“For what will I it profit them if they gain the whole
world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?”
(Matthew
16:26)
I
guess my favorite Christmas movie—and one of my favorite movies of all time for
many reasons—is It’s a Wonderful Life. That old Frank Capra chestnut
makes me a little bit sad in spite of its happy ending. Poor George Baily has
always wanted adventure ever since he was a kid reading National Geographic.
He wants his shot at traveling the world and seeing and doing things which are
far outside the realm of his small hometown. Unfortunately for him, life intervenes,
and he ends up spending his life in Beford Falls running his dad’s building and
loan company. Of course, as the movie’s title suggests, George realizes that
the real adventure has been living everyday life and discovering the seemingly
small things he’s done haven’t been small after all.
Have
you ever felt that God has pulled a bait and switch on you? Maybe you thought
your life was going in one direction, but things happened, and you found
yourself someplace you never imagined you’d be. If someone had told me in 1985
when I was scoring my first professional gigs as an actor that I’d wake up one
morning and discover I’d been a Lutheran pastor in Philadelphia for almost
twenty-eight years, I would’ve asked them what they’d been smoking.[i] But God’s ways aren’t our own,
are they?
That’s
rather the point of the gospel lesson. In last week’s gospel, Peter gets a big
pat on the back from Jesus for correctly IDing the rabbi as the promised
Messiah, the Son of the living God.[ii] In the RCL gospel for Pentecost
14, Year A (Matthew 16:21-28), Jesus explains what being the Messiah (a
designation which he’s not too keen to have broadcast by his buddies, mind you)
means—and it’s not what these guys think. They were picturing a fairyland of long-past
glory which none of them had ever experienced but had built up in their
imaginations. I’ll bet they must’ve been scratching their heads and thinking
Jesus was pulling a royal switcheroo on them when he tells them the Messiah
must undergo suffering at the hands of the authorities and be killed so he can
rise again. This isn’t the way they saw things going, and it certainly isn’t
what they wanted as Peter made plain.
So,
just for gits and shiggles, let’s imagine what would’ve happened had Jesus been
the sort of Messiah these boys thought they wanted. The charismatic rabbi
rallies a loyal following. All of Galilee and Judea and even some Samaritans
come to see him as their divinely appointed leader. They form a massive army of
resistance against their oppressive Roman overloads. They subvert the occupiers
and wage war against them. Thousands die as a result. Would they be successful?
They actually tried this around 70 CE, and it didn’t turn out well;
nevertheless, let’s assume the Romans are thrown out. What then? Jesus assumes
the throne of his ancestor David. Would the people listen to him? Would he
create a utopia on earth? Would the people be more enlightened than they’d
been? Would there be peace forevermore? Or would they become complacent and
self-satisfied and just as sinful as they’d been before? Would the new kingdom
last forever, or would it be just another memory of past glory when a bigger and
stronger adversary came along?
But
that’s not how it all played out. This Messiah came to suffer and die and enter
our life of pain and disappointment. And, because he did, his kingdoms lives on
when kingdoms and empires of earthly glory have become nothing more than pages
in history books. There are those in America today who want to see the triumph
of Christianity in all aspects of life. They should realize the only real triumph
hung on a cross and was found in an empty tomb.
The
glories of this world are ephemeral. They come and they go. The glory of God
lives in the heart, in faith, hope, and love. Jesus challenges all of us to ask
what will it profit should we gain the whole world but loses our life? That
word which is translated from the Greek as “life” is a tricky one.[iii] It doesn’t mean just
biological life. It means selfhood or inner life—that which makes you who you
are. It can sometimes (as in the King James Bible) be translated as “soul,” but
that’s also misleading. We often think to lose one’s soul means to go to Hell,
but what Jesus is saying here is the pursuit of false or worldly or somebody
else’s values can mean to lose your own purpose and become something or someone
God never intended you should be. Have you ever asked yourself, “If I were the
person I thought I wanted to be, would I be the person I am?”
Sometimes
I feel a little like old George Baily in that movie. I judge and compare myself
to others’ lives and forget that what God wants for me may be different from
what I think I want. But then I think there’s something right and purposeful in
my being where and who I am in this holy moment in time.
And
there is something special and wonderful about you being where you are too.
May
God bless, enlighten, and protect you and all whom you love this week and
always. Thank you for your visit. Please come again.
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