Last Sunday, Pete Fitch preached a sermon based on C.S. Lewis’ famous sermon entitled “The Weight of Glory.” The themes of that are still ringing through this week, and the following quote is ringing particularly true:
If there lurks in the most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with [temporal things] when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
This is what pisses me off about all of us: we’re so half-hearted in anything we do. We run around saying we’re Christians but then we try to get away with as much as we can. If all we’re after is pleasure, why don’t we come right out and say that we don’t really want to follow Jesus, but that we simply want to follow fun. Fine, do it, and do it whole-heartedly, but stop mucking about with all of this half-hearted crap. Stop pretending that the mud is the holiday at the sea, and just play in it. Or don’t.
My comment is via email.
Clarification: This is not advocating some kind of separation from the world Gnosticism whereby the flesh and its pleasures are inherently evil. I enjoy alcohol, food, sex and a host of other good things that are good because God has made them that way. What annoys me is when life is reduced to the pursuit of these pleasures which are echoes of eternity. This kind of reductionism is not Christianity, in my opinion.
Here’s to Christian Hedonism! If God has got something good, I want it. Lord give us the desire to get your best even when it hurts on the way there.