WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE?

I don’t like surprises. I like to know what is going to happen in my life so that I can adequately prepare for it. Whenever something unexpected happens I get undone by it. When somebody springs something unexpected on me, presents me with an issue or agenda item that I had not anticipated, I find myself either resenting it or over-reacting. Spontaneity was not a characteristic of the culture in which I was formed. The world in which I was raised and educated was a world of regularity. Every day was carefully planned. When I got out of bed in the morning I knew what I was going to do that day. There was not a lot of room for variability. I had my chores, my responsibilities, my mealtimes, my school-work and homework, my sports’ practice times, and my bedtime. Going to college, seminary and then my first job, was a continuation of the same. I had a schedule which totally dominated my life. In order to get everything done, and to avoid being left behind, or not fulfilling my expectations, I had to keep rigidly to the schedule. Life was a series of appointments, meetings and preparations. If I missed an appointment or meeting I was hauled over the coals by my boss. If I failed to prepare adequately I would be shown up in public as incompetent, ineffective or defective. To avoid this shame I would have to maintain control over my life to such a degree that surprise was a dirty word. To this day my nightmare is that I find myself in a position for which I haven’t prepared: an examination of some sort that somehow I had forgotten about. It took me many years to understand the psychological, emotional and relational toll that such workaholism and perfectionism inflicted on me. The world rewards these characteristics. The most successful CEO’s work very hard to anticipate the unexpected, and to manage their lives, and that of others over whom they have control, so that they never have to apologise. To the contrary the perfectionist needs to be in control at all times so that he or she can maintain the illusion of success, of accomplishment, and so avoid any sense of failure. In that way we can be heroes, stars, and worthy of praise, which we need so much to feed our self esteem. The problem is that on the way we can trample on the self esteem of others in order to reach our goals. We are so self-focused, on our own agendas that we don’t consider the needs of others. Workaholism and perfectionism is a form of selfishness, where we labor to meet our own needs of affirmation at the expense of others.

So what do we do with these words of Jesus in Matthew 24:36-44? He warns us that we need to prepare for the coming of the Son of Man, i.e. that we need to expect the time when history shall cease, when Christ will be vindicated, when our earthly life will cease, and we face the judgment and the life to come. My natural reaction is to want to know what I need to do to avoid being surprised by this tumultuous event. How can I prepare for this time without falling into the error of workaholism and perfectionism, and the desire to impress God with my efforts?

Jesus gives us the analogy of the days of Noah.

“For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.” (Matthew 24:37-39)

Life goes on in history. We go about our business. We fill our lives with ordinary events. We know nothing about the end of earthly life so we avoid thinking about it. It is like spending our capital without any thought of what we will do when it is depleted. It is like running a business without a plan for replacing our inventory, or training new leadership, or expanding our markets, or remaining competitive. We live our lives as though that was all there was, that it would continue on forever.

The secular or aesthetic worldview lives for the present. Unbelievers know nothing about what will happen to them so they exclude all consideration of the subject. Ignorance is bliss. So they never attend a place of worship, or read the Bible, or pray, because those activities would raise the subject which they would rather avoid or deny. They fill their lives with “eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage.” They keep themselves busy celebrating, filling the moments, so that they don’t have to think about the future. Television and the internet helps. Sports help. Hobbies and other interests help. Charity work helps. Politics helps. Business success helps. Affluence helps.

To deny that it is possible to know anything about what will happen beyond this life is to reject any belief in transcendence, in God, in eternity, in any overarching purpose, any authority beyond oneself. They say, “There is nothing to know, because there is nothing out there, beyond us. We are responsible for our own significance. We live this life and then we are gone forever. So we should fill our lives here with meaning by making our own choices. We create ourselves. There are no surprises because there is nothing to be surprised by. Religion, Christianity, the Bible, preachers, churches, have created this bogey man to control people, to fill them with fear, and to give themselves a secure identity. All this talk about the coming of the Son of Man is designed to manipulate the gullible. Such scenarios are relics of the past which need to be jettisoned by the modern, enlightened world. We are responsible for making a success of our own lives, and we are accountable to no one but ourselves, and those we leave behind us when we are gone.”

