Losers Keepers

Scriptures:     Exodus 3:1-15, Psalm 105:1-6, 23-26, 45

Romans 12:9-21,   Matthew 16:21-28

Our readings from Matthew’s gospel these past weeks have been a series of turning points in the ministry of Jesus.  Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite woman seeking healing for her daughter opened Jesus to see Gentiles as part of his mission field.  In last week’s Gospel reading, in a response to Jesus’ question “Who do you say that I am”, Peter responded, “You are the Messiah, the son of the living God.”  And in today’s reading, Peter – and we – learn what that role will mean for Jesus, and what following Jesus will mean for us.  And the implications are jaw-dropping.

Peter had just gotten a sort of gold star on his report card from Jesus.  Peter recognized Jesus as the Messiah, and Jesus said that called Peter “blessed”, and said that he would give Peter the keys to the kingdom of heaven.   At this point, we perhaps can’t blame Peter too much for wanting to pat himself on the back a bit.

But, alas, the moment passes.  While Peter is picturing himself with the key to the pearly gates, perhaps picturing all the people he wanted to lock out…..Jesus began to teach his disciples that he would go to Jerusalem, endure torture and execution, and on the third day rise again.  And Peter took Jesus aside and started to rebuke him.  “Hey Jesus, you’re harshing my mellow.  We don’t want to hear about torture and execution.  I just want to think about those keys to the kingdom you say you’re going to give me.  God won’t let all anything bad happen to you.  Don’t be such a gloomy Gus.  Chillax.”  But Jesus came right back at Peter:  “Get behind me, Satan, for you are a stumbling block to me.  You’re setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”  Geez, from being promised the keys to the kingdom of heaven to being called Satan…..poor Peter just can’t catch a break.  His head must have been spinning.

And then Jesus turned to the rest of the disciples and told them something quite remarkable:  “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.  Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.”  The word “lose” as in “lose one’s life” is actually a softened translation. The original Greek word apolese can be translated to mean “destroy”.  So we can read Jesus words as “Those who want to save their life will destroy it, and those who destroy their life for my sake will save it.”

I think we all have images in our head about what it is to destroy or ruin one’s life, or what a destroyed or ruined life looks like. These images may involve addiction to alcohol or opiates, to the point where the addict cannot manage the normal activities of life, and every waking thought focuses on getting another drink or another fix.  Or they may involve other forms of bondage – for example, to gambling.  Or occasionally we read of singers who have ruined their voices by oversinging and straining for volume or for notes that are out of their vocal range, or athletes whose careers are ruined by injuries.   Needless to say, these are all negative images.  But Jesus is inviting his followers to lose their lives – or more accurately to ruin or destroy their lives – for his sake.  What can he possibly mean? Why would he ask this?

We might start with a familiar image from Jesus’ parables:  imagine a seed.  It has the potential to bring forth a plant that’ll bear more fruit and more seeds.  But that seed has to be planted in the ground.  When the seed is in the ground, it’ll take in water from the ground, which will soften and loosen up the husk around the seed, and then roots will start poking out the bottom and shoots out the top. Before the plant can appear, the seed has to be ruined. If the seed had nerve endings, it would feel itself being torn apart from both ends at once.   The pain would be excruciating, unbearable.   Eventually the original seed more or less disappears – leaving something much greater behind in its place.   Or as Jesus said, if a seed goes into the ground and dies, it bears much fruit.  If it doesn’t, it just stays a seed, tiny, insignificant, ultimately meaningless.

The controversial 1988 film The Last Temptation of Christ may further help us understand Jesus’ words.  The film portrays a very human Jesus who is tempted in every way we are – by fear, doubt, lust.  His life’s journey leads to the cross.  But in the movie, while Jesus is on the cross, a young lady comes to him who claims to be his guardian angel, and who tells Jesus that God is pleased with him and wants him to be happy.  In the movie, she brings him down from the cross and takes him to Mary Magdalene, whom he marries….and he has children with her, and after Mary Magdalene dies, he marries the sisters Mary and Martha, has more children with them, and lives out his life in peace and relative comfort.  In the movie, in his old age, he meets with a few of his former disciples – and the last disciple to come to him is Judas, who tells him that the young woman who talked to him while he was on the cross was not a guardian angel at all, but Satan, and that the dream of a normal family life was not God’s will for Jesus, but temptation from the pit of hell. And Jesus begs God to let him return to the cross – and in that moment Jesus has won over temptation, and dies triumphant, having fulfilled his destiny.  And the movie ends…roll credits.

