In classical education, we talk a lot about excellence.  “Doing everything with excellence.”  We then invoke 1 Corinthians 10:31 to establish that we do everything with excellence “for the glory of God.”

And I think all of this is great . . . except when we become enamored with our own excellence – when we gaze too long (and too longingly) at the beautiful results of human-making.

In the “pursuit of excellence in everything we do,” we can be tempted to strive merely for the excellence of man for the “glory” of God, rather than ultimately seek the excellence of God for the transformation of man.

Too often we either make excellence itself the end goal (read: idol), or we choose what is important to man, do it “with excellence,” then ask God to bless our efforts.  So, effectively, we glorify man and then give God a high-five.

And this message of misplaced glory is subversively communicated in our schools, even in our Christian schools.  Do we recognize this?  We ask our students to strive for excellence in their academics.  When asked “why” we answer, “To bring glory to God,” then we give them a numerical grade for their efforts, which immediately binds them to a secular (and, I believe, broken) system of assessment that determines their “net worth” to other schools, colleges, and companies by “ranking” them among their peers.

“We do not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves. When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise.”  2 Corinthians 10:12

All this “bring glory to God” talk is great, Mr. Faulkner, but I’ve got to get into a good high school, and that means I’ve got to strive as hard as I can for that excellence A.  (Notice the subtle shift from a virtue to a mark.)  And thank you, Jesus when I see that A on my report card!

And so, if we are not very careful, we establish in our schools – in our Christian schools – a metaphor for a nominal, compartmentalized Christian life in which the desires of man are sought and God is “tacked on” at the end so we can “give Him the glory.”

No wonder our students become disenchanted and disillusioned when they become old enough to see through our all-too-often “spiritualized” exhortations to otherwise secular ends.  No wonder I often get blank looks when I ask the question, “But what does that really mean – to glorify God?”

Striving merely for the excellence of man leads to self-sufficiency and the nearly inevitable establishment of success as a very dangerous and ultimately unfulfilling idol.  Or, as a colleague of mine puts it, striving merely for the excellence of man leads to a good high school, then a good college, then a good job, then a nice house and nice car, then a midlife crisis.  We may even find ourselves doing something with excellence that was actually never God’s will for our lives in the first place.  And in the worst case, we allow this credo of “my best for God’s glory” to morph into a works-based theology.

Alternatively, when we seek first the excellence of God, we are graciously brought into God’s will, and we are transformed because our own efforts are always found wanting.  Striving for the excellence (read: perfection) of God necessarily leads to Jesus.

“Be perfect, therefore, as your Father in heaven is perfect.”

Jesus did not end the Sermon on the Mount in this way to frustrate his audience with an impossible commandment.  Nor do I think he intended for everyone to leave that day and simply set out to make the best chariots possible.  He was inviting them (us!!) to a state of perfection – a state of excellence, a state of completion (the Greek here, teleioi, that is typically translated as “perfect,” can also be translated “complete”) – that only his death and resurrection could satisfy.  In short, he was calling them to repentance – repentance that would lead to their ultimate transformation into truly excellent humans.

I write all of this not to take a stand against exhorting our students to excellence; of course I will continue to ask my students to “do everything with excellence.”  My purpose here is a warning: this idea of excellence carries with it much weight and can easily (read: unwittingly) be used to curse our students rather than bring them into a transformative relationship with the only true Excellence.  How do we guard against the former result?  How do we ensure that we are doing everything with excellence for the glory of God?  I think we must ask (at least) these questions:

1)   Is the work which we “set out to execute with excellence” actually aligned to God’s will?

2)   Is the excellence in our work characterized by humility?  Said another way, when we achieve, do we find ourselves on our knees before God more or less?

3)   When we do excellent work, are we conformed more into the likeness of Christ or do we seek the praises of men?  Said another way, does our excellence serve God or ourselves?

4)   Do we hold on loosely to our accomplishments, ultimately finding peace and satisfaction in God himself, or do we place our excellence in a display case and gaze at it proudly and longingly?

I will end this wandering post with words that are much more excellent than my own.  As is his custom, I think C.S. Lewis drives the fourth point home much better than I do (and in this excerpt from The Weight of Glory he is referring explicitly to beauty, not perfection, but I think in Philippians 4:8 terms the two are analogous):

“The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”