A while ago, I saw the below video of Mike Tyson being interviewed by a 14-year-old YouTuber. I think the quoted post above it accurately sums up why it is equal parts profound, absurd and hilarious. If you can’t cope with bad language (I think there is one swear word in it), skip on past it. If you won’t be scandalised, I recommend you watch before reading the rest.
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The entire interview revolves around the question: what type of legacy do you want to leave when you’re gone? From there, the whole thing is incredible. For the assumed answer is something great, profound, long lasting or just uplifting. But the given answer? A riff on the meaninglessness of the question, and of any assumed answer. Legacy is viewed as nothing more than hubris; in the end, says Tyson, we’re all dead, we’re all nothing, so who cares?
It is a strong contender for being among my favourite interview segments ever. It is up there for three main reasons. First, the head-on collision of the optimistic, bubble-gum outlook of a bright-eyed YouTuber and frank, directness of the absurdist philosophy that she clearly had no idea was coming her way. It is a wonder to behold. Second, the reaction of the girl is incredible. I cannot put it better than the comment over the video: ‘the teenager struggles to grasp the profundity of what she is hearing and the surrealism of what she is experiencing’. It is brilliant. Third, the way the girl tries to wrap up the interview with something, anything, remotely positive for her audience and – for a fantastic split second – clearly believes it is over (phew!) only for Tyson to reassert his key point: everything is meaningless, we’re all going to die and anybody who thinks legacy (or anything else, for that matter) means anything is fooling themselves in the way only the most egotistical fail to appreciate the reality of their fragility and their own absurdity.
But perhaps what I like most about it is what we can learn from it as believers. Tyson’s position on legacy is, indeed, the hard-nosed, brutally real logic of somebody who has grasped the reality of life without God. He may as well have ripped it from Ecclesiastes: ‘meaningless, utterly meaningless… Everything is meaningless’ or, if you prefer the CSB, ‘Absolute futility… Absolute futility. Everything is futile’. Talk of legacy, as Tyson notes, is just absurd on those terms. In the end, we’re all dead, we’re nothing, and who cares about legacy then?
But he taps into something even for those of us who do believe in God and for whom not everything is meaningless and futile. The Christian very much believes, to quote those paragons of philosophical thought, The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, this life is more than just a read through. What we do here and now does actually matter. Believers know there is more to this life and it isn’t just meaninglessness. And, frankly, unbelievers instinctively know it too because none of them actually live their lives as though that were true. Very few people live consistently with the belief that life truly means nothing and everything is mere vanity.
But where Tyson is quite right is that much talk of legacy – and so many are obsessed with their legacy – is nothing more than another word for ego. Whilst life is not ultimately meaningless, because God imbues it with real meaning and, therefore, how we live really matters, that belief is the very one that makes egocentricity and pride so obnoxious. If life were meaningless, who is to say that hubris and ego are really wrong, or even a problem? But because life isn’t meaningless, and we all know there are objective morals that we believe ought to govern everybody at least some of the time, we find ego, pride and arrogance so unappealing. It is obnoxious because God – who is the source of all goodness – finds it obnoxious.
Which brings me round to my own particular concern: why are so many Christians – particularly church pastors – so focused on legacy? What Tyson has to say about legacy is bang on. Not because life is meaningless, because it isn’t. Indeed, because life matters, how we live matters. Rather, because legacy is often just another word for ego and, meaningful as life is, we do all die and, after that, who really cares? Surely any legacy we may leave is irrelevant? What ever happened to ‘it’s all of Jesus’ and ‘all for the glory of God’? Those aren’t statements that affirm the meaningless of life, but push towards the meaninglessness of our legacy because – as I understand the Christian life – it’s not really about us at all, is it?
As Tyson famously said in another context: everybody has a plan until they’re punched in the face. So, let me try to land a fist in the face of our legacy-planning. Jesus built his church before you, he no doubt built his church in some way by using you too, and he’ll continue building his church after we’re gone. And the brute reality is, he would have also built his church just as well had we never even existed at all. In the face of that, our gospel work isn’t meaningless – it is valuable and full of meaning because Jesus calls us to do it for his glory – but our legacy…? Can any Christian really argue – without looking utterly hypocritical – that when they’re dead and gone they really want people to be harping on and harking back to them and their legacy? If it’s all about Jesus, don’t we want people to be speaking about him and not us? It’s hard not to think Tyson was right: we are nothing, who cares about you, you’re dead! But we don’t want to leave them with nothing; it’s just that, if we really are all about Christ and his gospel, we just don’t want to leave them with our name on their lips, but his.
If Mike Tyson is not spiritual enough for you (but, don’t knock him because, common grace and all that) why not try a bit of John the Baptist: he must increase, but I must decrease. What legacy was John after? That people would think nothing of him, he’s just the best man at the wedding, and if he impacted anybody at all it would be so that they don’t remember him, but focus and centre on Jesus. If you like your pithy modern prophetic words, Niklaus von Zinzendorf is your man: preach the gospel, die and be forgotten.
If the gospel really is what we’re about, if the name of Jesus really is the one we want glorified, on what planet does any legacy of ours matter? The only legacy of any importance is that of Jesus. If all praise and glory really is to go to him, if we really want it to go to him, our only legacy ought to be that we don’t really care if we have any legacy at all; we care only that Jesus is proclaimed and glorified. We are nothing, we are dust, in the end we’re dead, so who cares about your legacy? The only person we need to remember us is Jesus. The only legacy we ought to want to leave behind is not that people followed us, or valued our wonderful ministry or sing our praises. Such legacy really is just another word for ego. Rather, we want Jesus to leave a legacy and, if he is pleased to in any way use us to do it, all glory to him.
In the end, we all die and most of us are forgotten; it’s only not meaningless if we’re absolutely fine with that because it really was all for Jesus and the cause of his gospel. Our legacy really is meaningless. Most of us will preach the gospel, die and be forgotten. How absolutely and utterly content we are with that tells us just whether our talk of legacy is really just another word for ego.