Society as we know it has been changed by a 27-year old man. This man changed the way we speak and the way we interact. He has caused some of the greatest revolutions in marketing and business strategies. He has produced an entire new realm of terminology. He has allowed for friendships to be made, strengthened, and destroyed. He has brought controversy. He has allowed for personal expression. He has changed our world entirely. And that man is Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook.
Last year, Mark was named Time Magazine's Person of the Year. And in an interview with him, the article says that one of the interests that Zuckerberg lists on his Facebook page is "eliminating desire". And in response to questions about this, Mark said this: "I just want to focus on what we're doing...To me it's just-I don't know, I think it would be very easy to get distracted and get caught up in short-term things or material things that don't matter. The phrase is actually 'Eliminating desire for all that doesn't really matter."
ELIMINATING DESIRE FOR ALL THAT DOESN'T REALLY MATTER. Mark Zuckerberg and his team have changed our world via Facebook because of their commitment to what they are doing. In the interview, it said that Mark doesn't have a fancy car; he doesn't wear super chic clothes; he lives in a house that he RENTS, though his personal fortune is nearly $6.9 BILLION. His life is consumed by his commitment to what he believes in. His passion for Facebook is at the forefront of every decision he makes, is the pursuit of all of his actions, and is at the heart of his very being. He has chosen to essentially forego everything else to ensure that Facebook is a success.
ELIMINATING DESIRE FOR ALL THAT DOESN'T REALLY MATTER. Centuries ago, a similar message was preached. St. Paul, in his letter to the Philippians, cries out, "Whatever gains I had, these I have come to consider a loss, because of Christ. More than that, I even consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord." Quite simply: Paul was expressing his desire to eliminate everything else--every earthly yearning, every egotistic goal, every hint of selfishness or pride or sin--so as "to gain Christ and be found in him". And St. Paul, similarly to Mark Zuckerberg, changed the face of our earth. As the greatest missionary the Church has ever seen, he changed the way people spoke and interacted. He changed the way people saw themselves and the way they lived their lives. He formed communities. He saved souls. He glorified God. And it was his commitment to Christ and his acceptance of the loss of EVERYTHING ELSE that allowed for this to happen.
So the question for us today is: do we even have the desire to ELIMINATE THE DESIRE FOR ALL THAT DOESN'T REALLY MATTER? When we look at the stuff of our lives--our homes, our clothes, our cars, our money, our jobs, our relationships, our success--can we say with Paul that it is all "a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ"? For me, the answer is a definitive NO. I love my stuff. I love my comfort. I love ME. I am severely lacking this passionate, all-consuming, deeply sacrificial commitment to Christ.
And in recognition of this reality, I have to ask myself, why am I clinging to things that are fading? Why am I pursuing things that are vanishing with each passing second? Why am I running after things that consistently leave me longing, empty, and broken? But most importantly, why am I not staking my life on Jesus Christ--the one who has forsaken his life, his will, and his comfort for me? Why am I not attaching myself to this God who at every moment is seeking to attach himself to me? Why am I foregoing eternity with my glorious King for the royalties of this temporal world?
Through the lives of the Saints, we see that firm commitment to the will of God and total detachment from this world is not just mildly effective; this kind of passionate pursuit of Christ is highly transformative--to communities, to institutions, to souls. What could God do in us if we abandoned ourselves more entirely to him? How could God transform our world if we sought greater detachment with the hope that "there is no one who has given up (anything)...for my sake and for the sake of the gospel who will not receive a hundred times more"? What revolution could occur if we truly sought this elimination of the desire for all that doesn't really matter?
Jesus, may your presence and your grace be so real in our lives that it drowns out every other desire, every other longing, every other pursuit so that the desire, longing, and pursuit of YOU is all that remains.
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