With respect to the paradoxes of the Christian life, the
great Christian Humanist, Erasmus of Rotterdam, had something
interesting to say. With tongue in check, he wrote:
. . . The biggest fools of all appear to be those who
have once been wholly possessed by zeal for Christian
piety. They squander their possessions, ignore
insults, submit to being cheated, make no distinction
between friends and enemies, shun pleasure, sustain
themselves on fasting, vigils, tears, toil and
humiliations, scorn life and desire only death--in
short, they seem to be dead to any normal feeling, as
if their spirit dwelt elsewhere than in their body.
What else can that be but madness? And so we should
not be surprised if the apostles were thought to be
drunk on new wine, and Festus judged Paul to be mad.
What was Erasmus getting at? He was writing light
heartedly, even though he took many of these things seriously,
but perhaps one other quotation from PRAISE OF FOLLY, the work
from which I have just quoted, will help us toward a better
understanding of his meaning:
. . . What is death at first sight, as they say, is
life if you look within, and vice versa, life is death.
The same applies to beauty and ugliness, riches and
poverty, obscurity and fame, learning and ignorance,
strength and weakness, the noble and base-born, happy
and sad, good and bad fortune, friend and foe, healthy
and harmful--in fact you'll find everything suddenly
reversed if you open the Silenus.
Now what is this Silenus to which Erasmus refers? The
Silenus figures were small images divided in half, and
constructed in such a way that they could be opened out and
displayed. When closed they represented a ridiculous, ugly
flute-player, but when opened, they suddenly revealed a
disarmingly beautiful, exquisite figure.
Erasmus was saying that while to live the Christian life
appears to the superficial observer to be completely
disadvantageous, the hidden truth is that it is eminently
advantageous and desirable. Thus, what looks like death is
really life and what looks like life is really death; what seems
to be poverty is actually wealth, while that which appears to be
wealth is really a manifestation of poverty. If, out of pure
motivations, we give away our lives and our substance for the
sake of others, we have really lived, whereas if we devote
ourselves exclusively to the preservation of our own lives and
substance without regard to others we live in misery--a living
death.
Erasmus was quite correct about this. It is clear from the
Scriptures that the principles by which God would have us live
our lives are often exactly opposite to the way in which we would
live if left to our own devices. As Christians, we conquer by
yielding, we receive by giving, we overcome by being defeated,
and we live by dying. We are to love our enemies and bless those
who curse us. We are told that the one who would be greatest
among us must be servant of all, and that he who loves his life
will lose it, while he who hates his life in this world shall
keep it to life eternal. Jesus implied in Matthew 6:33 that if
we would seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness,
then God would see to it that all of our earthly needs would be
met. We are asked to give preference to one another in honor,
and regard others as more important than ourselves. We are told
that it is more blessed to give than to receive, and that if
compassion moves us to act accordingly and we do so, that which
we have given will be returned unto us, "pressed down, shaken
together, and running over," as Luke presents it in the sixth
chapter of his Gospel.
These statements indicate to us that many things that appear
to us in a superficial sense to be to our advantage are really to
our disadvantage, while those things that seem disadvantageous
often turn out to be blessings in disguise. For example, at
first glance, whom do we normally believe has the greater
advantage, the poor person, or the one who has great wealth? In
the eyes of most of us, it is the wealthy who are greatly envied
and admired. Yet, those who cannot depend upon their own
resources for their financial sustenance will learn many things
that can only be learned with great difficulty by the wealthy.
The poor learn to rely daily upon God for their needs. On the
other hand, the wealthy, languishing with very little ability to
trust God due to their lack of sufficient opportunities to
exercise such faith, are saddled with a very real and every
present temptation to attribute their advantages to their own
cleverness, rather than to God, who alone grants the ability to
obtain wealth. Will it be the wealthy or the poor who will have
the greater advantage if circumstances arise in which both have
no choice but to trust God?
As a second example of such paradoxes, consider Polycarp,
the great Christian martyr and much loved bishop of Smyrna in
Asia Minor during the years immediately following the New
Testament period. For fifty years or more, Polycarp wielded
powerful influence in his position as bishop. What was the
secret of his power? As Elliott Wright has said in his book on
Christian heroes and heroines, Polycarp was "the gentlest . . .
of men . . . a case study in humility." This is the true secret
of power for the Christian: genuine humility. Humility
inevitably brings respect from others, and such respect results
in willingness to obey. Polycarp exerted a power far greater
than any oppressive or coercive force. His influence resulted
from his altruism, which had won for him the love and admiration
of everyone who knew him. It was thus only by virtue of his
complete indifference to the attainment or exercise of power that
he wielded such widespread influence. As is so often the case in
the Christian life, he won by losing.
Consider also Isaac Jogues, the French Jesuit missionary to
the Huron Indians who was ambushed in 1642 by the Iroquois.
After experiencing a year of torturous treatment, Father Jogues
was able to escape to a Dutch colony at Fort Orange and
eventually back to France. Word of his ordeal had preceded him,
however, and to his surprise and acute embarrassment, he had
become a national hero. The Queen kissed his mangled hands, and
the Pope himself paid him honor. These things were more than he
could bear, and he begged to be sent back to the New World to
continue to serve the Indians. This wish was granted, and he was
given permission to act as France's ambassador to the Iroquois
nation, with whom the French had just concluded a peace treaty.
