By Jim Denison
In 25 years, the cell phone that now fits in your pocket will fit in a blood cell. In three years, a computer will exist that possesses the computational power of the human brain. By 2049, a $1,000 computer will possess the computational capacity of the human race.
We are living in a revolution as historic as the Renaissance or the Industrial Age. But our technological age comes with an enormous price tag. Martin Heidegger, the perceptive German philosopher, described us as actors on a stage with no script, director or audience; courage is to face life as it is. Jean-Paul Sartre titled his most famous play No Exit and his autobiography Nausea. Mother Teresa warned us that loneliness is the great epidemic of our time.
Agriculture gathered rural families in common cause against the elements. Industry gathered workers in corporations and city dwellers in neighborhoods. Where farms and factories united, technology isolates. I can do all the research and writing necessary to complete this essay without speaking to another human being. I can view movies and watch television shows without leaving my laptop.
But we’re made for community. It’s no surprise that MySpace, if it were a country, would be the fourth-largest nation on Earth. Social media is the booming edge of the Internet, as people blog and send tweets and follow each other electronically on Facebook. There’s something about the human condition that requires other humans. From the Garden of Eden to today, “it is not good for the man to be alone” (Gen. 2:18).
Consider the drama unfolding half a mile below the earth’s surface in Chile. Mining is a staple of the Chilean economy, producing generations of men as hardened as the rocks they work. When a cave-in trapped 33 men in a subterranean vault on August 5, authorities assumed all were lost. Engineers found them 17 days later, all alive and unharmed, in an emergency shelter. “We are fine in the refuge, the 33,” their first note to the surface read.
A rescue shaft for the crew will take three to four months to complete. In the meantime, the trapped miners have organized themselves into groups of three to watch after each other. They have created a makeshift altar where they can share worship services. When food is dropped to them through a four-inch hole four times a day, none eats until all have enough to eat. As their rescue hole is cleared, the men will need to remove 3,000 to 4,000 tons of rock displaced by the drilling; they are already organizing themselves into shifts to do the work 24 hours a day. They know that the only way to survive their ordeal is to face it together.
The night he would be betrayed and forsaken by his closest friends, Jesus washed their feet. This was a task so menial no Jew could be forced to do it. He washed the sweaty, dirty feet of the man who would hand him over to his enemies and the man who would deny him and the men who would abandon him. He did it with this instruction: “I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you” (John 13:15). And he did it with this assurance: “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (v. 35).
Self-sufficiency is spiritual suicide. Western culture embraces the self-made hero, turning faith into a means to our advancement. The ancient Greeks placed sacrifices on the altars of their gods so they would bless their crops. We go to church on Sunday so God will bless us on Monday. “You can do it, we can help” is not just a slogan used by Home Depot to attract customers — it is the promise made by market-driven churches to their self-reliant consumers every Sunday.
But there is only one King in the Kingdom; the rest of us are his subjects and children. We are the family of God, sisters and brothers who need our fellow miners in the dark. When we wash each others’ feet, we find God’s love in ours.
Jesus measures success not by your title but by your towel. How dirty is yours?