Travelling on a train through India a woman aged 38 – a nun – had a vision.  She claims she heard God’s call for her to leave the religious order to which she belonged and to set out and work alone among the poorest of the poor.  Today we know that woman as the late ‘Mother Teresa’, who worked among the beggars and the destitute in the slums of Calcutta in India until her death in 1997.

Today she is still highly regarded by all who have heard of her.  The world applauded when she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.  Much of the world admired Mother Teresa.  It is not my purpose here to focus on her life and work but rather to note a comment that John Smith, the motorcycle evangelist of “God Squad” fame, once made about her.  He said, “If there is no God, and no meaning in life, she’s an idiot.  Because then that little lady has thrown away all the opportunities to enjoy a wonderful life – just to get out there and pick up people and love them before they die.”

What is it that motivates someone to pick up beggars that have the stench of the sewers about them?  What is it that drives such a person to treat the maggot-infested wounds of the dying in city slums?

Think about that in terms of the philosophy behind most of our modern advertising, or in terms of what is promoted in countless magazine articles and television sit-coms.  Repeatedly life is evaluated in terms of what we have; the material things we possess.  We’re less comfortable today with a woman who helps beggars in the gutter than a business tycoon who proclaims that greed is good.  Life is about getting a maximum share of this world’s goods – a fair slice of the economic pie.  We’re surrounded by people who live as though the one with the most toys wins.  We, in the west, live in a culture that says: life should be filled with joy and with a maximum of pleasure.  There shouldn’t be too much pain and there should be a minimum of hardship.

By that standard Mother Teresa was a failure.  Come to think of it – by that standard Jesus Christ is a failure too.  When He died he only owned the clothes He wore.  For Him suffering was a more common experience than pleasure.  He too devoted His life to the suffering and the needy.  Maybe then life is not first of all a matter of what we possess and what we have achieved.  And maybe it’s a lie that the one with the most toys wins.

Jesus taught us that ultimately life is not about getting and possessing.  Ultimately life is about GIVING.  Throughout history there have been those who devoted themselves to a life of compassion because they knew the teaching of Jesus: that it is in the giving of ourselves that we receive.

Our present-day society is beset by numerous social problems.  The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.  More and more are dying from drug overdoses.  Others are traumatised by divorce.  The suicide statistics have never been worse.  Even in our own family circles we often have plenty of problems and needs.  It’s good for our nation and good for our families (and good for ourselves!) when we live by the teaching of Jesus who once said: “Whoever wants to save his life will lose it but whoever loses his life for my sake shall find it.”

What a contrast.  In our culture selfishness and materialism are encouraged in a thousand and one ways... we’re a society where unselfish compassion is a rarity.  Jesus says to us: if we want to do something for our society and for our families then we need to stop living for things and for self.  In the parable of the sheep and the goats He showed that it’s the compassionate and the caring, those who call on the sick and visit the prisoner who enter into the eternal joy of Paradise.

The point is though that such a compassionate outlook doesn’t come naturally to any of us.  Our default position is always to look after number one – me!  We need the Gospel message of Jesus – His doing, His dying and His victory – in order to make sure we become the kind of people who are prepared to show the same compassion that God has shown to us in Jesus Christ.

John Westendorp