When he returned, the Iroquois were in awe of him, and the honor
that he thought he would escape in leaving France was accorded
him by the Iroquois.
Isaac Jogues did not seek honor, but all who knew him held
him in high esteem. Had he attempted to pursue such recognition,
it would undoubtedly have blighted the high reputation that he
had unwittingly earned. In seeking to serve God without any
thought for the praises of others, he became highly acclaimed on
two continents. Here is another clear illustration of the fact
that one can really only win by losing. Many of those who seek
honor in life will find it constantly eluding them. On the other
hand, those who have no concern about such things will often find
themselves growing in estimation among their contemporaries,
often for the very reason that they are not seeking to glorify
themselves, which is laudable in itself. This is clearly another
illustration of the many inescapable paradoxes of the Christian
life.
Consider another example among such paradoxes. Who has the
greater advantage--the one who devotes his or her life to the
welfare of others, or the one who devotes himself for the most
part only to his own interests? There is definitely a paradox
here, because it is clearly the case that those who are selfish
often lose what they have in the pursuit of self-interest.
Moreover, qualms of conscience will result when such people take
advantage of others in their quest for what they seek.
Conversely, not only do the unselfish continue with a clean
conscience, but they usually regain much of what they have
sacrificed, and often a great deal more. God, from whom all
blessing flow, rewards such actions if they stem from proper
motivations, and He does so not only in the hereafter, but often
also during our present temporal existence.
The supreme example of self sacrifice, is, of course, that
of our Lord Jesus Christ. He laid down his life for our
redemption. He was well aware that if He had attempted to
preserve His life, the loss would have been far greater than that
of crucifixion and death. Had He sought to preserve His life,
the purpose for which He had been sent could never have been
accomplished, and the human race would continue hopelessly lost
in its fallenness and in its subjection to sinfulness and to
physical death. What is of particular significance to us in the
context of the present discussion is that God miraculously
intervened and raised Christ from the dead. Jesus did not
permanently lose that which He gave. It was returned to Him,
"pressed down, shaken together, and running over," for now, in
His resurrection body, He is immortal and indestructible. Could
there have been such a victory if Christ had not laid down His
life? Absolutely not. In His death and resurrection He overcame
by being defeated. That which He gave, He received. In yielding
to death, He conquered death. In dying, He rose to new life,
through the grace of the Father.
Of course, it is no easy matter to follow Christ's perfect
example. In fact, it was no easy matter for Christ Himself,
suffering as He did with the prospect of torture and death when
he prayed fervently to the Father that this cup might pass from
Him while He was in the Garden of Gethsemane. C. E. Raven, the
English divine of the last generation, wrote eloquently with
respect to both the difficulty involved in following Christ's
example and the rewards that inevitably redound to those who are
successful in this matter. He said:
. . . It is no easy thing to "die with Christ." It
means the violent breaking-down of every attachment,
the testing and rejection of every trusted aid to self-
regard, the stripping bare of the whole self. It means
an intolerable agony as mind and flesh yearn for the
dear familiar environment, for home and friends, for
daybreak and the stars, for the secret ambitions and
delights that each one of us holds buried in his heart.
The time comes when we know that they must be left
behind, when nothing remains--unless it be God. None
of us pass through those moments unchanged: in them
were are stamped indelibly with the marks that our
fellow sufferers recognise, the marks of our
emancipation into the eternal.
There is great pain involved in giving up whatever is
required of us, whether it be our lives or that which is held
very dear to us. Any mother can attest to this as she realizes
that with the passage of time she must progressively give up her
child as he or she grows into adulthood. She experiences anguish
when she realizes that there will come a time when her child must
leave the household and find its own way in the world in which we
live. If she tries to hold on to the child, she finds that she
loses him or her. On the other hand, in the act of progressively
releasing her child, she finds that she has not lost, but gained
the child's love, respect, and lifelong friendship.
There is great pain involved in following Christ's example,
but there are even greater rewards. And ironically, if we chose
not to follow His example, there is even greater pain. To
continue in bondage to selfishness will ultimately result in more
anguish than that involved in yielding all that one has to the
One who has given it when He requires it of us.
The paradoxical principles of Christian living that we have
been discussing could not possibly be operative if God were not
able and willing to intervene actively and miraculously in our
daily lives. That is to say, God rewards the obedient, and He
often does so by Divine intervention. The resurrection of our
Lord is certainly a case in point. The Father was pleased with
Christ's obedience in yielding himself, even to death, and He
rewarded Him in many ways, including resurrection unto
everlasting life.
To act in accordance with any of these principles of paradox
would thus probably require one of at least two things. It would
require either a certainty that God in His justice and mercy will
continue to watch out for us if we put ourselves out on a limb
for the sake of others, assuming that we have acted with truly
unselfish motivations, or it would require such a love for God
and such a desire to do His will that any suffering that might
result from following His principles would be inconsequential to
us in comparison to the satisfaction of having pleased the One
who has given us all that we have and who is responsible for all
that we are. May God in His mercy grant to all of us here today
one or both of them.
Richard M. Riss
Finger Lakes Renewal Centre, Ithaca, NY, March 27, 1998