I remember the first time I spoke to someone who was looking forward to dying. It was bracing, surprising. I was maybe twenty-one years old, and it was a shock to hear someone talk about her life as something she would really just as soon let go of. She wasn’t ungrateful for her life and she wasn’t being a coward or giving up. It was just that everything she really cared about was waiting on the other side. That’s what did it: it was the goodbyes. So many goodbyes.
Picture yourself in a room, maybe picture it as a party of some kind, one room in which is gathered every single person who matters to you. Your spouse is there if you’re married, your parents are there, your siblings, cousins, children… there’s your kindergarten teacher, and that coworker you never hung out with but bonded with at work… your teammates, and all the friends from all the different seasons of your life. And as the evening wears on, one by one, they begin to slip into the next room. Just a few at first, but the movement picks up momentum until the room you’re in starts to feel quiet and empty. Eventually so few are left, and you’re so tired, that you spend most of your time thinking back and reminiscing about earlier in the evening when the room was packed and noisy and raucous. You’ve heard rumors about what’s in that next room, but you don’t really know with any clear idea. You just know you’ve watched most of the people you care about go through the door. The party’s been fun, you’re grateful for it. The fewer people still around you are nice, you’re grateful for them. But you’re ready to go through that door.
For Paul, the situation is a little different, because he’s a Saint. Paul can say with all honesty, “for me, life is Christ.” Baptized into the death and Resurrection of Christ, Paul knows he is already a citizen of the eternal Kingdom of God. For him, it’s not the unknown, mysterious next room. It’s the completion of what has already begun. We often make the mistake of thinking of eternal life as something that’s in our future, something that will begin when this life ends. Paul knows better. He knows that Jesus didn’t say “whoever eats my body and drinks my blood will have eternal life.” He said “whoever eats my body and drinks my blood HAS eternal life!”
Paul is awaiting the completion of his salvation, the completion of his following of Christ through the Cross, through death, into eternal life. But he’s already living it. So he can say, “for me, life is Christ, and death is gain.” And he’s puzzling over whether he should wish to die, to be even more completely with Christ, or to live, to continue Christ’s work on Earth. Paul calls it a dilemma; he isn’t sure. He seems okay with not being sure, since it’s not up to him anyway. God has given him work to do. For as long as he’s here, he will keep his hand to the plow. When it’s time to go, he’s ready.
This is the perspective on life that come from true Christian faith, and it saves us from terrible mistakes. It saves us from the terrible mistake of fearing death, of fearing aging, of fearing the changes in our lives leading eventually to an end and a new beginning. That makes people cling to life not because they love life (which is good), but because they fear death (which is bad). It makes them cling to youth, robs them of graceful aging and all the gifts it brings, replaces those gifts with a grotesque and really pathetic clinging to appearing young, acting young, talking young… not because they are really filled with the vitality and joy of youth (which is good), but because they are filled with the fear of aging (which is bad). But there’s an opposite mistake too, and Faith in Christ saves us from that as well. It saves us from the terrible mistake of thinking our lives are a burden to ourselves or others, of thinking that life isn’t worth living once we’ve lost certain things, of thinking that it’s all become a pointless waiting around until we die and go to Heaven and the good part finally starts.
If you look around you’ll see both of these spiritual diseases are common enough. Christ gives us the cure. Because we, too, can say that for us, life is Christ and death is gain.
Otherwise, we’ll be tempted to see our lives like the workers in Jesus’ parable. They put in the time, they suffered through the toil, and now they want their reward. A sense of justice gets distorted into a sense of entitlement. And most of all they want to know that they’re better off than the less deserving! But the master doesn’t work that way, and everyone gets a full wage just for showing up. Some showed up early and some showed up late; they all got a full wage. Some presumably worked harder than others, and some presumably brought more skills and strength; they all got a full wage.
Now here’s a critical question about this parable: If the landowner is our God, and we are the workers, then what exactly is the wage? What exactly is the reward that everyone is given just for showing up, early or late, weak or strong?
It’s God, of course. God gives us Himself. And now you see how preposterous it is to haggle or complain. And you see how of course God will give the full gift to the latecomer, because there is no rationing a love like this.
Your life is not just putting in time and labor to earn a reward when you die. Your life is not and never will be burden, and your death is not and never will be a thing to fear. You are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s, and that’s everything. There is no rationing. There is no haggling. There is only the total self-gift of God.
And that’s why we, like Paul, can consider these massive questions that occupy the world with a sort of a shrug. Will I live or will I die? How long will I live? Will my life be easy or hard, rich or poor, healthy or sickly? Do we have enough faith to respond like St. Paul… with something almost like a shrug… we don’t know and it’s not so important. This is what we know, and this is what matters: we belong to Christ. Not later, now! We have eternal life in His Body and Blood: not later, now. The fullness of our salvation is yet to come, but that can happen in God’s way and in God’s time. We’re not afraid, but neither are we in a hurry. We’ll work in the field for as long as we’re asked because we know that whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.
If your party is just getting started, don’t fear the progression of time. There are better things upward and onward. And if your evening grows long and tiring, remember with St. Paul: in life and in death, you give glory to God, and God’s gift to you is Himself. He would give you nothing less. Not later, now.
If your party is just getting started, don’t fear the progression of time. There are better things upward and onward. And if your evening grows long and tiring, remember with St. Paul: in life and in death, you give glory to God, and God’s gift to you is Himself. He would give you nothing less. Not later, now.
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