Uber Christianity: My Uber Driver and I Plot to Sow the World
What profit is there for one to gain the whole world and lose his soul?
It was going to take an hour and twenty minutes to get home. The Uber ride from the airport was going to be a slow crawl. And it was. But when I arrived, it felt like five minutes.
The ride immediately started with a conversation. Unlike my rides earlier in the week, this driver was chatty. After quickly talking about local issues, he jumped to Charlie Kirk. He then asked, “Are you Christian?” It turned out he started attending church again the past two weeks. But he struggled leaving his former life.
“What profit is there for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?”
My driver was able to discuss the bible quite well. He felt ashamed by not being able to name the book or verse of what he was saying, somehow feeling he wasn’t worthy to ever discuss the bible. His favorite part of the bible was when Jesus said, “What profit is there for one to gain the whole world but lose their soul?” (slight variation of Mark 8:36)
It seems, my Uber driver had enough of his old ways. He wanted his soul back. He said he loathed the idea of going back to the old crowd that constantly called on him. Yet he told me that he was still tempted and battling the idea of doing so, even in that very moment.
I immediately thought of Bishop Barron. He has been on YouTube for over 20 years and can synthesize the bible and apply it to our life today better than anyone. I quickly found a video of him on YouTube discussing this verse. For the next 17 minutes, his was the only voice in the car.
Here’s the video we listened to:
Bishop Barron used two brilliant examples in modern times to show the meaning of the verse. The first was of the painting, Romans During the Decadence by Thomas Couture. It is of a Roman party depicting all the vices you can think of—lust, gluttony, pride—with a soulless woman at its center, staring into the eyes of the viewer. She had enough of this lifestyle, yet there she remained. Here’s the painting.
My driver and I nodded as Bishop Barron described the painting, this woman and its meaning.
The second example from Bishop Barron was from the movie (originally a play), A Man from All Seasons, about Sir Thomas More. King Henry VIII divorces his wife and marries another woman and wants Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England and a devout Catholic, to recognize the marriage. More refuses so the King gets one of More’s students, Richard Rich—who seeks an affluent life—to lie in court to convict More.
More is beheaded and Rich becomes Attorney General for Wales.
The famous line, Bishop Barron says, is this from More: “Why, Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world…but for Wales?”
More dies for sticking with his principles. “Richard Rich,” the movie narrator says in a disgusted fashion, “became chancellor of England and died in his bed.” But while Richard Rich is dead and forgotten, More lives eternally as Saint Thomas More.
My driver also said that he wanted to become a better person, bring others to Christ and become more versed in the bible. He believed he needed to be able to pull out the Word of God that was needed in the moment to help someone. He said there are Sowers in this world, as discussed in different books of the bible. Again, he could describe the bible quite well and encouraged me to read these verses again.
The parable of the Sower is in Matthew 13:1-12. A Sower is someone who puts seeds in the ground in hopes that it will grow. If it does, then someone will come and reap what it produces, gathering it for its owner. The seed is the Word of God, the sower spreads the Word, the soil that it lands on are the people. If we are hardened, like concrete, the Word of God will not take hold. When we become receptive, we are fertile ground and the Word of God will grow when it reaches us.
Here is Bishop Barron discussing the parable of the Sower:
In Revelation 14:14,16, John describes Jesus returning, to collect the harvest at end times:
Then I looked and there was a white cloud, and sitting on the cloud one who looked like a son of man, with a gold crown on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand. So, the one who was sitting on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth, and the earth was harvested.
In other words, Jesus is the reaper and the owner along with the Father.
I think we are all called to spread the Word of God, to be a Sower. But we must also maintain our own fertile ground and encourage others to do so as well. We do this with our actions, our tone, admissions/confessions, our attitude and how we care for one another to be harvested when Jesus returns.
As we pulled up to my house, I realized that I hadn’t seen the face of my driver. I knew his voice and had only seen the side of his head from the back seat. Standing outside the car, we smiled. He said, “I’ll pray for you.”
“Me too,” I said.
Who was the Sower in that Uber car? Both of us.
Peace.
P.S. The New Earth series continues next week. Catch up on the series here.