What's Wrong with the Five-Closest-People Mentality?
Thinking with Jesus about the people closest to us
“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.
“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
I wrote about this passage last week. But it’s worth considering a bit more, because it illuminates how Jesus’s vision of our relationships cuts against the grain of today’s popular wisdom.
It’s commonly said that “you’re the sum of the five people closest to you.” The phrase appears to have been coined by motivational speaker Jim Rohn, but Tim Ferriss’s extraordinary influence on Internet culture has renewed the popularity of the phrase.
The idea is that you should pay attention to who you surround yourself with, because they’re shaping you. Surely an uncontroversial statement. But in our utilitarian age, when everyone is trying to maximize their own lives and become “the greatest version of themselves,” the phrase is being interpreted much more selfishly: from “be attentive to who you’re spending time with,” the statement has come to mean “if you don’t have five rockstars in your own entourage, you’re going to fail to become great yourself.”
What a calculating, self-serving way to live! Jesus’s path is very different: he agrees that the people around us shape us, but knows that the reverse is just as true. We shape those around us, too.
And rather than ask how we can ingratiate ourselves to five great people so that we can become great, too, Jesus asks us to start by asking how we can be salt and light to those who are already near us.
The point of following Jesus is new life. Central to that new life as Jesus sees it is to bring it to others, too. As he says elsewhere,
“Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
Or again,
“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
Jesus’s invitations to follow him are open to anyone who hears him. Despite the fact that he was a brilliant student, he rejected the major educational institution and credentials of his time, becoming a carpenter in a provincial town instead. The people closest to him were mostly poor, unimpressive fishermen. He mostly taught the masses, not the influential.
The five-closest-people rule would suggest that he was going nowhere, and really needed to improve the quality of his inner circle. Despite all this, his life & teaching changed the world.
Who are the five people closest to you? How do they shape you? How do you shape them?
Who is one person close to you that you could encourage this week? How could you lift that person up?