To Have and to Have-Not.

There is a sentiment in society today that success perpetuates success. You acheive to display acheivement, which leads to more acheivement to display all the more, which leads… This is all very well and good, appropriate and understandable (we all do this to varying degrees). But it does become a little bit more difficult when the upper echelons require such uniqueness to even enter their pearly gates. For example, Harvard University is only admitting 5% of applicants this year. This shows the discrepancy between society’s desire to enter the echelons and yet the “barred gates of heaven” as it were. What do the 5% do with their intellectual acumen? What do the other 95% feel like? Abandoned perhaps… Hopeless and helpless? They certainly know they won’t be receiving any help from the superiors looking down upon them.

You’re not alone. We’re all in that 95% … I’m not just talking about getting into Harvard University. I don’t know anyone that wants to actually do that (except for myself, but that’s just to cause trouble, and look cooler than I actually am). I mean that we are all in the situation of someone being better than us and having that which we want.

This sentiment carries over into the Christian life, or at least it can and perhaps even should – given the right motivation. We look up to certain mature saints in the faith, desiring some aspect of maturity that they have which we are seeking desperately to attain. This can be a very good thing – we are called to imitate the life of Paul as he imitates the life of Christ. All the while we are called not to covet or to be jealous of another.

However, there are not 5% of Christians who are amazing, and 95% who are ordinary. 100% of Christians ought to feel their inadequacy, because it is by grace that we are saved, not our own works. Even Paul was seeking to be mutually encouraged by brothers and sisters in the faith, those to which he was a father figure, those to which he was an apostle (Romans 1:12, 1 Cor. 4:15).

Consider how different this is to the world we live in. If getting ahead is our goal, then why would I, a candidate amongst the 5%, seek to help you in your journey to take my seat at the table?

How wonderful that this is not the case for the Christian family. As some of us recognise our own strengths, gifts given by God’s Spirit, we are then enabled to help those who are weak. And in time we will become weak in some way, we will struggle with sin and doubt in some way. It is then that another stronger than us will come to our help.

Bonhoeffer wrote, “A Christian needs another Christian who speaks God’s word to him. He needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged, for by himself he cannot help himself without belying (contradicting) the truth. He needs his brother man as a bearer and proclaimer of the divine word of salvation. He needs his brother solely because of Jesus Christ. The Christ in his own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of his brother; his own heart is uncertain, his brothers is sure.”

In your weakness, call to a stronger family member of the faith. In your strength, strengthen the weak amongst the flock. But not from your own humanly reservoir, rather from the word of Christ given you by the Spirit should you draw.

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Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Life Together. Translated by John W Doberstein. 5th ed. London: SCM Press, 2015. Page 12