The secular unbeliever then lives without any thought of the possibility of another world, or another authority over his life. Even those of us who do believe can live as though this world was everything and that there is no tomorrow. That is why so many of us are workaholics and perfectionists. We want to be rewarded now for our work. We want to feel good now about ourselves. We have a need to feel that we are in control, that people respect us, and that we are doing a good job.

That is why Jesus found it necessary to remind us that we are to live in the light of eternity.

“Therefore we keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.” He tells the parable of the owner of the house, and the thief. “If the owner of the house had known what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.” (Matthew 24:42-44)

Jesus is saying that he does not want to surprise us. He tells us that we can be certain that he is coming, that someday time will end, and he will come for us. He tells us to live every day as though it were our last. He tells us to live each moment in the light of his grace, his love, his forgiveness, his power. He tells us not to live each day in our own strength alone, striving to prove our worthiness, our excellence, our competence, but to live in the faith of the worthiness of his Cross and Resurrection. He makes us worthy through his death for us on the Cross. Instead of relying on our own work, our own attempts at perfection, we need to rely on the work of Christ for our salvation, the perfect offering of himself on the Cross.

Nobel Prizewinning, South African novelist J.M. Coetzee, in his novel, Elizabeth Costello recounts how his eponymous protagonist, at the end of her life, reaches a gate. “Can I pass through?” she asks the guard. “Can someone open the gate for me?” The guard tells her that first she must make a statement of belief. She said, “What if I do not believe? What if I am not a believer?” He answered, “We all believe. We are not cattle. For each of us there is something we believe. Write it down, what you believe. Put it into a statement.”

She protests that she is a writer, that it is not her profession to believe, just to write. “I can do an imitation of belief, if you like. Will that be enough for your purposes?” He tells her to go and write the statement as required, and to bring it back when it is completed.

She composes her statement: “I am a writer, a trader in fictions. I maintain my beliefs only provisionally: fixed beliefs would stand in my way. I change beliefs as I change my habitation or my clothes, according to my needs. On these grounds – professional, vocational – I request exemption from a rule of which I now hear for the first time, namely that every petitioner at the gate should hold to one or more beliefs.”

Her statement is rejected. Then she receives a hearing before nine judges. She makes her case that she has beliefs but she does not believe in them. “They are not important enough to believe in. My heart is not in them.”

She is asked what effect this lack of belief has on her humanity. She is accused of cynicism. “About myself, yes. I may well be cynical, in a technical sense. I cannot afford to take myself too seriously, or my motives. But as regards other people, as regards humanity, no, I do not believe I am cynical at all.”

She is further questioned, “You are not an unbeliever then.” “No,” she replied. “Unbelief is a belief. A disbeliever, if you will accept the distinction, though sometimes I feel disbelief becomes a credo too.”

Again she is examined, “Have you no beliefs as a writer? Do you believe in God?” “That is too intimate,” she says. “I have nothing to say… I prefer to let God be. As I hope He will let me be.” She is dismissed.

A woman sits down with her and asks her what she is saying in her confession. “What I said before: that I cannot afford to believe. That in my line of work one has to suspend belief. That belief is an indulgence, a luxury. That it gets in the way.” “Really,” the woman responds. “Some of us would say the luxury we cannot afford is unbelief. Unbelief – entertaining all possibilities, floating between opposites – is the mark of a leisurely existence, a leisured existence. Most of us have to choose. Only the light soul hangs in the air.”

She is recalled before seven different judges to be examined. She gives her revised statement and is then dismissed once again. She is astonished that the court refuses to pass her. She asks the guard at the gate whether she has a chance of passing through. “We all stand a chance,” he replied. “Do you see many people, like me, in my situation?” “All the time,” he says. “We see people like you all the time.”

Jesus warns us to be ready, for when the Son of Man comes for us. We are to be ready to confess what we believe. We may play games with God in this life, but the time is coming when unbelief will be an indulgence, a luxury we cannot afford. We have to choose for Christ or against him. Don’t allow yourself to be surprised. What do you believe? Write out your statement of belief.