Proper 17

Preparation

Please begin by reading Matthew 16:21-28 in your Bible. If you do not have one at hand, we have provided the text for you at the end of this reflection.

Reflection--Life Saving 101

This rich passage includes Jesus’ description of a contradiction in a life of Christian discipleship:  “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

The English translation of this verse may be a little misleading.  The word translated twice as “life” is the Greek word psyche.  One commentator says that this word, “often translated ‘soul,’ means ‘life,’ ‘life principle,’ and for Matthew is not an immortal ‘part’ of human being, but is the true self, the living self.  Those who seek to preserve their lives by living selfishly end up actually forfeiting themselves . . . .”

This really gets to the heart of things.  We twenty-first century people always seem to be taking our psychic temperature, trying to discover who we really are and how we are personally doing.  It is a part of our modern Western culture.  Some, whose psyches have been battered by life, need internal examination and “looking out for number one” for a time in order to heal so that they can get on with life.  However, if that becomes a lifetime habit the true self and real fulfillment that we struggle so hard to search for will always be just out of reach.

Jesus calls us in another direction.  Jesus knows that the way to finding the real purpose of our existence is not playing it safe in concern for ourselves, something Peter urged him to do here.  Jesus asks us what good we have really done for ourselves if we gain everything the world has to offer (and that our culture tells us in hundreds of ways every day that we should want) if we loose our true selves, what God made us to be, in the process.

Let me be clear that I believe that Jesus' call to cross carrying is not a call to a life of misery.  The real “cross” Jesus would have us take up is seldom “hair shirt” self denial.  Often that too is a road concerned mostly with self.  It can easily lead to a paralyzing preoccupation with examination of one’s self and the purity of one’s motives.  At its worst, it can lead to a kind of “look at how noble and sacrificial I am” self righteousness.  Jesus’ call is not to “save our lives” through either self indulgence or a showy self denial.  Instead Jesus calls us to reorient our lives and our focus outward.  It is only when we give ourselves away in service as Jesus did, letting God's love flow through us to others without preoccupation with the cost or thoughts of our own nobility, that we begin to discover our true inner lives and true fulfillment.  This is the role that God calls us to.

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Matthew 16:21-28

From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.

And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, "God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you."

But he turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things."

Then Jesus told his disciples, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.

For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.

For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?

"For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done.

Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."  

 [NRSV]