John 13:31-35
When he had gone out, Jesus said, ‘Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, “Where I am going, you cannot come.” I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’
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I read a book a few weeks ago called ‘it’s not about you’ by a chap called Tom Rath. His grandfather was chairman for the Gallup organisation, who you may know do a lot of research but are very famous for their opinion polls which they conduct all over the world, Tim Rath himself also worked there for many years.
Anyway, in Rath’s book, he suggested that, the way we try to find fulfilment in this day and age, is wrong.
In the introduction to the book says this:
“Life is not about you. It’s about what you do for others. The faster you are able to get over yourself, the more you can do for the people who matter most. Yet external forces keep pulling you toward self-centered pursuits. From books pushing “happiness” to advertisements convincing you that consumption leads to adoration, these messages tempt you to focus inward. That is all a trap (and a load of […]).”
His research, and the research of others suggests that the worst thing that we can do for our sense of happiness and fulfilment in our lives is to chase happiness and fulfilment for ourselves and for our own wants and desires; in fact, he says it may do more harm than good. Now this is seemingly quite strange because we recognises the importance of treating people as individuals, and how individual people’s wants and desires really matter.
So much of life is about our own fulfilment, our individuality, what I want, not what everybody else wants. Moreover, not only do we pursue happiness, we believe that we have the right to be happy. It’s actually a founding principle of the United States’ Declaration of Independence, ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of utility.’
It seems to me though that this pursuit of our own desires have made us one of the most anxious and depressed people ever. It is regularly mentioned on the news the chronic mental illnesses are on the increase and more and more people need support. We live in a world where we do not know our neighbours (when I was in my curacy, I barely knew those who lived around me, and I lived there for three years) we hear of the elderly who are completely on their own and only see people once a week, we know that on many levels things aren’t the way they should be.
Now in the case of mental illness there are of course many factors why this is the case, life is hard and many peoples’ circumstances both here and all over the world are very difficult. I am not denying that, nor do I want to diminish it. But I genuinely believe that what Tom Rath says is correct, that If we spent more time focussing on and service to others, in contributing to the lives then that is where we find fulfilment. ‘I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full,’ says Jesus.
The bible has a word for all of this, it’s called Love. Christian love is very different to other kinds of love to what is usually a more pagan understanding. The Christian view It is not based on sentiment, or feeling or lust or on any of our emotions or anything like that, it is in fact viewed on one thing, and one things alone, selfless action for the other.’
When the pandemic hit, unfortunately a small minority of Christian’s saw it as God’s judgement on people, (the less said about that the better) but actually truth be told, throughout history and particularly in early times when disaster struck such as a plague, the Christians didn’t spend an inordinate amount of time wondering why it happened and looking for scapegoats and reasons in anybodies actions and behaviour; no, they prayed and asked God what they should do, and God told them to serve. To care for the sick and the hungry, to risk exposure and indeed their own lives for them.
“A New Commandment I give you, love one another, as I have loved you.”
Jesus already knew the answer to the question of what brings fulfilment in life, and before he leaves his disciples to suffer the death on the cross he tells them to to love each other, but not only to love each other, but love as he loved them. Why is this important? This is important because the love that Jesus gave was self-sacrificial love, it was love that ended in death by one of the most awful ways to die imaginable, crucifixion.
Now, self sacrifice to that degree tends not to be lauded these days.
It is when we contribute to the lives of others, that we find fulfilment, it is when we stop thinking about ourselves and think, ‘what could we do for our neighbours’ that things really being to make a difference. I think that as a society and as a community we are realising once again that extreme individualism is not a good thing, and that we know that we need to spend our lives in service to our communities.
I have the privilege of being a governor at Saint Mark’s primary school. In my previous post in Leigh I was also a school governor. As time has passed in this role, I have found myself reflecting on my own time back in school. And I think to myself, ‘wow, there were so many people out there who worked so hard so that I could grow up, safe and well, and healthy, and have a good education and be fed.’ There were so many people who gave up time, self sacrificially to make sure that could happen. Not looing to their own fulfilment but looking at how they benefit others.
Now, we may think that this is an obvious way to think about things, that we should be kind and loving and generous; but a quick survey of history shows that not to be the case. It is bu no means clear by any objective standard
that we should act in ways that are loving. What do I mean by this?
Tom Holland, the famous historian and writer, speaks about the ‘evolution of thought’ that has occurred over the last two thousand years he looks at why for example, we don’t praise ancient Sparta who threw their babies down ravines who to don’t measure up to their ideals of citizenship. Why are we appalled by that? What explains our care for others? Some say it’s obvious, that we just have these values and that they are self evident, but it isn’t and they aren’t. Our society today could have had those spartan values if their way of thinking had come to dominate the west. But it didn’t. if a child is born unwell, we put them on a life support machine, and do all we can to keep them alive because we all know deep down that life is completely and utterly sacred. Tom Holland in his writings shows that western society, western ethics and morality, comes from Christianity and the Christian world view, and by extension from Jesus Christ himself. Holland says that we are all goldfish, swimming in Christian waters, whether we know about it or not.
Life is not about making money, or making sure you’re happy or making sure that you have all the mod-cons or anything else, it is not about seeing others as means to an end. life is about Loving each other, the Christian life is a life that is lived ‘for the other’.
my invitation this week, is that we will all pray that our society wil rememver, that they will remember their roots. Pray each day that your friends, loved ones and neighbours will be reminded where their values clme from, but most of all that they will turn to their value giver, their saviour, and come back to faith in him.
Amen.