of my use of money.
While Jesus' statement includes self-denial, it does not end with a spirit of martyrdom so that I'm left with a resigned sense of duty. The verse contains a remarkable, paradoxical promise. Jesus implied that if we lose our lives for his sake we will find them in the very process of losing them.
I understand this best by thinking of many Christians I have interviewed for various magazines. I lump them into two sets: Christian entertainers and Christian servants. The Christian entertainers- musicians, actors, speakers, comedians-fill our periodicals and TV shows. We fawn over them and reward them with extravagant book contracts and fan mail. They have everything they want. Yet many of the ones I've interviewed express to me deep longings and self-doubts. They feel uncomfortable in the limelight, a terrible place for Christian growth, because they are unfairly being held up as examples. They are playing out their Christian lives before an audience.
On the other hand, most of the Christian servants I have interviewed are not in the spotlight. They toil unnoticed in remote parts of the country and the world. I think of Dr. Margaret Brand, a missionary eye surgeon, who in India would perform 100 cataract operations a day under the shade of a village tree. (I can spend 30 minutes in the local eye clinic getting a speck of dirt washed out). Or of Mother Teresa's nuns who choose life among the rejects of society. Or of the faithful pastors in Communist lands. Or of John Perkins' workers in Mississippi. These people have all impressed me with a profound wisdom and a deep-seated contentment which is strikingly absent from the entertainers. They work for low pay, long hours, and no applause. They "waste" their talents and skills among the poor and uneducated. Yet somehow, in the process of losing their lives, they have found them. God has reserved rewards for them which are unattainable in any other way.
(Strangely, we Christian publishers and media people are always trying to push the Christian servants up into the entertainers' category, tempting them with lucrative book contracts, TV appearances, movies. . .)
The Sermon on the Mount spells out in detail Jesus' list of practical ways in which our actions may be affected by our attitude of self-denial. Those he calls happy are the poor, the beggars in spirit, the humble, the unambitious, the unselfish, the persecuted. I once thought Jesus pronounced those Beatitudes as a sop to throw to the unfortunate … "Since you can't be rich, popular, and successful, the least I can do for you is to pronounce a blessing." I have come to believe, however, that Jesus was revealing a central truth. Those of us who are poor and humble in the way he mentioned truly are blessed.
If self-sufficiency is the most fatal sin because it pulls us, as if by a magnet, from God, then indeed the suffering and the poor do have an advantage. Since their dependency and lack of selfsufficiency are obvious to them every day, they can turn more easily to God for strength. The enticing encumbrances of life-lust, pride, success, wealth, glamour-are too far from some to be striven for, and a tremendous roadblock to the kingdom is thus bulldozed. Without an inflated sense of self-importance, they have an easier time losing their lives in the sense Jesus described. The great and the humble, said Pascal, share the same passions and human natures, but the one is at the top of the wheel, and the other near the center, and so is less disturbed by the same revolutions.
If I find myself in the way pop psychology would have me do, I will someday find myself separated from all other people in the world. I will have myself, yes, but that is all.
If I lose my life in the way Jesus laid out as a model, the net result is a common binding, first with all humanity on the level ground before God, and then with the common identity in Christ which he has reserved for those in his body.
I want to cling to my life, to pamper it, make it secure, protected. I keep clamoring for uniqueness, attention, achievement. Jesus gently invites me to let go, to trust him with my life and let the Father care for me.
In Frederick Buechner's words, "Inspection stickers used to have printed on the back 'Drive carefully-the life you save may be your own.' That is the wisdom of men in a nutshell.
"What God says, on the other hand, is 'The life you save is the life you lose.' In other words, the life you clutch, hoard, guard, and play safe with is in the end a life worth little to anybody, including yourself; and only a life given away for love's sake is a life worth living. To bring his point home, God shows us a man who gave his life away to the extent of dying a national disgrace without a penny in the bank or a friend to his name. In terms of men's wisdom, he was a perfect fool, and anybody who thinks he can follow him without making something like the same kind of fool of himself is laboring under not a cross but a delusion."
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