Selfless
I recently produced a teaching session for Youth For Christ resources around the idea of Entitlement which posed two fundamental questions I think everyone needs to ask themselves: “What am I entitled to” and, perhaps the better, more hard hitting rephrasing “Am I entitled to anything!?” I consider these questions fundamental because I’m starting to think we are in dire need of rediscovering the lost art of selflessness. And part of the problem is, I’m not sure we realise that its lost.
The modern world is an amazing place, and the opportunities, technologies, and freedoms it affords many are quite remarkable. Exposés on the consumerism of the modern western world are common and there is no denying that we have (and very much enjoy exercising) a greater degree of choice in all aspects of our lives. Not just in terms of the products we buy, but also in terms of the politics, value sets, and lifestyles we adopt; the life aims, education, and work we pursue, the religion, social clubs, communities, and networks we participate in, and more. And when something we want doesn’t quite yet exist, its often only a matter of time before someone makes it happen for us. And why would we expect anything different? That for me is the heart of the problem. We have great expectations that the world owes us what we want.
One thing I find fascinating about working with young people is that they are an excellent window of insight into how the world is and thinks. Its like holding up a painfully honest mirror that shows us exactly what we’re like. And when it comes to a sense of entitlement, many young people reflect back a not so pleasant image of ourselves. Teenagers feel a huge sense of entitlement. They whole heartedly believe that world owes them a good education and at the same time lots of fun; the freedom to be themselves without being judged, but also the freedom to judge and reject others; fair and equal pay, treatment and opportunities in all aspects of life, but better pay, nicer treatment and more opportunities if they work harder than others. Heaven forbid they shouldn’t get what they want (or what they think they want) because that’s not fair. Teenagers think like this, because the world thinks like this. Like it or not, we think like this!
The world has fallen into the same trap we often do of twisting things once established out of a selfless desire for universal benefit into the selfish preservation of ourselves. This is not a new phenomenon, but it is something Jesus very deliberately came to dispel:
“You have heard the law that says the punishment must match the injury: ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say, do not resist an evil person! If someone slaps you on the right cheek, offer the other cheek also.”
In this short teaching Jesus is turning the way that Jewish law has worked for centuries completely on his head. The concept of an eye for an eye is from the Torah, and was given to the Jews by God. But it was given to them not as a right but as a limitation designed to lead towards a more just and fair society. Rob Bell explains...
“There wasn't any legislation at that time in the ancient near east regarding what to do when someone injures you or your property. And so revenge was the order of the day.You hurt my donkey, I take out your donkey and maybe a horse or a chicken just to let you know who you're dealing with, because we all know that revenge always escalates. Eye for eye was a new law that said the punishment must fit the crime, which meant you injure my donkey you owe me a donkey, that's it. Nothing more, nothing less."
However, by Jesus’ day, this positive step forwards designed to limit revenge for universal benefit had been twisted to provide the right to revenge for personal justice. “Now you’ve hurt my donkey I get to hurt yours!” Jesus insists that there is the alternative though: just forgiving. Letting it go. Forgetting revenge.
Jesus rejects a system of rights which people selfishly claim for their own and instead initiates a system of people selflessly forgoing such rights for the sake of others. The radical message of Jesus was this:
“If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me."
There you have it, plain as day. Turn from selfishness and take up a lifestyle where you choose to sacrifice your life selflessly for the sake of others. The problem is this doesn’t fit with a sense of entitlement. Entitlement always looks to get what is feels it should be given. Following Jesus is about ignoring what you *should* be given and only looks to give to others.
I’m becoming increasingly convinced that many of our personal actions, concerns, values, and decisions can be boiled down to those two basic motives: are we being selfish, or are we being selfless? I don’t want to get caught up in distracting philosophical arguments about whether there is such a thing as a truly selfless act because they detract from this simple but incredibly difficult challenge: what is my motivation?
Sure - often a lot of us are selfless in some ways. We give money to charity, and volunteer our time we do favours for people without expecting anything in return, and we spend time with people we don’t always get on with. But are these niceties really the radical taking up of our crosses that Jesus was on about? As I’ve applied this question to my own life I’ve been a bit horrified.
If I’m honest, I think the way I structure my life, my family and home, how I spend my finances and time, almost always err towards selfish motivations rather than selfless motivations. A lot of it is about self preservation, and me, and my comfort zones. And realising that is scary. Even writing this down isn’t easy. But I have to be prepared to consider this plank in my own eye right now, because I’m getting bothered by the specks I’m seeing in others.
I know I need to process some of this and I know that’s going to be painful. I want to be more selflessbut that will require sacrifice. An obvious statement, but a heavy one. Decisions will not often be simple. At the time of wringing, my wife and I are trying to buy our first house - what does taking up our crosses look like in that? And how do you handle the truth that in selflessly giving your life to some involves not being able to give it to others? Answers are complex and not to be rush into with unsustainable, naive zealousness, but through careful, prayerful consideration.
I’ll finish with a quick reflection around some friends of mine who are great inspirations: They’re a young couple, expecting the imminent birth of their first child, planning to uproot their very young family as soon as is possible to move to one of the traumatised parts of the middle east. All for the sake of the gospel. Stood in our mutual friends kitchen the other week I listened to the quivering and emotional voice of the wife saying “it is terrifying, but how else will we see his kingdom come and his will be done.”
I can’t help feeling that if we all lived with that level of selflessness, our world would become a radically different place!
