The Value of a Soul

To say that Jay Carty is an unusual communicator is a mild statement. Maybe a little nuts, would be more accurate. Not a preacher, not a teacher, more a storyteller with a very important message. Where some deep preachers are too snoozy for the rank and file, and where some humorists don’t have much to say, Jay’s stuff is generally regarded as an unusual blending of humor and profound content. A former Oregon state basketball star and LA Laker, Jay has dedicated his life to helping people say yes to God. Now, we hope you enjoy Carty’s Contemporary Classics.

I’ll tell you what life is worth. If you boil your parts down to its elements, you’re worth $7.93, on the average. I am worth a little bit more than you are. There’s a little bit more of me. If you’re a homemaker, insurance companies will insure you for a million five. That’s what you’re worth during the course of a lifetime to your family. If you’re a corporate executive, you’re worth up to seven million now. So life, in these United States, is worth 1.5 million to seven million, less $7.93.

But if you’re born female in China, in the outer provinces, you’re only allowed one child, they tend to hold out for a boy, so they kill the female until they get a son. So if you’re born female in the outer provinces of China, you’re not worth much, but you’re worth 1.5 million to seven million if you live in the United States.

What I’m trying to tell you is, life is like pork bellies. Supply and demand determine its value. Almost 70% of the population of the outer provinces are now male, and they’re trying to figure out, they’re going to have this massive fight now for wives. It’s going to be a sociological mess. If you’re born in India, well, you can’t kill the spider, might be your uncle. Can’t kill the ant, might be your aunt. They’re all worth the same. Rwanda, Haiti, wherever you got a lot of people and a lot of poverty, life’s not worth anything, right? But in the United States, you’re worth a million five, seven million. Am I right? Life is valued on a supply and demand basis. It’s also valued economically. If you’re born in Brown University on the East Coast, less than two pounds, they won’t save you, costs more to save you than you typically earn in your lifetime, so it’s not cost effective, they’ll let you die. You got to be more than two pounds.

Life is an economic consideration. It’s also a relationship issue. What’s your name? Mm-hmm. You’re not busted or anything, everything’s fine. You’re okay. What’s your name? Sharon. I have a daughter about your age, and you’re terrific. You got a good smile while I’m speaking, and I just, I like you. I just picked, I said, “You know, I like her. She’s likable.” You got a good smile, but Sharon, I like my daughter more than you. Do you like your dad more than me? Yeah. All right. See, I understand that. If you and my daughter were walking across the street together, Sharon, and a dump truck broke loose, and there’s only time to save one of you. You’re dead meat, Sharon.

And I’m thrilled to give you a few days of my life, thrilled, but I wouldn’t trade my daughter for you, because she’s my daughter. You understand? You wouldn’t trade your dad for me. We understand each other, right? There was a family, a junior high boy picking on his elementary school sister. Next scene, he steps off the curb, car hits him. Next scene, in the hospital, doctors consulting the parents, “Your son has a very rare blood type. His sister has that blood type. We don’t have any in the hospital. We’ve sent for some, but we have to have a transfusion to maintain his life until the blood gets here. We need a transfusion from the sister.” They go to the sister, she thinks about the brother picking on her and says, “Let me think about it.” She’s elementary school. Finally, she says, “Okay.”

Next scene, two gurneys side by side, red tube connecting the two. And after a little while, the girl gets a perplexed look on her face and sits up and says, “When do I die?” She thought she had to give all her blood to her brother, and it took her a minute to think about that. There’s the bus on the cliff, right? Teetering on the edge. You got time for one trip in. Your kids are in the second seat. You got two kids in the second seat on the right as you come in. There’s the driver, there’s two other people’s kids, and there’s your two kids. You got one trip. The bus is going to flop over the… Do you pass up the easier rescue of somebody else’s kids to get your two kids? Yes. Absolutely. Without question. You save your two kids and you watch the bus go over the edge, and you’re really sorry you couldn’t save everybody else’s, but at least you got yours. Am I right? Life is valued on the basis of supply and demand, economic considerations and relationship. You’ll pay more for someone you love. Right?

How about potential and productivity? Take Billy Graham over some puke of a Hell’s Angel, huh? Huh? I’m just telling you, if I had to make a choice between the two, they’re both going to go to hell, now which one are you going to save? Which one’s going to change mankind, and which is going to be a drain on it? Let him go to hell, I’m saving him. I mean, if I got to make the call, am I wrong on that one? You going to pick Billy? I’m picking Billy. Make it Mother Teresa and a Hell’s Angel, I don’t care what you do, but won’t you make choices on the basis of potential and productivity? You will, won’t you? I do. Am I right? Okay.

