It's a funny thing about humility
as soon as you know you're being humble,
you're no longer humble
it's a funny thing about life
you've got to give up your life to be alive
you've got to suffer to know compassion
you can't want nothing if you want satisfaction
it's a funny thing about love
the harder you try to be loved,
the less lovable you are
it's a funny thing about pride,
when you're being proud
you should be ashamed
you find only pain if you seek after pleasure
you work like a slave if you seek after leisure
Some wise words there from the singer-songwriter, T. Bone Burnett, which quote one of the things that Jesus said in today’s Gospel reading (Mark 8: 31-end). Whoever loses his life will find it or you’ve got to give up your life to be alive.
Much of what we do in life is actually about saving our own lives – all the time that we spend thinking about our comfort, security and pleasure and all the time we spend accumulating money and possessions for ourselves. We all do it because it is our normal way of life – scientists such as Richard Dawkins explain that we are born with selfish genes that get us ready to live in a world that is about the survival of the fittest while the Bible speaks about being slaves to sin and doing the things we hate. In different ways, the same thing is being said; that our gut instinct is to look out for ourselves, to look after No. 1.
Jesus turns that way of thinking on its head by saying those who want to save their lives will lose them and that those who lose their lives will save them. He fleshes out that thought by asking does a person gain anything if he wins the whole world but loses his life. We think immediately of the story Jesus told about a farmer with a bumper harvest which he immediately stored so that he could live off it in plenty for the rest of his life and who then died that same night without enjoying any of it. That story was told again in our newspapers a few years ago in the story of a man who had a special coffin built so that he could be buried together with his collection of pornographic magazines. What use they will be to him as both the magazines and his body decay is anyone’s guess!
So, seeking to save your own life doesn’t help you when you are faced with death and it doesn’t deliver what it promises in life either. Since the Second World War, economists tell us that in this country our GDP (or Gross Domestic Product) has shot up by leaps and bounds while the happiness of the population has stagnated. Despite economic growth, happiness in the West has not grown in the last 50+ years. All that seeking after material pleasures and possessions, all that looking after No. 1, is not actually making any of us any happier. As Jesus said, whoever wants to save his own life will lose it.
If Jesus is right about that half of the equation, then maybe he’s also right about the other; you've got to give up your life to be alive. After all, that is what he did for each one of us by going to the cross. He gave up his own life in order that we could get out of slavery to sin and really live. This is what he began to teach his disciples at the beginning of today’s Gospel reading; “The Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected … He will be put to death but three days later he will rise to life.”
Peter was like us he couldn’t see it. It sounded like Jesus had got things all the wrong way round. Peter didn’t want Jesus to die and so he rebuked him. But it was Jesus who actually understood the right way of living life – that we come alive when we give ourselves away – and so he rejected Peter’s arguments as coming from the Devil himself.
What is life like when we give ourselves away? What is life like when we lose our life for Jesus and the Gospel? One way of thinking about those questions might be to look online for the Church of England’s 'Love Life Live Lent' booklets. These are a past Lent initiative but the booklets are still available. The initiative was based on the idea of Lent as a time to step back from daily life and think about bigger things. The Live Lent Booklets help us turn towards God's love and kingdom. The booklets help us change the world for the better during Lent one small action at a time!
They do so by giving fifty suggestions for actions people can take during Lent, including ideas for environmental conservation and improving personal relationships. They encourage us to reject consumerism and materialism and instead embrace generosity and kindness, for example by leaving money in shopping trolleys, giving people hugs, giving up a place to someone who is in rush in traffic or a queue and doing chores for others.
The booklet was originally produced by the Diocese of Birmingham where 70,000 copies were given out. Commending the booklets Archbishop John Sentamu said; “I would urge as many people as possible to join in with the proposed programme of generous actions that encourage kindness to ourselves, our neighbours and our planet. Recent research has shown that generosity is a key ingredient in making neighbourhoods flourish and I think this Lent programme could help us become a more generous church – individually and as the body of Christ. The programme will not be easy but it will be fun and I am sure it will start to change our lives as God calls us onward in a corporate pilgrimage of faith, transforming us and building his kingdom of love, peace and justice.”
Living life by giving yourself away, by losing your life, is a wonderful thing. There is nothing to be ashamed of in a lifestyle like that. It makes sense in a world where the problems caused by a ‘me first’ attitude are becoming all too apparent. It is about really loving life and living it to the full by overflowing with generosity and kindness. It is to follow in Jesus’ footsteps, to live out his new way of being human, and to make an evolution against evolution. “If anyone wants to come with me,” Jesus said, “he must forget self, carry his cross, and follow me.” We have often thought about that in terms of self-denial but what ‘Love Life Live Lent’ helps us see is that it is actually about generosity, giving ourselves away. If you are not sure whether you can make that change wholesale, why not look at the booklet, try out some of the suggestions for a day at a time and see if they don’t seriously affect you and the world we live in.
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T. Bone Burnett - Trap Door.
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