If anyone wills to come after me,” said Jesus, “he must say ‘No’ to self. He must take up his cross day after day and follow me. For whoever wills to save his life will lose it; but he that wills to lose his life for my sake, this is the man who will save it” (Luke 9:23, 24).
Our generation just does not believe that. For us it is axiomatic that if we are to be successful in life we must press on with our own interests. If this cuts across the interests of other people, so much the worse for other people.
We defend ourselves by saying that there is nothing new in all this. Men and women have been living this way for centuries; probably they always have done so. Maybe there is a bit more of it in our day, but that means no more than that we are more open, less given to hypocrisy than were earlier generations. In fact, we find it quite possible to make a virtue out of our failings!
There is something in this. There is certainly no virtue in covering up and pretending to be better than we are. These days people have a certain impatience with sham, and for that we ought to be thankful. Furthermore, selfish conduct is not exactly new. “Realists” in every generation have been cynical about the virtues Christians advocate and have studiously avoided them when their own interests have been at stake. (They have, of course, advocated them when other people’s practice meant their own profit.)
But society at large has not condoned such practices. Society has held that people ought to be honest and reliable. Persons have been held to be responsible beings, expected to contribute in some way to the general welfare.
What is new is. that society at large seems to have abandoned the expectation that its members will behave with consideration for the rights and needs of others. People no longer trust one another to do what is right. The basic assumption is that everyone will be concerned in the first place with his own interests. No one is trusted to act with integrity. The expectation is that people will further their own ends and that the only sensible policy is to take steps to see that one’s own interests do not suffer.
This has far-reaching effects. People accept jobs and then don’t turn up for them. Employers promise conditions and then do not stand by their word. TV cameras are installed to watch for bank robbers but also to keep an eye on customers in stores. And on the staff. An article in a Melbourne newspaper (I live in Australia) recently pointed out that industry and commerce suffer far greater losses these days from staff than from all the shop-lifting customers plus burglars.
Where there is no written contract, or where the contract is loosely written, or where the contract can be broken without serious penalty, then it is common for the contract not to be honored. The fine print tends to get longer and fuller as people try to guard against this tendency, and, of course, more and more ingenuity is expended in getting round it. The assumption is widely accepted that it makes no sense, as W. C. Fields reportedly said, to give a sucker an even break.
This extends to national politics. It is rare these days to find leaders who can count on the loyalty of their colleagues and supporters through thick and thin. This means that a lot of time and energy must be spent in guarding against the stab in the back. And that in turn means that time and energy that ought to be spent in solving great national problems are spent instead on mere survival.
On the international level it is not much better. We have advanced here from “no trust” to total skepticism. Nobody seems to believe anybody anymore. Traditionally, people in Australia have been skeptical about statements made by totalitarian regimes, but they have felt that official statements made by responsible spokesmen in the democracies were different. While perhaps “open” government was too much to hope for, at least our elected governments would not lie. Not any longer. There have been too many instances in which lying has been elevated to the status of a policy.
Some have rebelled against the values commonly accepted throughout society. They have seen society as hopelessly materialistic and have rejected the whole set-up. But the hippie movement has been no more conspicuous for unselfishness than has society at large. It has had a different scale of values but an incurable determination to pursue its own way, no matter the cost to others.
There is a grim nemesis about all this. People have rejected the Christian way, denouncing it as hopelessly impractical. “It just won’t work.” In its place they have evolved a system that is its own condemnation. The ethic of selfishness, issuing in a “no trust” society as it has, can scarcely be said to have proved practical.
It is time for Christians to take a hard look at what they stand for. It is not easy to see what they are doing in a “no trust” society, for their whole system is built on trust. At the heart of their religion there is a cross, and the cross means that human beings are sinners and need a Saviour. The cross is God’s answer to the problem of man’s sin. It is God’s way of making it clear that sin is an evil thing (our modern selfishness as well as every other sin). And it is God’s way of saying that the final word is not with sin but with love.
Love is the greatest thing in the world, even in a stupid “no trust” world like ours. Love can take the sinner in all his sin and cleanse and free him. Love can produce the radical change that the Bible calls being born all over again. Love means a death to the whole way of selfishness. Love means a new start.
But unless a person is prepared to trust God, none of this happens. The Gospel is eloquent of God’s love. It opens up a new and power-filled way for a person to live. But the answer to the question “What must I do to be saved?” is still, “Believe.” Without trust in God we are back on our own efforts, and our own efforts have consistently let us down. But if we do trust in God, then his love takes over, and the miracle of rebirth takes place.
And when a person trusts God, one of the things that happens is that he becomes trustworthy. This is the thing that Christians must keep saying to a “no trust” society. Let us forget our petty defenses of our entrenched prejudices. That is not our task. Our task is rather so to trust that we can be trusted. Thus may we cast our vote for a “full trust” society.