Did Christ die on the basis of any variables? Does God love on the basis of any variables? Well then, which lasts longer, a life or a soul? Which one did Christ die for? Which one has infinitely more value? But we don’t believe it. I’m going to prove it to you. There’s a car crash, woman’s pinned in the car. It’s on the freeway. You’re driving by first on the scene, carburetor flares. You know in two minutes, the car will be engulfed in flame. You know that’s going to happen. You know that’s going to happen, you put that together. No jaws of death here to get her out. You’ve got to somehow reach in there, clear that steering wheel, get her out of that, and drag her through that window. Now, you’ve got to do that or she’s going to burn right in front of you. You know that, you’ve put that together. Do you get more panicked as the fire gets a little bigger? Why? You know she’s going to die, right?

My Bible tells me my nice friends who don’t know Jesus will spend eternity separated from him. Now, my Bible tells me that. Why don’t I have the same passion for my neighbor as I would have for the woman in the car? Because I know she’s going to die, I’m not sure hell’s real. I’m in denial on the place. I’m going to need your help on this one. Star Trek II: The Wrath of…

Khan.

For those of you who missed it, say it one more time.

Khan.

Khan. He’s in the disabled ship, he’d had a fight with Captain James…

Kirk.

T. Kirk, now Admiral of the Starship…

Enterprise.

Kirk has won again. Oh, Khan hates Kirk. He’s his nemesis. He just can’t beat him. He just can’t beat him. Everything’s shot up in the ship that Khan’s on, and the Enterprise has lost warp drive, but it still has impulse power. But Khan has the Genesis device. If he pushes the button, four minutes, an explosion that creates a planet and a shockwave that’s so huge it will engulf the Enterprise and kill everyone because they don’t have warp drive, they can’t outrun the shockwave with impulse power. The engine room of the Enterprise is filled with radiation, and anyone who would go in there would die even before they could fix it. That is anyone who has red blood. But Spock’s blood isn’t red, it’s…

Green.

Green because he’s a…

Vulcan.

A Vulcan. No time to argue, he runs down from the bridge, goes in the engine room, and on the other side of the plexiglass wall is the radiation that will kill him, and we don’t have a problem with that. Everybody knows that plexiglass holds in radiation. He goes inside, he starts working on the warp drive. He’s getting radiation sores, groveling, sniveling, he’s dying. The Genesis device explodes. Khan is vaporized. He doesn’t care, as long as he can nuke Kirk, he doesn’t mind dying. Here comes the shockwave. Spock fixes the warp drive, Kirk shifts it into warp and patches out ahead of the shockwave, and everybody’s safe.

Kirk puts two and two together. He runs down to the engine room. There’s Spock dying on the other side of the plexiglass wall. Spock holds up his hand, pushes it against the wall, and he says, “Live long and…”

Prosper.

Kirk puts up his hand and pushes it against the wall and says, “Prosper and live long.” It’s an almost touching moment. And then Kirk asked him, “Why’d you do it?” And Spock gave him a military answer, because he’s a Vulcan, he’s logical. You understand? And although he has emotions, he’s in perfect control of them, so he appears to be emotionless. He says, “Captain, when it comes to life and death, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” Kirk adds, “Or the one,” meaning Spock had just spent his life to save everybody else. So it’s a military response. You can understand, if you’re the general, you got 200 men at risk, you got to spend two soldiers to save 200. It’s an easy call. Kill the two. It’s easy call unless you’re one of the two.

End of the movie is really hokey. Scotty played bagpipes, Amazing Grace. It wasn’t good. They cleaned the innards out of a photon torpedo and stuffed Spock’s body in it, sealed it and shot him down to the Genesis planet, and mercifully, the movie ended. But then you got Star Trek III: In Search of…

Spock.

All the Trekkies are on this side of the room. There are no Trekkies on this side of the room. Kirk is in his condo in San Francisco, outside of Federation Headquarters. It takes a lot more makeup to make him look young. What’s a similarity between a ski slope and Kirk’s face? 10 inches of base, two inches of powder. There’s a knock on the door and it’s Sarek. Sarek is Spock’s father. Spock is half Vulcan, half human. Sarek is a full-blooded Vulcan ambassador to the Federation from the planet Vulcan, a highly respected man. And you need to know that never, never I tell you, never in the course of recorded history, never has a Vulcan ever told a lie. Now, if a Vulcan tells you something and they’ve never told a lie in the course of history, don’t you think you can believe a Vulcan? Yeah.

So they have this conversation. I’m paraphrasing for the sake of time.

“Why’d you do it?”

“Why’d I do what?”

