Before the the final test, a good question to ask yourself is this: “If I get everything I want in this life, but I lose my soul in the process, what good is getting what I wanted?”

Maybe we need to backup even further and ask the more fundamental question. “Do I believe I have a soul?” I mean, I really had to stop and ask myself that question a few times in my life. If you do believe in a soul, then the question of “What do I want?” needs to be studied, because the final test is all questions about that topic.

If there is no soul, then of course you don’t need to study. What else is there but this life? You can pay lip service about ultimate meaning but if death is final then there is no final test and no need to study at all. Hakuna Matata. Carpe Diem. Try everything. You define your destiny. Perception is reality. After all, it’s just like Pontius Pilate said, summing up the modern worldview: “What is truth?” So good luck to you! I suspect you’ve stopped reading about now, so thank you for listening.

If an adult lives only for himself, but never commits to anything beyond his own goals or dreams he will wind up being like a firework instead of the wheat plant we were discussing in part two. A firework amazes us, briefly. Well, it amazes us if its not a dud. Katy Perry assures us that we are all fireworks, but anyone who has lit July 4 mortars knows that not all fireworks pass by the quality assurance team before being boxed up and sent out the door. But even for the well-packaged and manufactured fireworks, even the best one will produce but a brief wonder that quickly fades and disappears into a smokeless void in the dark. That’s it. It’s over.

In comparison, the wheat plant story seems like a dud compared to that of the firework, with its blaze of glory through the night. Dylan Thomas said it best in his famous poem, which sounds a lot like a firework.

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

He went out like a firework, too, with a life of heavy drinking that likely killed him at age 39. Great writer, heavy drinker. Bad relationships, miserable most of the time. But he got what he wanted! He amazed us and burnt out like a firework, like Neil Young’s line, “Better to burn out than to fade away.” Better to burn out early like Natalie Portman in Black Swan than later like Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler.

The wheat plant is not like a firework. The advice for living from Jesus points to a polar opposite life, even though Jesus died at 33. The blaze of glory of a rock star like Dylan Thomas is a kind of self-sacrifice but for glory, fame, and recognition. The kind of life and death Jesus refers to repeatedly leads to a humble or even hated, loathed, mocked, and tortured death, but one that ultimately leads to salvation.

A mature plant creates seed, and each seed will fall and create more life. There’s a double-metaphor here, one for your life and death, and one for your life and spiritual re-birth while you are still alive.

By dying to itself, by not trying to preserve its present mature state, by not trying to live forever or gain notoriety above all other wheat plants, the proper life of a wheat plant lives through the death of its self. This metaphor can have a third meaning about having a family, but the heart of this wheat tale isn’t about having children or a family. Jesus did not have children and he is the ultimate grain of wheat.

The parable is about returning to the spirit of childhood and having a childlike faith. It’s about spiritual re-birth. It’s another way of saying, “Be baptized and believe!” It’s about forgetting the self and living for others. This “dying” applies to married or celibate or barren people, with or without children, young or old, black or white, man or woman. It’s for everyone.

The death of self is about living a life of faith, hope, and charity. Life is not lost, but rather is restored to health by returning to a childlike faith. We gain nothing by living forever in adulthood. Have you seen any vampire movies where the vampire is happy? No, of course not. The vampire has found the fountain of youth and is perfectly miserable. Do you know why? Because without time or age or bodily breakdown to worry about, a vampire can do whatever it desires.

If I were a soulless vampire who lived forever, do you know what I would do? First, I would rob a bank so I had plenty of cash for tuition. Then I would enroll in a university and take physics, biology, chemistry, and math courses until they ran out of offerings. Simultaneously, since I would have unlimited time as a vampire, I would take language courses in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, and ideally I’d spend a decade learning Eastern and Western philosophy. Then I would cap it off by applying to a ultra-nerdy Dominican school of theology. With all of that knowledge, I would feel like I had a start on what I’d like to soak up. Unfortunately, even after all that, I’d still have the rest of eternity to figure out what to do here on earth, other than find my daily rodent for sustenance. I guess I could do the weekly New York Times crossword, because I’ve never been able to finish one. I’m glad I’m not a vampire, however, because I don’t want to live forever. I don’t even like the taste of blood when my nose bleeds for no reason in the Minnesota winter, where skin becomes like the surface of Mars. So based on the diet alone, Bella can have Edward. No thank you, I’ll pass on that lifestyle.

Without limits, life becomes meaningless for the same reason that waking up to Christmas morning every day would become pointless to children. This leads right up to the same problem for adults who believe they want no constraints, and then living in that boundless world finds that the limits have a purpose.

But back to the idea of living forever: like the mythical vampire, we think we want to live forever, but eternal life on earth would become a living hell. To wish for endless life here on earth is like hoping to win the lottery. We think all problems disappear with enough time and money, but we forget our fundamental flaw. The yearning for both of these is a kind of escapism, and what we really want is heaven, and heaven is to rest and stop searching. My imagined scenario of “what would I do as a vampire” betrays my treasure and where my heart is at. Notice that what I considered worth doing with unlimited time (and stolen money) was to pursue endless education.

Notice that I did not wish for faith, hope, and charity? My “lottery” fantasy, my goal if I became limitless, was not to love God and love others. It was to love myself and increase my knowledge - literally to become more like God in the way that the devil promised Eve with his lies. The fountain of youth and lottery fantasy will tattle on where your treasure it at. Few people would say, “If I could live forever and had unlimited money, I would give glory to God, pray for salvation, and give all my time to widows and orphans.” I didn’t say that. My mind does not gravitate toward others when asked, “What would you do if you had unlimited resources?” My desires were all for the self. My treasure is not youthful skin, mine is actually worse. The first thing that sprung into my mind was to elevate my knowledge, like the first sin to eat from the tree of knowledge, and just like Eve I was tempted for more knowledge with the idea that I might be more like a god. No snake was present in my house when this happened.

So my first instinct was to eat from the tree of knowledge. The point here is that pride, even if hidden away, waits to emerge whenever opportunity appears. It’s always waiting. As soon as the door opens, as soon as constraints are removed, we slip into patterns that the ancient stories of Genesis warn us about.

To give oneself away instead of elevate oneself is best shown through the life of Christ, because he chose death. He chose faith, hope, and charity, despite the fact that he could have shown us his limitlessness whenever he wanted. God could have chose to be incarnated with the intention of instructing us on sustainable energy or better farming techniques or the ultimate skin care routine. He could have held seminars about microbiology and germs and surgery and neurology to help us leap forward in medicine. He could have delivered a model of the solar system and walked us through the geological strata of the earth to help us make sense of our world. He could have come however he wanted and lived forever and produced a world of plenty where no one lacked any food or shelter. He could have sent us robots to serve our every need. He could have infused us with complete knowledge so that we could converse with him on the patio in any language, whether it be Arabic, English, Japanese, or even the Gleep-Glorp language from the planet Zoltan. Heck, he could have just decided to smite us all in a rain of fire and terror just for kicks. But he didn’t. No, this time, for this first visit to us, he showed us how to live. He showed us how to live with humility by example. Rather than kicking down doors and dropping bombs, he comes in the most unexpected manner, which is why it’s so confusing.

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