What
Is Life?
Matthew
10:37-39
You may remember the movie, Zorba the Greek, a 1964 film with Anthony Quinn and Alan
Bates. Later (1969) it was made into a
musical. Perhaps the most memorable part
of the musical is the song, Life Is. The key line is “Life is what you do while
you’re waiting to die.” A little morbid,
perhaps, a little cynical, but there’s truth in it. Life happens—or as Robert Balzer said, “Life
is what happens to you while you are making other plans.”
There’s a funny email that made the rounds a few years
ago. A senior citizen was explaining his
day. He started on one project when he
noticed something else that needed doing.
While he was collecting the items to do that job, something else came to
his attention that must be done first.
Something else interrupted that task, and something else interrupted that task, and…until at the end of the
day he was exhausted, but hadn’t accomplished anything. “Life is what happens while you are making
other plans.”
Many times our lives seem to be following that path. We feel like we’re working hard, but nothing
gets done. At the end of each day we’re
exhausted—really wiped out—but the stack of work has not diminished. Frighteningly, it seems to have grown larger
than when we began the day.
The Peace Corps appealed to older citizens to volunteer
with these words: “If you’re not doing something with your life, it doesn’t
matter how long it is.” All too
true. Like the man who can’t seem to finish
a task without being distracted by something that needs doing more urgently,
like the times in our lives we’re so bogged down that work accumulates like
bricks stacked in a doorway, we get sidetracked in the detritus of the day and
overlook the opportunities for real service.
Jesus knew how easily that could happen. He wasn’t really anti-family although his
words make him sound that way. Instead,
he was saying, “Don’t get so wrapped up in the small stuff that you miss the
important stuff. Your first task is to
follow me, wherever that may lead. Don’t
worry about the opportunities you might have to give up, or the work, or the relationships. Take the cross I give you and life will be
rewarding.”
Taking up a cross in the first century Roman empire was
no small matter. Crucifixion was the
cruelest form of death the Romans could think of. The person suffocated, agonizingly, over
several hours, each breath coming harder than the last until death brought a
welcome end to suffering. Crucifixion
branded the person as a common criminal. It meant being stripped naked before being
tied or nailed to a cross. Corpses were left
on the ground without burial. When Jesus
said, “Take up your cross,” he was saying, “If you’re not doing something with
your life, it doesn’t matter how long it is.”
Jesus
still says, “Try to save your life and it will be worth nothing. Give it to me, and no matter how long or
short it may be, every moment will count.”
We don’t have to worry about death by crucifixion if we choose to serve
Jesus, but there are other crosses.
There is the cross of lost relationships, the cross of lost employment,
the cross of lost income, the cross of lost status. Any and all these may happen if we choose to
follow Jesus. When we commit our lives
to his service we may have to give up other things we hold dear. Much of this world doesn’t trust those who
put their relationship with God first.
Ah,
but the rewards! The rewards far
outweigh the losses. Life can be what happens while you are making
other plans—what you do while you’re waiting to die. Or you can let God do the
planning, and lead a life of service under the weight of a cross that will seem
lighter each day.
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