The news that Lance Armstrong has finally confessed to doping, blood transfusions, etc. in all of his major cycling wins, sadly, hardly comes as a shock. Few arenas in the world of professional sports today have escaped the controversy of athletes using banned substances as they scramble and claw their way to the tops of their fields. What is the most troubling, for me at least, is the clips that the news outlets are replaying over and over again today of Armstrong vehemently denying the allegations of doping that have followed him over the course of his career. Whether he is red-faced in anger, hurling rage at his accusers, or stone-faced before the camera pledging his innocence, these clips from our present perspective show the depths of deceit to which an athlete will go in attempt to reach the heights of success in his sport.
Of course we ask ourselves, why would an athlete go this far? Why put up the fight and the front for years on end, lying through his teeth in the faces of fans, cameras, and accusers, and pledging to destroy the careers of those who spoke out for truth? Why go through the incredibly complicated, expensive, and illegal process of smuggling drugs and blood transfusions in hotel rooms and buses, and the arguably even higher difficulty of maintaining the lie in the face of mounting accusations and testimonies against him?
The answer is, of course, the perennial lures of the human soul: money, success, fame, legacy, etc. Armstrong, and the many athletes like him participating in the denigration of sport, have traded honesty, integrity, and true hard work for fame and fortune. The ends justify the means in this culture of celebrity, and though his empire seems to be crumbling now, for over a decade Lance Armstrong’s deceit has afforded him the opportunity to ride a tidal wave of adoring fans, women, endorsements, and fame. Would he do it differently if he had the chance to do it all over again? I kind of doubt it.
But let’s ask a further question. Why is it so worth it for an athlete to sacrifice his integrity to be the best? Why do the ends seem to justify the means? It is because our culture worships and fills the pockets of those who (it thinks) are the best. We erect cults around those who are the fastest, the strongest, the most beautiful, the richest, and the most powerful. We glorify achievement, and achievement to us means “rising above” the fray. We value winning (I hear the frightening, empty words of Charlie Sheen as I write this), and winning means everyone else loses to us.
This cult of the victorious gives rise to phrases such as “the ends justify the means,” “if you’re not first, you’re last,” “there’s no honor in second place,” or “get rich or die trying,” “it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there,” “look out for number one,” and the list goes on and on and on. The world keeps spinning round and each turn witnesses the rise and fall of a host of new would-be “winners,” all clamoring for the top and using whatever means necessary to get there. And as we perpetuate our culture of winning, we wreak havoc on the “losers” in our midst. A country’s wealth is grown on the backs of slaves. Our discount sneakers are available to us because of children working 18 hour days in sweat shops in Asia. Our addiction to fossil fuels, so that we can live comfortably and get where we need to faster, is wreaking havoc on our air and water quality. Our gluttonous consumption of meat is driving up the price of agriculture and food, keeping the world’s poor in perpetual poverty. We have fished out vast ecosystems of our oceans, plundered the resources of developing nations and shipped them to the first world, all because the ends justify the means as we clamor for the top.
And don’t we all know, somewhere in the back of our minds, that we are really just making things worse? Don’t we all know that it can, and should, be different?
The teachings of Christ point us to a radical inversion of the ways of this world. While our Lance Armstrongs, our Barry Bondses, our ENRONs and Monsantos clamor for the top of the heap, God-with-us clamored for the bottom to show us another way.
Could God Incarnate have come to earth on a blazing chariot with angel hordes to conquer and subdue the nations of the world? You bet he could have. But that is not what he chose to do, because that is not the character of God, nor is it the way he designed this world to work.
In his teachings, Jesus addressed the issue of clamoring for the top more than once to his disciples. When his disciples began arguing over who among them would be the greatest, Jesus put to death their attempts to clamor for the top: “For it is the one who is the least among you who will be the greatest” (Luke 9:48). In the other gospel narratives the point is elaborated further: “The rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:25-28)
The Christ offers a completely counterintuitive perspective to the ways of the world. While mortal men and women foolishly clamor for the top, Christ tells us that true happiness and fulfillment come not from being served, but by serving. Christ tells the rich young man that the one thing he lacks is relinquishment of his possessions. Give those up, says Jesus, and you will have treasure in heaven (Mark 10:17-25).
Now, your everybody person might leave it at that, some lofty admonishments for a better way to live. But Christ is far more than mere parables. Christ is the ultimate anti-hypocrite, literally embodying his teachings to show us that he means them. While mortals clamored for the top, God Incarnate clamored for the bottom, not just in what we preached, but also in who he was. Rather than come as a conquering king, God came to earth in the form of an infant, and a poor one at that. No fancy bedclothes lulled him into luxurious sleep; a feed-trough was his bed. When, as his teaching spread, rich young rulers came to him seeking fulfillment, he told them to give away all they had to the poor. When crowds recognized his miraculous divine nature and tried to make him a king by force, he passed through them and went on his way, preaching a radically different way of life. Worldly notions of wealth and power are no part of the kingdom of God to which he was pointing.
In no way is the radical, counterintuitive worldview of Christ clearer than at the cross. The greatest of all became the least of all, the one who most deserved to be served became the servant of the world, as he said, giving his life as a ransom for many. “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?” (Luke 9:23-25)
The invitation of Jesus is radically different from the ways of the world. While our Lance Armstrongs come and go, clamoring to be the best and doing whatever it takes to win the adoration of the world, Jesus preaches that this only leads to emptiness, to the losing and forfeiture of our lives. The way of fulfillment, Christ says, is to take the path of the servant. The treasures of heaven, whatever those may actually be, are for those who relinquish what they have on earth for the service of others.
Can we take a minute and really imagine what that world would be like? What if the world literally took no interest in its Lance Armstrongs, its Donald Trumps, its Paris Hiltons and Brangelinas? What if Justin Bieber’s latest romantic interest was utter non-news? I want to live in that world! What if our day-to-day concerns were more about making sure the others around us are doing okay, and seeking to help them, rather than worrying about our 401k’s, getting that promotion, or working ourselves to death to be best at whatever it is we do? What if my biggest concern today was not what I wear or how I feel or what I eat or making money, but that the elderly couple that lives across the street from us has what they need to get through the day? To quote Tina Fey, I want to go to there.
This is the way of life that Jesus proclaims and to which he invites us. And it goes far beyond just days of neighborly goodness that I’ve depicted above. Jesus tells us that not only is the key to happiness becoming the servant of all in the middle of a world gone wrong, but that a time is coming when the entire world really will be like that. He promises to return again to bring that promise into reality. This is harder for us to see, but if the things he said about daily living strike a chord in us, if we see in them a picture of a higher truth, I think it is worth hearing him out for the rest, the things that are more difficult to see. That is beyond the scope of this essay, more concerned as it is with today’s events, but it is a larger part of the greater reality pointed to by the Servant of All. In the meantime, in the day-to-day realm, Christ invites us to a way of life that has no interest in doping and cycling trophies, in home-run records, celebrity lifestyles and Forbes 500 lists, but instead to a happiness that is far beyond anything of which the material world can even dream.
