I hate failure. I know, I know, everybody does, but I’m one of those type A folk who would rather be set on fire than get a B on a test. I still feel the need to justify the C that I got on a Scarlet Letter test in 7th grade even though I hadn’t read the book.* There’s something about failing that makes me burn with shame. I lose sleep. I’m honestly surprised I haven’t given myself an ulcer yet. And the thing is, I started life off pretty well. As long as success was about school and not souls, I did well. I achieved and achieved and achieved and was quite pleased with myself all through my academic career.
And then, apparently, the Lord decided that I was better than that. And the failure began.
It was little things at first, things that didn’t overshadow the good I felt I was doing. Students who hated me, friendships cut off; even leaving the convent after I had told everyone I’d be there forever didn’t seem too bad in the face of all the ways I’d succeeded. Sure, there were failures, but overall I felt I was changing the world and winning souls for Christ.
Lately, though, it hasn’t been that easy. Failure these days isn’t occasional, it’s daily. Every day, some kid I’ve poured my life out for tells me my class is a waste of time. Or makes really bad choices and lies to me about it. Or listens to every word I say and then throws his life away at some party. And there’s nothing I can do.
So my motto recently has been Mother Teresa’s: God has not called us to be successful, he has called us to be faithful.
Because the Christian life is not about success. I suppose I should have figured this out the first time I noticed that the guy everyone was talking about was hanging dead on the wall. Here I am worshiping a man who was executed naked while almost nobody looked on, and somehow I thought my life was going to look different?
When you follow a crucified Lord, you will be a failure. You will fail at work because you refuse to compromise integrity. You will fail in your pursuit of holiness because you are fallen. And, as I have learned to my chagrin, you will fail in your service to the kingdom because it’s not about you.
This summer, mired in self-pity because I’m a total failure, I found myself listening to yet another homily on the Parable of the Sower (Mt 13:1-23 for anyone following along at home—does anyone else feel as though that reading comes up ten times a year?). This time, though, Father wasn’t talking about what kind of soil we are. He focused on God’s prodigality. God doesn’t choose only fertile ground; he sows his seed everywhere on the off chance that it will take root. He’s not jealous of his grace but lavishes it on even the most unwelcoming hearts.
God offers his life to every punk kid there is—even to me, self-obsessed as I am. And when he asked me to take up my cross, he asked me to be crucified along with him. Sitting in the comfort of my first world home, it seems it would be easy enough to suffer martyrdom (although I’m sure I’d feel differently when faced with the opportunity) or even to be persecuted for righteousness’ sake. But this pathetic daily failure? This inability to meet deadlines or love well or change hearts? That’s a cross.
The central paradox of Christianity, though, is precisely this: it is our greatest defeats that are our greatest victories. We lose all we have to be filled with the riches of the kingdom. We mourn and are comforted. We die to rise again.
Jesus failed—again and again and again. He lost his disciples because he was too extreme (cannibalism—John 6). He fell three times under his cross. He couldn’t even keep those he loved most from falling into grave sin. He is fully God and fully man, like us in all things but sin. Like us especially in failure.
But Jesus’ defeat was victory specifically because it was redemptive. And that’s what he’s called me to as well—a life of failure embraced for the salvation of souls. He’s asking me to lavish myself on barren soil, to offer myself again and again to be crucified by those whose salvation I desire more than anything else. And when, in the throes of passionate prayer, I offer my life to him as a sacrifice for souls, he takes it gladly.
(Seriously, though, you have to be careful what you pray for. I once told God I’d do anything if he’d make my students holy. I woke up the next morning with my eye swollen shut and then broke my tooth in half.
A month later, I prayed the same prayer, and again he took me at my word. I walked into my apartment to discover green mold growing on everything I own. Don’t tell God you’re willing to suffer for something if you’re not prepared to scrub cinder blocks for hours on end.)
And his promise is this: “In the world you will have trouble, but take courage; I have conquered the world.” Not “you will conquer the world,” but “I have conquered the world. The promise is that I will suffer. And I will fail. And as my life draws to a close, I may look back and see nothing gained. But Christ has conquered the world. And my life of failure will bear fruit, whether I see it or not.
We are an Easter people living in a Good Friday world. We fall and we fall and we fall beneath our crosses. But still we rise because the promise of the empty tomb leads us on. So let’s ignore success and failure and broken teeth and broken hearts. Let’s plant in whatever soil we find and forget about looking for fruit. Let’s embrace our crosses and rejoice in defeat. Because when we go before God, unemployment and divorce and teenage drama and middle school exams and pimples and even Bush Push 2005 will count for nothing. We will realize, with Graham Greene’s whiskey priest, “that at the end, there was only one thing that counted: to be a saint.”
Let’s begin.
*But really, what teacher has a kid take a make-up test in a room filled with socializing kids?? I was so distracted I didn’t even finish!