Reading · Faith Encouraged

St. Anthony the Great once said, “A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying, ‘You are mad; you are not like us.’”

That time St. Anthony warned about has been with us since our mother and father believed the serpent's insanity in the garden.

This madness does not exist only in “those people.” It is the common temptation of each of us, every single day.

Before we get too confident in our own correctness, it might surprise us to learn that some of the Lord’s own earthly family thought He was “beside himself.” What a lovely way of saying crazy, or out of his mind.

They thought He was too zealous for His new ministry, His message, His healing. They thought He needed rescuing.

“When his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for people were saying, ‘He is beside himself.’”

So what motivated these people to think this way about Him?

At that time, Jesus went up on the mountain, and called to him those whom he desired; and they came to him. And he appointed twelve, to be with him, and to be sent out to preach and have authority to cast out demons: Simon whom he surnamed Peter; James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James, whom he surnamed Boanerges, that is, sons of thunder; Andrew and Philip and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaios, and Thaddaios, and Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him. Then he went home; and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for people were saying, “He is beside himself.”

I am sure these people thought they were only concerned for His safety and well-being.

But when we dig deeper into our own motivations, we often discover something else. That something else usually has more to do with our fears and insecurities than the concern we claim to have for another person.

First, a life of total commitment to God will always look crazy to those whose own lives fall short of that life-giving commitment.

The Lord’s maximum commitment, His willingness to serve everyone who came to Him, so completely that He and His disciples “could not even eat,” looked dangerous and unbalanced to those whose lives did not measure up to that same standard.

His focused life stood in stark contrast to their lives of comfort, self-interest, and mediocrity.

This is not really about Jesus being reckless. It is about what a genuinely ordered life looks like next to a disordered one.

To those who have never known what it feels like to be in their right mind, truly oriented toward God, that orientation looks crazy. It looks unbalanced. It looks like something has gone wrong.

But perhaps nothing has gone wrong at all. Perhaps, for the first time, something has finally gone right, and it simply exposes how far off the rest of us have drifted. It looks crazy to those whose lives are made insane by selfish living.

Next, the lives of the saints perform this same uncomfortable work of revelation in every generation.

Story after story from the lives of the saints seems crazy to modern ears.

St. Symeon the Stylite lived atop a tall pole on a small platform, exposed to the elements for decades. Other saints refused rescue from those who hated them, enduring persecution and even death rather than return hatred for hatred.

To a world intoxicated with fairness and rights as the highest goods, this looks insane. They see a Man being unjustly executed, saying “Father, forgive them,” and think He must not have been thinking clearly.

When we contrast the effort we put into making our own lives as comfortable as possible with a choice like St. Symeon’s, his life seems genuinely crazy to us.

But perhaps God gives us these stark contrasts precisely to challenge how easily we set our priorities, with so little regard for our eternal lives.

Finally, the real question is not who looks crazy, but which investment actually makes sense in light of eternity.

What makes more sense? Pouring all our energy into a present life that ends at the grave? Or giving our best energy to laying up treasures in heaven, for a life that never ends?

Put that way, it starts to look a little crazy to invest all our best energy into something so temporary.

So in the end, who is really the crazy one?

This is the reversal the Gospel keeps performing on us, if we let it. The world calls total devotion to Christ madness. But total devotion to a world that is passing away, dressed up as sensible moderation, may be the deeper madness of the two.

Today we commemorate the Holy Apostle Thaddaeus, one of the Twelve named in today’s very Gospel passage.

Also known as Jude, or Lebbaeus, Thaddaeus is traditionally remembered as the Apostle who carried the Gospel to Edessa, healed King Abgar, and established the Faith throughout Mesopotamia, Syria, and beyond.

He gave his life as a martyr for the Message he carried, one of the Twelve whom the Lord “desired” and “called to him” on that mountain, exactly as we read today.

Thaddaeus stood in that same company the crowd called crazy. He did not walk away.

He gave everything, his comfort, his safety, his life, to the very “madness” of total devotion to Christ that the world could not understand then and often cannot understand now.

Today, do not be surprised when people call you crazy for believing in the Faith, and for actually practicing it.

You are not alone. All the saints, and even the Lord Himself, were thought out of their minds for living focused and purposeful lives.

Do not let those voices, who are merely disturbed by the quiet reminder that their own lives lack that same focus, pull you back into the mediocrity that comforts their conscience.

Dare to look crazy to a world so shortsighted that it pours its whole life into what is temporary, while eternal life waits at its feet.

Then pray simply:

“Lord Jesus Christ, You were called beside Yourself for loving without limit. Give me the courage to be thought crazy for the same reason. Let my life be so oriented toward You that it exposes, gently and without judgment, how far the world has drifted from its right mind.”

Being Orthodox on Purpose means being willing to look crazy to a world that has forgotten what a life oriented toward God actually looks like, and trusting that this kind of madness is the only sane way to spend a life!

Beside Himself

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