Among the apostles, the one stunning success was Judas, while the one groveling failure was Peter. Judas succeeded in ways that often impress our world: he was effective both financially and politically. He cleverly secured control of the apostolic group’s finances and skillfully navigated the political forces of his day to achieve his goals. Conversely, Peter failed in ways we most dread, proving impotent during crises and socially inept. At the arrest of Jesus, he collapsed as a hapless coward; during the most critical moments of his life—the confession at Caesarea Philippi and the Transfiguration—he spoke embarrassingly inappropriate words. He was neither the companion one would desire in danger nor the guest one would feel comfortable with at a social gathering.
History has since reversed our judgments on these two men. Judas is now a byword for betrayal, while Peter remains one of the most honored names in the church and the world. Judas is the villain, and Peter is the saint. Yet, society continues to pursue the successes of Judas—financial wealth and political power—while defending itself against the failures of Peter—impotence and ineptness. However, anyone who understands the value of learning from failure as leadership growth would prefer to fail with Peter than to succeed with Judas.
Any society that overemphasizes success inevitably encourages maximum security and minimum risk, thereby discouraging freedom. G.K. Chesterton once wrote, “There is nothing so weak, for working purposes, as this enormous importance attached to immediate victory. There is nothing that fails like success.” It fails because it neglects the deeper dimensions of the human experience. Individuals do not truly grow when they are so protected that an intervening hand always prevents accidents. True failure is avoided only by those who live cautiously and timidly, ensuring every task is well within their capabilities to eliminate the risk of falling short.
Monetary resources and political power are the usual means of success. But the one is impersonal and the other abstract; insofar as they encroach on the human they eliminate the capacity for freedom. For freedom is the unique gift that is given to the human. Anything that tends toward the impersonal (money) and the abstract (power) diminishes the capacity for freedom. Since success, as success is counted in the world, relies heavily on money and power, freedom is diminished. Judas’s suicide is a parody of freedom.
And the failures? Are they the most free? Not necessarily. But those who are free to fail are the most free. Fear of failure inhibits freedom; the freedom to fail encourages it. The life of faith encourages the risk taking that frequently results in failure, for it encourages human ventures into crisis and the unknown. When we are in situations where we are untested (like Peter at the arrest of Jesus) or unaccustomed (like Peter on the Mount of Transfiguration), we are sometimes going to fail, sometimes ignominiously. These failures, though, are never disasters because they become the means by which we realize new depths of our humanity and new vistas of divine grace. In the midst of our humanity and divine grace, the free life is shaped. “He who has never failed somewhere, that man cannot be great. Failure is the true test of greatness.”
Paul captures this insight in Galatians 3:15-27 and puts it to use in relation to the law. The law had been treated by many in his day as a means for achieving a secure, successful life. Paul turned that position on its head and showed that the law, in fact, made it impossible for anyone to be a success, exposing everyone instead as a failure. When the law is taken seriously and used according to its intent, it exposes us all, mercilessly and relentlessly, as failures. The law, as Paul came to understand it, assumed that we would fail and did nothing to prevent it. It left us free to fail. In Paul’s exposition, failure is not a thing to be avoided, but an inevitability to be faced and lived through. The law is God’s direction for facing failure and living it through.
Is the law, therefore, opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not! For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law. But Scripture has locked up everything under the control of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.
Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed. So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.
So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
We don’t live by faith by reading a rule book, or following a map, or working through a career development program. We do not begin with things, or pieces of paper, or ideas, or feelings, or deeds, or successes. Especially not successes, because we have learned that every success is an abstraction which turns a person into an empty shell. Any formula that prevents failure also prevents freedom. We begin with God. We dare to believe that God cares who we are, knows who we are. We dare to believe that God is the reality beyond and beneath and around all things, visible and invisible, and that he provides for us and loves and blesses and saves us.
We are free to do many things. We are free from many restrictions. But what about the center? What about God?
There we live by faith and failure, by faith and forgiveness, by faith and mercy, by faith and freedom. We do not live successfully. Success imprisons. Success is an unbiblical burden stupidly assumed by prideful persons who reject the risks and perils of faith, preferring to appear right rather than to be human.
Taken from Traveling Light by Eugene H. Peterson. © 1982 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press. www.ivpress.com