Carrot or Stick

Finding motivation in our spiritual life

01/24/2021

Mark 1:14-20 After John had been arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God: “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.” As he passed by the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting their nets into the sea; they were fishermen. Jesus said to them, “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Then they abandoned their nets and followed him. He walked along a little farther and saw James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John. They too were in a boat mending their nets. Then he called them. So they left their father Zebedee in the boat along with the hired men and followed him.

What motivates you more: the carrot or the stick; the fear of punishment or the hope of reward? An eleven year-old Jewish boy was failing math. His parents tried everything from tutors to hypnosis; but to no avail. Finally, a family friend suggested they enroll their son in a Catholic school. After the first day, the boy’s parents were surprised when he walked in after school with a focused and firm expression on his face. He went right to his room and quietly closed the door. For nearly two hours he toiled away – with math books strewn about his desk and the floor. He emerged only to eat, and after quickly cleaning his plate, went straight back to his room, and worked until bedtime.

This pattern of behavior continued day after day, until it was time for the first quarter’s report card. The boy walked in with it unopened, laid it on the dinner table, and went straight to his room. Cautiously, his mother opened it and, to her amazement, she saw a large letter “A” under the subject of Math. Overjoyed, she and her husband rushed into their son’s room, and the father asked: “What did it? Was it the nuns? Was it the one-to-one tutoring? Was it the textbooks? The teachers?” The boy answered: “No, none of that. On that first day, when I walked in the front door and saw that guy nailed to the plus sign, I knew they meant business.” That’s why all children should attend Catholic schools: “we mean business.”

This age old question about how to motivate people plagues not only parents and professors but also God. Throughout the Scriptures God also resorts to the carrot and the stick. The Old Testament was time for the stick. In the first reading from Jonah, how does God motivate the Ninevites to convert from their wicked ways? Jonah prophesies: “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed.” Did the stick of destruction moves people? You bet it did because we read: “The people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast and all of them, great and small, put on sackcloth.” Like the little Jewish boy in his math class who saw “the guy nailed to the plus sign,” and fear forced him to study, so the people were motivated by the stick that God might destroy them.

With the dawn of the New Testament, however, God shifts gears and uses the carrot approach instead. We see an exquisite example of this when Jesus calls his first disciples. Our Lord invites them to follow him, saying, “Come after me, and I will make your fishers of men.” What was their reaction? “They abandoned their nets and followed him.” In other words, the apostles were motivated to leave their former lives by the carrot of becoming “fishers of men.” They were eager to reap the reward.

Have you noticed how both the carrot and the stick motivate us throughout our lives? Think back on the presidential election last November. Both parties tried to make it seem like the country would collapse if the other candidate was elected. The “stick of fear” caused record turn out of Democrats and Republicans. Sometimes we go on a retreat and we bite the carrot of faith and friendships motivating us to go to daily Mass, read the bible, volunteer in a soup kitchen. But that religious fervor fades after a few weeks. Before a serious surgery we pray devoutly and take God very seriously because we don’t want to die. The stick of death moves us all to pray, for “there are no atheists in foxholes.”

But I would suggest to you that both the carrot and the stick are ultimately adolescent approaches to motivation, especially in the spiritual life. Teenagers respond to rewards and punishments. Instead, our motivation should be love: love of God and love of neighbor. Love moves the more mature. In other words, the reason we go to Mass is not because of fear of the stick of a mortal sin (though missing Mass is); rather, we go to Mass because we love God and don’t want to miss the chance to tell him so.

The reason pray is not because we fear the “stick of guilt” when we don’t pray, or others are watching and we desire the “carrot of their admiration.” No. We pray even when no one is watching because we love God and want to spend time with him. We don’t give in the church collection so we get the “carrot of a tax-deduction.” We give because we love the Church and want to support her life and mission, and build the Kingdom of God.

Some wives tell their husbands: “I don’t want you to say you love me because I complain that you never say it. I want you to say you love me because you WANT to say it.” There’s a lot of truth in that old adage: men use love in order to get sex, while women use sex in order to get love. But that is still an adolescent approach. Mature love does not depend on the hope of a reward or the fear of a punishment, but on love alone.

My friends, we will only achieve the height of spiritual manhood and womanhood (cf. Eph. 4:13) when we leave behind the adolescent motivation of even the carrot of heaven or the stick of hell. Only then do we discover something called “perfect contrition,” that is, the desire to do good moved by love alone. The Catechism teaches: “When it arises from a love by which God is loved above all else, contrition is called ‘perfect’” (no. 1452). In other words, we love God more than we desire heaven or dread hell. We will probably always feel mixed motives in all we do – both the carrot of reward and the stick of punishment. And that is okay. But the best motivation is love alone. And that is what the “Guy on the plus sign” is really trying to teach us.

Praised be Jesus Christ!