Thursday, December 10, 2015

By Dr. Joshua Chatraw

I. Two Types of Excellence

Christians are called to excellence in every sphere of life. In some ways, this excellence serves as a foundation for healthy cultural engagement. It can provide both credibility and presence in the various spheres of culture. And yet, my fear is that “seeking excellence” too often ends up being either a cliché void of much actual meaning, or worse, it becomes an excuse for a kind of narcissistic self-help program.

The New York Times Op Ed writer David Brooks begins his new book, The Road to Character, describing two different kinds of résumés people pursue in life.[i]

The first is the résumé we are all familiar with, our curriculum vitae. It lists our credentials, our accomplishments that get us a job. It provides us credibility. It tells the modern world we are someone they want on their team. Our CV tells our peers and everyone else (and perhaps it reassures ourselves), we are valuable. In our cultural climate, it comes almost natural for academics and budding academics to focus on this kind of résumé.

On the other hand, Brooks says there is another type of résumé the late-modern world has neglected. This is the eulogy résumé. At a funeral, no one recites someone’s CV describing how they wrote an esoteric article for the Society of Biblical Literature or how they climbed the political ladder at work. Instead, eulogies are comprised of reflections on a person’s character: how they treated others, what type of spouse and parent they were, their integrity, and their commitment to their friends. We might say the eulogy résumé is comprised of excellent virtues.

II. The Problem with Pursuing the Wrong Type of Excellence

It was Jesus himself who said that our righteousness was to exceed that of the Pharisees. Of course, Jesus was speaking of a righteousness that was not just of an outward variety but one that works from the inside out. By analogy, if we are going to speak of Christian excellence, we have to ask, “what is the motivation for excellence?”

We could be driven toward excellence by our pride. We desperately want to be someone. We desperately want to prove to ourselves. Pride causes us to be in competition with everyone else, for if we don’t stand out above the rest, we won’t be seen as great.

We could be driven to excellence by a lust for power. We think that if we outwork everyone, then we will set the rules and be in control. Others will bow down to our wishes, and we will control our destiny. We will call the shots.

We could be driven to excellence by just plain old greed. Sure, we might write it off as just perfectionism, but inside the real issue is that we want more stuff. And, we think if we just build up the job résumé, it will get us a better, more materialistic and comfortable life.

The problem is that “seeking excellence” could just be camouflage for worshipping ourselves, worshipping power, worshipping money, or worshipping prestige. In addition, if these are the things that are driving our pursuit of excellence, we not only lose our saltiness for cultural engagement, we lose our joy.

Tim Keller elaborates on Alexis de Tocqueville’s well-known observations about America in the 1830’s: . . . “he [de Tocqueville] noted a ‘strange melancholy that haunts the inhabitants in the midst of abundance.” Americans believed that prosperity could quench their yearning for happiness, but such hope was illusory, because de Tocqueville added, “the incomplete joys of this world will never satisfy the [human] heart.” The strange melancholy manifests itself in many ways, but always leads to the same despair of not finding what is sought.”[ii]

If you are driven to excellence by greed, you end up living out your days under a “strange melancholy.” If you are driven to excellence to be smart, you will always feel like you are a fraud. You will always live under the burden to prove yourself. To be validated. If you are driven to excellence to be seen as great, you will never be freed up to love others in deep relationships. For others will by default stand in your way of being great or either they will be objects to step over so that everyone will see your “greatness.”

The gods lurking behind “excellence” are cruel. They promise the world if we give everything to achieve excellence, but once we finally arrive (or don’t) we discover an inner emptiness, and we begin to wonder what went wrong. As Keller puts it, “The very things upon which these people were building all their happiness turned to dust in their hands because they had built all their happiness upon them. In each case, a good thing among many was turned into a supreme thing, so that its demands override all competing values. But counterfeit gods always disappoint, and often destructively so.”[iii]

So where does this leave us?

III. The Gospel changes how we pursue excellence.

In Colossians 3:22–23, Paul writes, “Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.”

The main point for application today is clear enough: We should work hard for those over us because we are ultimately working for God and not people. Also, notice Paul’s warning against being  people-pleasers.

Take away an audience from the people-pleaser and see what happens to their work. Most people work and work and work with the hopes of being validated by others. Of course, pats on the back are great, but if you are driven by what people think, the more pats on the back you get, the more of them you want. How much recognition is enough? It is never enough if your identity is wrapped up in what others think.

On the other hand, what happens when a people-pleaser does not get the recognition they were after? They are utterly miserable to be around as they are enslaved by the opinion of others.

When I was pastoring I took a group from my church on a ski trip. At the end of the week, some of the students asked me making a list ranking the top five skiers. And I was dumb enough to oblige. One of the teenage guys, who was particularly athletic, did not make the list and was slightly bothered. He was a good sport, but he told me with a grin, “I don’t even like skiing! But, if you would have told me that you were making a ranking list, I would have skied much harder all week!” In other words, my student’s motivation for skiing would have been to make a list, not for the simple pleasure of skiing.

When we embrace the Gospel, we are freed up to stop working to make the list. This is because we realize we are already on the list! The Gospel frees us from seeking validation from others because God has already validated us through Jesus Christ. We are freed up to serve Him out of love and gratitude.

When excellence is driven by pride, we are constantly comparing ourselves to others. We find ourselves constantly comparing résumés.

C.S. Lewis once remarked:

Pride is essentially competitive – it’s competitive by its very nature – while the other vices are competitive only, so to speak, by accident. Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better looking than others. If everyone else became equally rich, or clever, or good-looking there would be nothing to be proud about. It is the comparison that makes you proud, the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition has gone, pride has gone.[iv]

Have you ever been in a situation when you someone has done something wonderful and has been recognized for their accomplishment and you want to be happy for them, but all you’re thinking is “I hate his guts for being better than me!”? Or you have a presentation to give at an academic conference or in a class and the person before you does a really crappy job and you can’t help but feel a bit better about getting to after him?

However, we know we have the word of Paul, who tells us to rejoice with those who rejoice and to weep with those who weep (Rom. 12:15). This seems to be nearly impossible if we view our excellence in comparison to everyone else’s. But, if our identity is secure because we see ourselves as children of the King, then we are freed up to pursue the right type of excellence for the right reasons.

This does not lead to settling for mediocrity, at least it shouldn’t. Because even though our identity is secure, we are as Colossians 3 says, “working for the Lord.”

It is a beautiful thing when a young child wants to please their father. My seven-year old daughter doesn’t make me a picture or pack my lunch in the morning because she thinks her identity as my child and my love for her is contingent, instead it is my love and care for her that causes her to delight in seeking to please me.

When we pursue this kind of excellence, not out of pride, not out of greed, not out of a lust to better than everyone else, but as children of the King who delight in pleasing our King, something supernatural happens. Virtues are cultivated. We end up with quite the eulogy résumé, and we become the type of people who don’t just have whitewashed job résumés, but we end up being the type of people who offer a compelling vision of the good life, a life characterized by the marks of true excellence: compassion, justice, courage, patience, wisdom, and most of all, love. It’s this kind of excellence which must serve as the foundation for our cultural engagement.


[i] Brooks, David. The Road to Character, New York City, NY: Random House, 2015.

[ii] Keller, Timothy. Counterfeit Gods, New York City, NY: Dutton, 2009.

[iii] Ibid. xvii.

[iv] Lewis, C.S. Mere Christianity, San Francisco, CA: HarperOne, 1952.