What about me? A song by Shannon Noll. The chorus goes . . .
“What about me, it isn’t fair, I’ve had enough now I want my share Can’t you see? I wanna live, But you just take more than you give”
I suspect we all feel like that at different times and places in our lives. These thoughts tend to come on when we are feeling less than appreciated, overlooked, poorly rewarded, down on our luck: all the more when we look and see how other people seem to be having a full life in comparison to our supposed empty life.
The question is: does having these things that we don’t have, really make for a full life?
The reality is, that many, many people have less than us but still seem to be living a full life. So what is Jesus on about?
There is a school of Christian thought that says God will fill up our lives with success and the trappings of success as evidence of our faithfulness – as if that’s the full life that God intends for faithful people. Sorry, but that just doesn’t add up biblically. That’s because living a full life isn’t about the things we have, but rather our heart and attitude toward the whole of life and all it’s circumstance in every situation we encounter. Dietrich Bonhoeffer who grew up in a wealthy and educated family, came to realise this: that finally, a full life (no matter our circumstance) is lived ‘in Christ’.
In his book ‘Ethics’, written toward the end of his life while in prison, Bonhoeffer spoke of the Christian life as the Christusleben, the life-in-Christ. This is truly living, truly being what God intended us to be. Sending us into the stratosphere, Bonhoeffer writes, “So heaven is torn open above us humans, and the joyful message of God’s salvation in Jesus Christ rings out from heaven to earth as a cry of joy. I believe, and in believing I receive Christ. I have everything. I live before God.”
This Word from John’s gospel today points us always to Jesus as the true source of a full and abundant life.