THE JESUS WHO REFUSES TO COMPETE (ANSELM GRUEN)

Many rabbis at the time of Jesus laid down rules about how their disciples should live. And often they vied with one another in making commandments of God stricter and challenged one another by ever greater achievements in fulfilling the law. They weren’t interested in social achievements, in work and in political organisations, but in achievements before God. The pious were those who achieved something before God, who fasted regularly, said their prayers every day gave alms and had something to show before God.

Today many people define themselves in their work and in their family life in terms of what they’ve achieved. They want to prove their worth by achievement. Jesus gets off this carousel of “achievers”. He invites people to live. He allows them to be themselves. He tells them there loved unconditionally, even if they have nothing to show in return. He turns in particular to those who have no achievements to show; the sinners and the poor, the despised and those without rights. That infuriates the Pharisees, who are proud of the works that they’ve performed.

Two parables show how Jesus breaks through the spiral of achievement. One the parable of the labourers in the vineyard (Matt. 20:1-6) infuriates many employers. “You can’t deal with workers and their sense of achievement like this, they say. Jesus tells of the owner of the vineyard who hires labourers for his vineyard very early in the morning (6am) and sends them to work immediately. He does the same thing at the third, sixth and ninth hours (9am 12noon and 3pm). Indeed he hires labourers once more at the eleventh hour (5pm), just an hour before the end of work and sends them into his vineyard. When at the twelfth hour he pays the agreed wage, one denarius each, to the labourers he hired last, those labourers who had toiled the whole day expected more. But they too get only the one denarius they had agreed on as wages.

Here the principle of achievement is turned on its head; “So the last shall be first and the first last” (Matt. 10:16). What matters isn’t achievement and recompense, but faithfulness and reliability in what we do. Jesus doesn’t approve of doing nothing. For him work is a sign of a healthy life. But how others assess it isn’t important to him. It isn’t important to prove oneself through work, to accomplish something that one can be proud of; pride in life is a matter of accepting the work that id offered to us and required of us.

In the famous parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32), the younger brother wants to enjoy life straight away. He takes his share of the inheritance and travels to a distant land – in those days presumably Greece or Italy. There he wants to enjoy life to the full. But in a very short time he’s already squandered all his resources. To survive he has to impose himself on a citizen of the land who sends him to look after the pigs. For Jews, pigs are unclean animals, so this is humiliation for him. Things get worse and worse, so he resolves to return home to his father. (He also believes that the day labourers at home are better off than he is feeding pigs). His father receives him joyfully and gives a party for him, because the son who was dead has come to life, and the one who has lost himself has found himself.

However the older brother who has been going about his duties each day is annoyed about the feast. His anger shows that he hasn’t done his work because he enjoyed it, because he got involved in it, but because he expected reward and recognition from it. He reproaches his father; “I have been working for you these years and I never did anything against your will, yet you never even gave me a kid so that I could feast with my friends!” The older son had motives for working; he wanted to buy his fathers love, his fathers care.

With this parable, Jesus is telling us that we don’t need to buy God’s love with our achievements. That love is already there. God accepts us time and again, no matter what happens. He doesn’t attach any condition to his love, either achievement or conformity. Those who know they are accepted unconditionally can achieve something in freedom. They work because they enjoy it, because the work flows out of them.

Jesus shows this inner freedom towards any achievement. But improbably he achieved a great deal in this freedom. In only three years of his public activity, he addressed countless people, healed many who were sick and above all set in motion a movement which continues even now and spurs on many people to work for a more humane world. Because Jesus didn’t have to prove himself by achieving things, he was free to bring forth fruit a hundredfold, as he himself promises his disciples in a parable. The reason for the hundredfold yield is not achievement but faith. Faith frees us from the pressure which is a burden on us. So an inner spring can well up in us, and from this spring a great deal of energy flows into the world without being exhausted by it. For if we don’t have to achieve, life can flow, creativity and imagination can blossom in us and we can accomplish great things.

Questions:
What do you live by? Do you define your achievements? Does your life consist of proving yourself to others, and even to God, by your achievements? What’s the real motive behind your work, your dedication to others, in your job, in sport, in school, in your community, in your “religious activities”? Does the work flow from the innermost spring in you? Do you enjoy work? Or do you take refuge in work to escape your inner truth, as the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son.

Thanks to Continuum publishing for their permission to use Anselm's material!