Balancing Contentment and Growth
John the Baptist showed up with refreshing honesty and simplicity. He didn’t overpromise and he didn’t sell a gimmicky spirituality. He told it like it is, including how messy the world is, how messy our souls are, and how we could do better at caring for both the world and our souls.
At one point, some soldiers approached him, wondering out loud what it might mean for them to be grow spiritually. Let’s listen in to what John says and reflect on it:
Then some soldiers asked John the Baptist, “And what should we do?” He replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.” - Luke 3:13
A few things to notice here:
The soldiers were Roman - they were not “on God’s side” so to speak, but John was glad to engage with them anyway. And how courageous of them is it to ask this religious outlier for guidance in the first place?! (What kind of courage might it take for you to ask someone else for wisdom about your spiritual growth?)
They are essentially asking how to grow spiritually - and the answer has a lot to do with contentment. There are lots of connections between those two things.
John starts with the via-negativa, the ‘negative way’ - pointing out what needs to be left behind. in order to grow Notice that he invites them to walk away from practices of injustice - even though those practices were absolutely common to soldiers at the time (makes you wonder what unjust practices you and I engage in every day that we aren’t noticing).
Then there’s the via-positivo, the positive way - of being actively content with your pay. In some ways, John is challenging them to choose into contentment - to choose into accepting their pay with gratitude. Are there aspects of your life that are a given, but you’ve refused to accept them as they are? Perhaps there’s an invitation here for you to choose into them.
Finally, John does not seem to be talking about the soldiers never asking for a pay raise. He’s talking about them not forcing their way to a pay raise through injustice.
Is there a thought or question for you to ponder from this passage today?