Wellspring UMC; Fifth Sunday after Pentecost; June 15, 2008: “The Biggest Losers”:
-Romans 15: 1-6; Matthew 10: 34-42
As
I was preparing for today I remembered numerous conversations I have had with
our Lay Leader, Brian Lambert, often around a lunch table but sometimes on the
phone where he’d say, “You preach the same message every time, just in a
different way and from a different angle, which is good because the Gospel
really is simple. We just have to hear
it numerous times and in many different ways in order for it to stick.” So if you’ve heard me preach before, I guess
you can take a nap or daydream, or you can listen and see if God has something
different to say to us from the simple message of the Gospel.
Brian
is right, you know. It is
true...probably more true than we want to admit, because the central message,
the core to this faith, is love, only it’s not just any love, it’s love based
upon the life and example of Christ.
It’s love modeled by the God who gives to us in order for us to live,
and the love of the Spirit that gives itself over to and embeds itself into us,
in order for us to understand, that to be recipients of the Kingdom, in order
to win in the game of life, in order to be fully alive, we have to give ourselves
and what we have. In worldly terms, we
become losers, and in fact, the biggest losers according to the world, are the
biggest winners in God’s eyes.
What jumped out at me as I was preparing for today was that one phrase in the middle of the passage. You may have heard it before: “Those who find their life will lose at, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” It’s similar to Christ saying the first being last and the last being first; the call is to be servants of the Servant, not masters over others.
When we place this passage in context, it makes a lot of sense. The disciples are about to be sent out into the world to proclaim the message of Christ, a sort of baptism by fire if you will, and Matthew is writing to those who were starting a movement, a Christ revolution if you will. Part of what the disciples faced was to give up everything, trust God, and simply go. Part of the casualty of the early Church was that families broke up over the radical nature of the call to be losers, to give, to put self second or even last, to be willing to suspend all belief and try to see the world and the neighbor from the eyes of the Creator.
To paraphrase, “Don’t think I’ve come to make life cozy, instead I’ll cut ties, even among family members. I raise the bar and tell you, ‘Put me first.’ Over father, mother, siblings or children. If your first concern is to look out for yourself, you’ll never find yourself, but if you forget about yourself and look to me, you’ll find both yourself and me. This calling is bigger than You. It’s about God,” Jesus says, “It’s about life, and wholeness and truth. It’s about my love lived out through you, but in order for this love to be alive, you have to surrender to me and my will, “Christ says, “ If you do this, you won’t lose out on a thing.”
Have we ever heard that message
before? If so, the invitation given each
week is to live out what we hear. “To
the world this is foolishness,”
How
do we like that term, “loser”? It
doesn’t sit too well, does it? Whether
our personalities are competitive or not, we shy away from that which describes
those who come in second, third, or last.
We make jokes or side comments by placing our hand in front of on our
foreheads and making an “L” with our fingers.
Nobody wants to be a loser!
I looked up the definition of “loser” and there were two definitions: “A person or thing that loses especially consistently,” and “a person who is incompetent or unable to succeed.” These are not definitions toward which we aspire, and yet if we were to look at the life of the saints, the world has labeled Christ followers by such sentiments over and over again. After all, one who gives away money to help those who can’t seem to help themselves, well, that’s a waste. Or what about those folks who follow a God who can’t been seen, heard, or felt. Pretty incompetent to me!” Okay, maybe it’s a little extreme. But maybe it’s not.
For the last few weeks we’ve been working our way through Matthew’s Gospel, and we’ve been led to chapter 10 where Jesus sends out the twelve disciples to do his work. Look at their situation. They haven’t known Jesus all that long, and they left their jobs, families, and lives to follow a man who was seen by many as a hippie with disruptive and radical ideas. Then when he gathers them to go he says, “Go tell folks that the Kingdom is near. On the way, heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, and drive out demons. Oh yeah, give freely. If you do, you’ll receive back. Take no bag, no extra tunic, nor sandals or staff. Just go. If they accept you, great. If not, shake the dust off and leave. God will take care of them. And one more thing, what I’m sending you to do, well, it’s going to get you in trouble, break up families, and may even get you killed. Any questions?”
Wow! Can you sign me up!? Such was the nature of life for the early Christ follower, and such is the call for us as well, for the nature of God’s love means that we are to give and love, despite the world. We are to be different, radical in nature, and filled with the Spirit. In the eyes of the world, it makes no sense...but those who lose their lives will gain everything. Today, Jesus says, “Be a loser!”
Though
I am not one to watch reality shows, for about a year and half now, Teresa and
I have become addicted to “The Biggest Loser.”
