Dying to Find Life

It was John Lennon who said, "life is what happens when you're busy making other plans." As a Christian, I have been reflecting upon what exactly this means for my own life. John Lennon isn't particularly renowned as a Christian scholar or teacher, but what he says does sound vaguely like what Paul told the Romans. In order to find a life that is more worthwhile and more valuable, you must first give up the life you have been trying so hard to claim for yourself. When we become Christians, we are crucified with Christ and have been given a new life with Christ. "Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God." Romans 6:8-10 NIV In other words, life is what happens when you first give up your own cares and concerns. Your worldly life has been crucified with Christ, and you have been given a far better life.

Have I followed this Biblical command? Have I put my old life behind me? Am I now no longer lusting after the ways of the world but rather seeking righteousness? I must admit that I would find the answers to these questions quite troubling. Upon reflection, I put a rather high value on the things of this world. I work very hard to maintain my lifestyle. Upon reflection, I seem rather devoted to my own cares and my own flesh and not all that concerned about seeking righteousness. Most days, the idea of seeking after God does not even enter my mind since I am so consumed with my own concerns. I have not really let go of my own life in order to find a better life with Christ.

Paul is convincing me that my life is currently astray, but I have also been convicted by other writers who have long since died. Just the other day, I was reading one of John Woolman's--an eighteenth-century itinerant Friend--epistles to his fFriends. In his own day, Woolman was incredibly concerned about the effects of slavery. For Woolman, slavery was an evil because of what it did to the slave. Slavery, however, was also an evil for what it did to the master of the slave. When masters took command over slaves, they may have intended "to govern reasonably, and to make their Subjects more happy than they would be otherwise." Woolman noted, however, that slaveowning had a natural tendency to make masters forget their places. Masters of slaves tended to forget that "absolute Command belongs only to him who is perfect, where frail Men, in their own Wills, assume such Command, it hath a direct Tendency" to pervert their minds and to make them rebellious to God's government over their souls. At the root of the slaveowner's problem, according to Woolman, was the slaveowner's misconception of his world. Whereas we are supposed to be all children before our heavenly father. Slaveowners had a tendency to view themselves as masters rather than children. Thus, acting like masters over their fellow brothers and sisters tended to make slaveowners believe that they really were a step above their fellow creatures. Prideful of their roles as masters, they were less likely to let God take control of their lives.

No Americans own slaves today, but we could benefit from reading Woolman's epistles. If we are not careful, our daily activities and habits might also lead us astray from God. Woolman also noted, for example, that slaveowners had a tendency to "lay heavy Burdens on others to support themselves in a luxurious Way of living." Slaveonwers thus willingly worked their fellow human beings for their own luxury and superfluous vanities. At root, slaveowners lusted after a more luxurious way of living and having achieved that luxury thought nothing of their true master. For the wise and obedient servant of God did not desire such vanities "before a plain, simple way of living." We Americans do not own slaves, and thus we are not corrupted by keeping our fellow human beings in bondage. Have we, however, given up our lustful pursuit of vanities? What does a "simple way of living" look like? How is it different than a life that is consumed by a desire for vanities?

One manifestation of our pursuit of vanity is our willingness to go shopping on Sunday. In Woolman's day, it was scandalous within religious communities for people to work on the Sabbath. These folks took literally, God's command to "remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God." Exodus 20:8-10. The Sabbath was supposed to be a time of devotion to our God not for shopping. In fact, many religious communities spent all day in worship. The Puritans, for example, worshiped corporately in the morning, took a break for lunch, and then returned for more worship in the afternoon. Today, however, most self-professing Christians--myself included--think nothing of shopping on Sunday after perhaps spending one hour in devotion to God.

The sin of consuming and working on the Sabbath seems to be a very real manifestation of our unwillingness to let ourselves be crucified with Christ. God commands that six days is enough. We don't really need that extra day to labor for ourselves. Our unwillingness to give up this day not only makes us rebellious, but it hurts those who labor so that we can spend most of the day devoted to ourselves. If Christians go shopping, then the workers at the shopping malls and restaurants frequented by Christians cannot spend their day in devotion to God. Thus, our devotion to ourselves not only inflates our vanity in ourselves but also prevents others from spending the day in devotion to God. That seventh day should be devoted to God. Instead of obeying our God, however, we continue to devote that day to ourselves and our vanity. Like the slaveowners of the eighteenth century, we apparently really need to satisfy our vanities with worldly goods, and worse yet we are willing to sacrifice ourselves and our neighbors to satisfy our own vanity. We have let our concern for ourselves and our worldly desires prevent us from dedicating one solitary day to the worship of God. We are too busy making plans for ourselves that we are unwillingly to lose our lives so that we might find life with Christ.