College Union

In a world where Jesus says, “Take up your cross and follow me” we want the good life. I talk to college and graduate students all the time about vocation and what is consistent is that everyone wants a version of what they deem to be the good life. Our understanding of the good life is characterized by our understanding of good living. A good life may be going to the best schools. Being a member of the most prestigious and influential organizations and clubs. Getting a high-power six-figure job. Driving a nice car. Living in a big house. Having everything that money and high social status can buy. After all what is wrong with these things? They would constitute a good life. A good life is part of the American dream - life and the pursuit of happiness. Aristotelian and Jeffersonian all at once. But when did the good life become all about physical gain? And where does this want of gain end? When is enough, enough?It seems that, in our culture, we’ll stop at nothing to attain a good life. We’ll work hard long hours to impress those worth impressing. We’ll put in a lot of face time with the right people. We’ll max out our credit cards. There is so much that we will do to attain a good life. The thirst for a good life can lead to a variety of less-than-honest activity - a pursuing of happiness at the sake of communal well-being. The scale can range from cheating in the class room to corporate fraud (and don’t think that those two are unrelated). After all, in both situations the parties in question are just looking for security and happiness.

But is an individualistic world where we all want a good life for ourselves, we come to find that a good life does not always mean a life well lived. A good life does not always mean a life of virtue - a life of holiness. A good life might even be a self-centered - self-serving life. It might be one that cares more about what others think of you and what you have than what God thinks of you.

Brennan Manning says, “For the majority of us, what is most real is the world of our material existence; what is most unreal is the world of God,” but Jesus “contradicts our conclusion that what’s tangible, visible, and perishable can be adequate achievement for a being who has inhaled the creative thrust of God.”

Jesus says to us, his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will loose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”

Jesus lived the good life, but come on, who really wants to model their life after a Jewish carpenter from Galilee who says silly things like “If someone strikes you on the cheek, turn to him the other also” and “love your enemies”? Who would put a bumper sticker on their car that said, “love your terrorists and pray for those who try to kill you - Jesus suggested it”? Who would do this? I must admit, I even find it hard. Who wants to model their life after someone who died on a cross? Yet, we call this the good life - a life that pursues the good - a life that pursues God.

People in every generation are called to take up their crosses and follow Christ. We are called to pay the price of following Jesus. For we know that discipleship is costly. It may cost us our relationships, and it may cost us our material comfort, it may cost us our health and our wealth, it may even cost us our very lives. But remember what Jesus says in the Beatitudes, “Blessed are you…” for the cross-bearing life is the good life.

Here’s to the good life

Justin Coleman

Justin is the Associate Pastor at University UMC, Chapel Hill, NC

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