Anyone here watch it? It’s a
simple concept. Obese people apply to
live together on a campus surrounded by health professionals, trainers, cooks,
educators, and fitness equipment, and their goal is to be the person who loses
the greatest percentage of their body weight.
Each week, those who have lost the least have the potential to be sent
home, but the biggest losers stay.
Teresa
and I are amazed at how much weight these folks lose. For the last two seasons, the biggest losers
have lost more than 50% of their body weight by the final weigh-in! These are people who at the end are literally
half the size they were when they started.
Along
the way, the contestants learn about healthy eating and exercise habits, how to
work together as a team, and how to motivate themselves to succeed, all of
which is amazing to watch, but what it most incredible is to see how the people
themselves change emotionally. Shy women
with the low self-esteem blossom into outgoing, smiling, gregarious people. Guys who cover up their pain with gruffness or
manliness merge at the end with a new found acceptance that caring is the way
to live life. These people are literally
transformed, and in the end, the biggest losers become the biggest winners. They gain their lives, and in doing so, they
often pass that life onto those around them.
Though a wonderful show, it is even more, for it invites folks to see in
a different way these words of Jesus lived out, “those who lose their lives
will find themselves.”
We live in a world that demands success, and yet despite the message to the contrary, success is not the be all and end all. We are part of a society which dominates and strives to dominate more, and yet as we are seeing played out on the world’s stage, such domination does not make for the best results. We live in a town that likes to keep things all neat and clean and avoid those who are different, dare I say those who lose in the game of life, out of sight and out of mind, and yet homelessness is beginning to be acknowledged, addictions named, and schism addressed, all of which are making those who are loving the losers of the world, understand that those labeled ‘loser’ are actually the ones who “get it when it comes to life.”
You and I are called to be “losers” in the holiest of ways. We’re called to give of ourselves, our money, and our time, so those who don’t have, can have. We’re called to live on the fringes of society and the fringes of our neighborhoods, seeking those who need, and giving enough so that we realize our need for God and them.
We are called to care as Jesus cares. If we look at who Jesus cared for, he cared for the losers. If we look at how Jesus and his followers were received, they were seen as losers. But Jesus knew that the result would far outweigh the payoff, which is why He said, “Those who find their lives will lose them, but those who lose their lives will find them”...and He meant it, even for us.
On
Friday morning I woke up and headed outside for my morning devotions. As I did, I came across this story, given to
us as an example of what it means to be a loser for Christ. Listen as I share this story from Becca
Stevens:
“A Borrowed Office” (read from Sanctuary: unexpected places where God
found me; pg. 83)
I was standing in a small office with Clemmie after her son’s
funeral. The office was lit by a
fluorescent bulb that made the place look sallow and closed-in. There were two chairs and a laminated desk
that was peeling. The walls were a dingy
off-white. The room reflected the mood
of the day: sad and broken.
I had known Clemmie for almost four years. She was a loving and compassionate
mother. Her son, Rodriguez, was the
victim of a senseless homicide in the middle of the night, in which one African
American youth shot another African American youth he didn’t even know.
Rodriguez had been born when Clemmie was only 13 years old. Both of them had been in and out of the
prison system. Mother and son had spoken
at a fund-raiser to talk about finding strength together in their journey
toward wholeness. Now, nine months
later, Clemmie and I were standing in a borrowed office after burying her only
child.
We exchanged thoughts and feelings about the day. Clemmie said, “I wish I could talk to the boy
who shot my son. I want to hug him for a
long time and tell him I forgive him. I
know that he will probably spend the rest of his life in prison, but I want him
to know that God has not abandoned him”
When you tell people that you would never kill somebody, they often ask, “What if someone killed your child?” Clemmie answered the question as beautifully as I’ve ever heard. She had suffered more for her faith than even a martyr; she had suffered the death of her son and survived to love the enemy. I asked her if she would offer a prayer, and we knelt together in front of the desk in the sacred space that love created.”
It’s funny how much we cling, isn’t it? To our lives, to control, to our friend, to a leader; to our houses, to our families, to our jobs, to money; to our cars, our positions, our status, our church... It’s amazing how much we cling to, for we cling to so much, and we cling to so much because we fear we may lose it. We fear we may be the losers.
Jesus said, “Those who find their lives will lose it, but those who lose their lives for my sake will find themselves.” Clemmie, one easily labeled by the world “a loser,” understood, and so have countless saints and witnesses to the cross, that indeed, the biggest losers in the end, are the biggest winners, for they gain the Kingdom of God, not just at the end of their lives, but right
now, for this is God’s gift, given to God’s faithful. This is God’s gift given to losers like us. Amen.