“Why’d you bury my kid on the Genesis planet?”

“Died there, seemed like a good place to bury him.”

“Didn’t he tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“He would’ve told someone. It’s too important.”

“What?”

“He would’ve told.”

“He didn’t tell me. What? What are you talking about?”

Actually, he had told McCoy through a Vulcan mind-meld and nobody knew, and if you don’t know what I’m talking about, it doesn’t matter.

“Listen, Vulcans have to be returned to the planet. If we’re not returned to the planet, we spend eternity in a timeless void, your Earth equivalent of hell. That’s why there’s so few Vulcans in Starfleet, because if we leave our planet, we risk being lost at space or destroyed in space and spending eternity in hell. So, quite frankly, Spock would never have died, allowed himself to have gone down to the Genesis planet, because he would’ve condemned himself to hell. He would’ve told somebody to return his body to Vulcan. Now, who’d he tell?”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Vulcans don’t kid.”

“I know. You’re always so serious all the time.”

Did Kirk believe him? Well, I can tell you whether or not he believed him by what he did, not by what he said, right? So he goes to Federation Headquarters. He said, “Listen, Spock’s in hell, we got to get him out. I need to borrow the Enterprise.” Said, “I’m sorry. It’s a violation of church and state, you can’t have it.”

So goes to his friend. “Listen, Spock’s in hell.”

“What do you mean Spock’s in hell?”

“Sarek told me.”

“Sarek? He’s a Vulcan.”

“Yeah, that’s right. Vulcans never tell… Never. What do you think, he’s lying now? What do you think? Well, no, if they’ve never lied, he wouldn’t be lying now. Right? Well Spock must be in hell.” So they risk court martial, dishonor, death, they, they put it all on the line. They fight Klingon, and try this on for size, Kirk’s son is killed by a Klingon.

And when it was over, they asked Kirk, they said, “Why’d you let your son die like that?” He said, “Pretty sure my son’s soul was okay.” We didn’t have enough information to know that, but Kirk thought his son’s soul was okay. And as long as his son’s soul was okay, he knew Spock’s soul wasn’t okay, and it took the life of his son to save the soul of his friend, as long as his son’s soul was okay. Kirk said, “Tough call, but it’s the only call. Let’s do it.” The end of the movie, they asked him, “Why’d you do it?” He said, “When it comes to eternity, the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many.”

If it’s life and death, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one, but when it’s eternity, the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many, and you don’t want to get your theology from the movies. That’s pretty dangerous, but we’re about to make Gene Roddenberry roll over in his grave, because all of a sudden, I understood the parable, the 99 sheep and one. I never understood it. Let me tell you why. Ron, I’m a big sheep man. I need someone to take care of a hundred sheep. I’m going on vacation. I’m running out of time. So just tell me, yes, you’ll do it. Okay. Here’s the deal. One of those stupid sheep wanders off, you know how they are sometimes, don’t leave the 99. I mean, you might not find the one. What would I have when I came back? I don’t know. Rustlers, wolves, coyotes, whatever. I don’t know.

Maybe the one will come back, maybe it won’t. But when I come back vacation, if I at least have 99, I’m happy and I’m going to pay you and you’ll be fine. Do you understand? Do not leave the flock for one stupid sheep. Will you do that? All right. Does that make sense to you? Huh? All right. Well, let me read this to you. It’s Matthew 18, verse 12. What do you think? If any man has a hundred sheep and one of them’s gone astray, doesn’t he leave the 99 on the mountains and go and search for the one that’s straying? Not me. No way, stupid sheep. I’m not going to risk 99 sheep for one stupid sheep. You got to be kidding me. And if it turns out that he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over more than the 99 which have not gone astray. Are you kidding? I may kill it just to make sure it doesn’t do it again.

Minimally, I will break its leg. A shepherd would take a sheep that wanders, break its leg, set it, throw it over his shoulder, and carry it until the leg mended. The heartbeat of the shepherd would so bond itself with the sheep, it would never again leave its side. So minimally, I’d break its leg and I might kill it just because it’s a pain. Thus, it is not the will of your father in heaven that one of these little one perished. The only way that makes any sense, the 99 are born again. Their souls are okay, and the one is not. Its soul is not okay. And God said, if it takes 99 lives of souls are okay to save one soul that’s not okay, that’s a very good trade. You have the principle permission.

We hope that you enjoyed this week’s installment of Carty’s Contemporary Classics. We’ll join Jay next week for a continuation of his laugh-inducing, and thought-provoking insights. Until then, you can catch up on Jay’s and many other encouraging and instructive podcasts at The E-Squared Media Network, at www.etwomedianetwork.com.