The value of a life

We sometimes speak about the rich and famous in terms of what they are worth in dollars. This is how we quantify the worth of their person. This is their value in societal terms. I heard about an exchange between a curious inquirer and the accountant of a recently departed multi-millionaire. The enquirer asked, “How much did he leave behind when he died?” The accountant replied simply, “Everything.”

‘What is the value of a human life?’ that is what I have been asking myself. What makes a person valuable or un-valuable? Do we determine our own value or do others? And what makes a person who they are? What defines them? What qualities that a person has makes them worthwhile or a waste of time, a waste of money, a waste of space?

Where can her value be found? In which part of her anatomy? Is it in her beautiful face or in her shapely curves? If we can see more of her beauty does this increase her value? I saw a woman shopping for her food in a see-through blouse, parading her underwear for everyone to see. Did she think that by this display she could make herself more desirable, more valuable?

When a perpetrator is convicted of murder we incarcerate him for 20 years, we restrict his freedom of movement and reduce his quality of life. This is his punishment for his heinous crime and also the value we have attributed to a life-light which was snuffed out forever. 20 years of restricted movement, 20 years of reduced privileges, a jail sentence reduced for “extenuating circumstances”.

Or maybe if one of us should die we could try and calculate what our contribution to the family has been. We could calculate our value in bread-winning terms and we could reimburse the family for the life that they have lost. We could derive complex mathematical formulas based on the number of our years and the type of employment we have had and somehow calculate the value of our families loss.

When a person walks off of the street into a medical institution needing medical care, what should we check first? Should we first check the extent of their injuries or the circumstances in which they live? What is more important, their well-being or their economic viability?

Who should we help anyway? Which candidates are most eligible for our care? What about the ones with no valid passport or permanent address, are they worth less? We have always discriminated according to our kind, according to our class, culture or race. So is our value determined by familiarity? ‘The more I know you, the more you are worth’?

I think Jesus got it right. He showed us our true value. You cannot pay for a life. You cannot buy it. The value of even one life is incalculable, its invaluable. It doesn’t matter where a person comes from or how beautiful I think they are. Worth is not determined by how much a person earns or whether they have a passport. Society cannot determine a persons worth by how much they contribute to the economy of their family or their country. But unfortunately we do, all the time. When a human life is lost it is irreplaceable, it is an insult if we try.

A person is not just as valuable as we think they are or what we tell them they are. In the same way that a R200 note gets its value from the government department who made it and set its value, each of us have a creator who determines our worth. We may be tattered or dirty, maybe even torn, but we bare the stamp of the image of our creator.

Pity the fool who judges what I am worth or what you are worth by any other standard because Jesus has shown us what it will cost to redeem back a life which has been stolen, lost or killed. It was not 20 years in jail or a cheque worth a few million rand. It cost the price of God’s only son. That is our worth. Each one of us. Because God said so.