Jesus Is For Losers--February 18, 2020
"Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it." [Matthew 10:39]
You've probably heard before the quote of billionaire and mogul Ted Turner, who once (in)famously said, "Christianity is a religion for losers."
He meant it as an insult, of course (most people do when they use the word "loser"). But I don't think anyone who wasn't already a follower of Jesus ever put it quite so correctly. Ours is a faith--at least when we are faithful to the way of Jesus--that is all about losing... and then about how we discover that losing, even to the point of giving our lives away, is the way we find ourselves found and our lives raised up to glory. We aren't accidental losers, or losers in spite of Jesus--we are called to be losers precisely because of Jesus. And to take it just a step further, we're only supposed to be "losers" because Jesus modeled it first in his own grand losing on a Roman execution stake that becomes the prelude to his resurrection anthem.
We're called to be losers, because we follow after King Jesus, the Greatest Loser of them all.
We just can't get away from this upside-down-sounding logic, because it's not just in a single verse, or a single passage in the Bible. This notion of surrendering your life in order to receive the life-that-really-is-life is woven throughout Jesus' words, life, and gospel message, and the whole rest of the New Testament, too. Jesus gives himself away every step of the way that leads up to the cross--not just at Calvary. Jesus' whole life was and is oriented toward offering up all of himself for the sake of bringing life all around him, rather than clutching onto it for himself, and that was true when he was healing people at the shore, sitting at table with unlikely companions, teaching disciples who just didn't get it, or washing the feet of his betrayer, just as much as it was true when he was nailed to a cross. Jesus spent his whole life losing himself--and at the very same time, truly finding himself and the meaning of his life. And in that way, we are called to be losers just the same.
So when we read these words of Jesus about "losing your life for his sake," let's be clear that it doesn't require your heart to stop--just that our orientation turns from being bent inward all about "Me and My Group First" toward letting God bring life to all around us, through us and outward to all the world. We don't have to get killed by the Romans or stoned by an angry mob to do that. You and I can give ourselves away--we can "lose" ourselves, so to speak--and as we do so, we discover we are more fully in tune with what life was all about all along. We become more fully alive precisely at the point where we loosen our grip on our lives, or as Jesus says it, we find our lives precisely in the act of losing them.
Maybe there is always something bittersweet about letting go of our selves, our time, our energy, and our love. Maybe it always feels like the ABBA song that the things we treasure most are "slipping through our fingers all the time." But maybe that is simply how love works--to live our lives oriented in love means that we give of ourselves to others, knowing they will grow up or move on, knowing we may love them to their last breath or to our own, knowing that we will give ourselves away for their sake, and knowing that sometimes they will not be aware of the costs we have endured for the chance to love them. Maybe we are worried as we give ourselves away that we will become empty trying to fill up other people, or saddened to think that those we love most deeply are meant to grow up or grow old, and we will only get the chance to walk with them for a part of the road before our paths take us in different directions. But it seems to me that the most honest thing we can do is to recognize that is the nature of how love works, and that we can either acknowledge it and choose to live our lives, like Jesus, oriented toward love... or we can pretend that we can control and clutch and hold onto things just the way we want them forever, only to be disappointed later on when it doesn't work. So, yes, maybe to live the love of Jesus will mean that even our own lives are "slipping through our fingers all the time," but maybe that is exactly what you are suppose to do with life. You can't grab a handful of water from the ocean and expect it to stay in your palm forever to possess and control, but you can experience the sheer joy and delight of letting the water pass through your fingers and down back to the shore. Maybe that feeling--of letting the water flow--is exactly what it feels like to be truly and fully alive. And maybe, just maybe, that is what Jesus has been daring us into all along.
Ted Turner didn't know how right he was--we Christians are at our best when we are losers. Just like Jesus. It just turns out that losing ourselves is the way God makes us most fully alive, too.
Lord Jesus, let us lose ourselves and be found in you, just as you gave yourself away and rose to abundant, overflowing life.
He meant it as an insult, of course (most people do when they use the word "loser"). But I don't think anyone who wasn't already a follower of Jesus ever put it quite so correctly. Ours is a faith--at least when we are faithful to the way of Jesus--that is all about losing... and then about how we discover that losing, even to the point of giving our lives away, is the way we find ourselves found and our lives raised up to glory. We aren't accidental losers, or losers in spite of Jesus--we are called to be losers precisely because of Jesus. And to take it just a step further, we're only supposed to be "losers" because Jesus modeled it first in his own grand losing on a Roman execution stake that becomes the prelude to his resurrection anthem.
We're called to be losers, because we follow after King Jesus, the Greatest Loser of them all.
We just can't get away from this upside-down-sounding logic, because it's not just in a single verse, or a single passage in the Bible. This notion of surrendering your life in order to receive the life-that-really-is-life is woven throughout Jesus' words, life, and gospel message, and the whole rest of the New Testament, too. Jesus gives himself away every step of the way that leads up to the cross--not just at Calvary. Jesus' whole life was and is oriented toward offering up all of himself for the sake of bringing life all around him, rather than clutching onto it for himself, and that was true when he was healing people at the shore, sitting at table with unlikely companions, teaching disciples who just didn't get it, or washing the feet of his betrayer, just as much as it was true when he was nailed to a cross. Jesus spent his whole life losing himself--and at the very same time, truly finding himself and the meaning of his life. And in that way, we are called to be losers just the same.
So when we read these words of Jesus about "losing your life for his sake," let's be clear that it doesn't require your heart to stop--just that our orientation turns from being bent inward all about "Me and My Group First" toward letting God bring life to all around us, through us and outward to all the world. We don't have to get killed by the Romans or stoned by an angry mob to do that. You and I can give ourselves away--we can "lose" ourselves, so to speak--and as we do so, we discover we are more fully in tune with what life was all about all along. We become more fully alive precisely at the point where we loosen our grip on our lives, or as Jesus says it, we find our lives precisely in the act of losing them.
Maybe there is always something bittersweet about letting go of our selves, our time, our energy, and our love. Maybe it always feels like the ABBA song that the things we treasure most are "slipping through our fingers all the time." But maybe that is simply how love works--to live our lives oriented in love means that we give of ourselves to others, knowing they will grow up or move on, knowing we may love them to their last breath or to our own, knowing that we will give ourselves away for their sake, and knowing that sometimes they will not be aware of the costs we have endured for the chance to love them. Maybe we are worried as we give ourselves away that we will become empty trying to fill up other people, or saddened to think that those we love most deeply are meant to grow up or grow old, and we will only get the chance to walk with them for a part of the road before our paths take us in different directions. But it seems to me that the most honest thing we can do is to recognize that is the nature of how love works, and that we can either acknowledge it and choose to live our lives, like Jesus, oriented toward love... or we can pretend that we can control and clutch and hold onto things just the way we want them forever, only to be disappointed later on when it doesn't work. So, yes, maybe to live the love of Jesus will mean that even our own lives are "slipping through our fingers all the time," but maybe that is exactly what you are suppose to do with life. You can't grab a handful of water from the ocean and expect it to stay in your palm forever to possess and control, but you can experience the sheer joy and delight of letting the water pass through your fingers and down back to the shore. Maybe that feeling--of letting the water flow--is exactly what it feels like to be truly and fully alive. And maybe, just maybe, that is what Jesus has been daring us into all along.
Ted Turner didn't know how right he was--we Christians are at our best when we are losers. Just like Jesus. It just turns out that losing ourselves is the way God makes us most fully alive, too.
Lord Jesus, let us lose ourselves and be found in you, just as you gave yourself away and rose to abundant, overflowing life.
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