Again…it’s just a movie….all of this is just a movie….but the movie made a really important point.  In the movie, the last and most difficult- to-resist temptation for Jesus to resist wasn’t a temptation to become an ax murderer.  Rather, in the movie, the last and most difficult-to-resist temptation Jesus experienced was….a temptation to be just an ordinary person with an ordinary family life, at least ordinary for his time…a temptation to be less than God was calling him to be.   From a worldly standpoint, Jesus’ earthly ministry ruined any opportunity for an ordinary, normal, happy, comfortable life.  Jesus never married, never started a family, never owned property – he missed out all the things that would have meant success in his society.  He gave up all these things – destroyed his own life from a worldly standpoint – in order to do God’s will.  And we believe that Jesus triumphed over death – but that only makes sense when we look at it through the eyes of faith.  From a worldly human standpoint, Jesus was a failure, a flop.  From a worldly standpoint, Jesus’ life, especially by the end, looked like a dumpster fire.  And this is the invitation Jesus extends to us – to set aside anything that looks like a normal, average, comfortable life, to risk being seen by the world as failures, as flops, as human dumpster fires, in order to succeed on God’s terms in following God’s will.

This sounds dangerous, fanatical.  We may think of cults that ask their followers to leave their families and turn all their money over to the cult leader, and the followers eventually become like zombies, dark circles around their eyes from lack of sleep, unable to think for themselves, capable only of jumping when the cult leader snaps his fingers. 

 I have no intention of starting a cult.  You’re welcome.  (I’m not even sure what a cult of Dave would look like.  I’m not the neatest dresser in the world so….maybe everyone would have to leave their shirt-tail hanging out or something….that could be the cult uniform.  Given my respiratory problems, maybe fits of coughing could be the secret sign of recognition.)  I’d be a pathetic excuse for a cult leader, and so we’re not going to start a cult today.  But I am inviting us to look at our own lives, to see if our desire for comfort and predictability is keeping us sidelined, on the bench, when God is inviting us to get into the game.   I’m inviting us to ask whether God is calling us into the deep end of the pool, and we’re paddling around in the shallow end or hanging onto the side.  I’m inviting us to ask whether we are giving into temptation to be less than God is calling us to be.

What does it look like to find one’s life by losing it? Our Old Testament reading shows us Moses on the lam, having killed an Egyptian overseer, Moses was on the run from Pharoah.  He was tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro when he saw an apparition, a bush that burned but was not consumed.   He heard a voice call from the bush, sending Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt.  And Moses had a choice – he could have refused the call, could have gone back to tending his father-in-law’s flock.  He could have kept his old life.  And in fact Moses tried just that, and begged God to send someone else.   But had Moses persisted in refusing God, he would have missed out on the life to which God was calling him. Life with his father-in-law’s flock of sheep would have been a lot easier, much more predictable.  Life tending God’s flock of cranky Israelites in the wilderness for 40 years on their way from Egypt to the promised land wore Moses down, exhausted him, over and over again.  Moses had an exhausting life….but he also had a full life, because his purposes were joined with God’s purposes.  He left behind his life tending sheep, and found his true calling of leading people to freedom.

Franciscan monk and theologian Richard Rohr speaks of what he calls the false self, the ego-driven self with which we all begin life – the false self that sees ourselves as being separated from others, that feels constantly threatened by others, that is constantly driven to defend ourselves from others.  It’s a false self because it refuses to face its own brokenness and limitation.  Rohr says that we must leave this false self behind in order to embrace the true, larger self into which God calls us to live, a larger self that is connected to God, to other people, and to all of creation.  It’s all connected….we’re all connected, including to those people and situations that seemingly threaten us.  And the road to this larger self is paved with forgiveness and compassion.  We will find ourselves living into Paul’s words from our reading from Romans, will find ourselves acting in love toward our enemies, showing hospitality to the most inhospitable, and in that way winning others over to the ways of love.  In essence, Jesus calls us to get over ourselves – to get over our small, self-involved selves – so that we can become the larger selves that God is calling us to be. 

Those who would save their lives will lose them, and those who would lose their lives for my sake will save them.   Jesus is telling us it’s not finders keepers, but losers keepers, or maybe losers finders.  May we learn to loosen our hold on the things we think we cannot live without, so that our hands can be open to receive the things God knows we need.  May we learn to loosen our grip on who we think we are, so that we can live into the people God knows we can be.  Amen.