Learning to be successful and faithful
Our gospel reading today is a missionary one: the twelve Apostles are sent on a mission, and they are given particular marching orders. There is an urgency about the mission. They are to travel light, not get bogged down, bring Jesus’ message, and cure sick people. A question I have, however, is how do they know whether or not they will be successful? How would Jesus measure success? Let’s spend some time thinking about that…
The story is told of an older man who was walking along a beach at dawn. Ahead of him he noticed a youth picking up starfish and flinging them into the sea. Finally, catching up with the youth, he asked him what he was doing. The answer was that the stranded starfish would die if left in the morning sun. “But the beach goes on for miles and there are millions of starfish,” countered the old man. “How can your effort make any difference?”
The young man looked at the starfish in his hand and then threw it to the safety of the waves. “It makes a difference for this one,” he said.
That reminds me of an incident in the life of Saint Mother Teresa. Someone was visiting one of her missions in India, and he felt overwhelmed by the poverty and sickness and the sheer numbers of people in need. He asked, “Mother, with an endless number of people living in such destitute conditions, how do you ever expect to be successful?” Mother Teresa responded, “God doesn’t expect us to be successful. He asks us to be faithful.”
Sometimes, when somebody faces a problem and comes up short over and over again, it is easy to get discouraged and want to give up. For example, Thomas Edison tried two thousand different materials in search of a filament for the light bulb. When none worked satisfactorily, his assistant complained, “All our work is in vain. We have learned nothing.” Edison replied very confidently, “Oh, we have come a long way and we have learned a lot. We know that there are two thousand elements which we cannot use to make a good light bulb.” If Edison had listened to his assistant, we would still be using kerosene lamps.
Let’s consider some ways of looking at success and failure. Quite recently, the Turners Falls High School softball team returned to us as State champions. If they had lost that final game, would they have been failures? I recently read about a basketball team at a small Midwestern Catholic college. At a Mass before a title game, the team chaplain suggested that the most important thing would not be whether they won the championship game or not. The important thing would be what they became in the process of trying to win the title. He suggested they consider such questions as:
- Did they become better human beings?
- Did they become more loving?
- Did they become more loyal to one another?
- Did they become more committed?
- Did they grow as a team and as individuals?
While not every coach would agree that this was the best pep talk before an important game, the question of success and failure remains. If they lost the game, would that mean for the rest of their lives that they were losers?
Or consider, how parents measure success or failure. Over the years, I’ve known many moms and dads who have felt that they failed because their adult children no longer go to church. I found a reflection from a parent that may be helpful…
- We gave you life, but we cannot live it for you.
- We can teach you things, but we cannot make you learn.
- We can give you directions, but we cannot be there to lead you.
- We can allow you freedom, but we cannot account for it.
- We can take you to church, but we cannot make you believe.
- We can teach you right from wrong, but we cannot always decide for you.
- We can offer you advice, but we cannot accept it for you ….
- We can tell you about lofty goals, but we cannot achieve them for you.
- We can teach you about kindness, but we cannot force you to be gracious.
- We can warn you about sin, but we cannot make you walk with God.
- We can tell you how to live, but we cannot give you eternal life.
One final area to consider. When I look at the divisiveness and mean-spiritedness in our nation, when I consider how people can look at the same thing and come up with completely opposite conclusions, when I think about the massive scale of violence in our nation, when I reflect on the poverty, the racism, the lack of civility…the list goes on and on. I find that my head swims and I end up feeling discouraged and helpless. But how do I define success and failure? The direction in which our country or our world goes is way beyond my pay grade. I certainly can be concerned and pitch in when there is something specific I can do. But there is a part of the world in which we can have more of a direct effect. That’s right here in our own neighborhood, where people live in poverty, sometimes run out of food, come up short on their rent, can’t pay their utilities, feel discriminated against because of their color or because they don’t speak English very well. Here is where we can have a greater impact. Here is where we as a church community can make a difference. I support various national and international charities to be sure, but more and more, I focus on the local, and I ask what can I do to make life better, a little more humane, more compassionate, more caring, more fair, more peaceful, more just—not just in abstract wishful thinking, but through concrete acts of support, solidarity and sensitivity. This is how God is calling us to be faithful. That is how we can hope to be successful: to take in what we learn about Jesus, what he stood for, what he did, how he helped people out, and imitate him. That’s how I can be successful! And I can encourage you, and urge you to examine your heart, look deeply within, and ask yourself: How is God asking me to be successful? How is God asking me to be faithful—in the concrete, here and now where my actions can have a real impact?