A Sermon preached on 3 September 2023 (Pentecost XIV) at St. Augustine’s, WI
Exodus 3:1-15, Romans 12:9-21, Matthew 16:21-28
One of singer Robbie Williams’ many, many songs is called “Love my life.” He describes it as a “song about hope and spreading positivity instead of negativity." The refrain is:
I
love my life
I
am powerful
I
am beautiful
I
am free
I
love my life
I
am wonderful
I
am magical
I
am me
I
love my life
It sounds like a complete contradiction to what Jesus tells his disciples today: “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?” (Matthew 16:25-26) Rather than loving life, it sounds as if Jesus wants his disciples and followers to be willing to give it away, to be willing to lose their life. So, is Jesus spreading negativity, rather than Robbie’s positivity? I think not. Just that Jesus has a somewhat different idea of what a life worth living looks like.
For one thing, while Robbie Williams’ song at least sounds very self-centred, full of lots of “I am’s,” concluding with “I am me,” the life Jesus offers is definitely not egocentric. Jesus specifically says: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves,” (16:24) or as I found in another translation (New Living Translation) “you must give up your own way.” I think that is closer to what Jesus means. It is not about denying or devaluing who we are – after all we are made in the image of God and we all have with God’s Spirit within us – but about what path we choose to follow, which way we walk.
Are we just looking for our own pleasure, gratification, and satisfaction? Which can be very short lived and ephemeral, and far too often comes at the expense of someone else’s happiness. Is it all about me? Or do we follow Jesus’ path, to a loving God, and to a life really worth living and loving? His way leads to a life that is not just lived for ourselves, to a life that can include sacrifice and even suffering.
As we heard, Peter struggled with this too, moving so to speak from hero – having last week correctly identified Jesus as “the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (16:16) – to zero when he refuses to accept what Jesus says lies ahead for him: his suffering, death, and resurrection. Instead of being the rock on which the church is built, Peter is suddenly a stone to stumble over!
Peter’s image of the Messiah was wrong. Jesus was not going to march on Jerusalem and conquer, Jesus was going to Jerusalem to take up his cross, to give himself up for a greater goal and a lasting victory, and one in which everyone can share. Peter, despite his confession, still saw life as something finite and Jesus as mortal. He feared for Jesus’ life and did not fully understand that Christ’s sacrifice on the cross would conquer death.
What does the life that Jesus is calling us to live look like? What is the cross we should take up when we follow him? To live a Christian life is to focus on the “we” and not on the “I.” Mutuality, sharing, caring not just for oneself, but for the other, is a key motif in Paul’s vision of a Christian life in today’s reading from Romans. Among other things, Paul commends mutual affection, outdoing one another by honouring the other, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, being patient in suffering, persevering in prayer (especially for others), contributing to the needs of God’s people, showing hospitality, sharing in one another’s joys and sorrows, loving not only one’s friends, but also enemies, even those who persecute you, and never seeking revenge. If some of this list sounds familiar, it is. Paul is quoting and paraphrasing much of Jesus’s teaching from what we call the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel (chapter 5). And this is quite rare. On the whole Paul tends to write more about the meaning and implications of who Jesus was and what he did for us, especially on the cross.
To live a Christian life is to live a life of love. Just think of Jesus’ commandments, both in the Synoptic Gospels (e.g. Mark 12:29-31) to love God and your neighbour as yourself, and in John’s Gospel (13:34) to “love one another as I loved you.” And In 1 John 4:16 we read that “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.”
The Greek of the New Testament has several different words for love, each with a different focus and meaning. Four of them are included in today’s reading from Romans, even if the English translation rather hides them. We begin with agape in: “Let love be genuine,” (Romans 12:9) this is the unconditional, sometimes sacrificial love that Jesus models. Next we find philia in the phrase: “love one another.” (12:10) This is best described as friendship love. It is closely followed by storge, translated here as: “mutual affection,” which is the type of love most often experienced within a family. And finally, Paul also includes xenia (12:12), the love of the stranger, translated here as hospitality. All of them are part and parcel of Christian life.
And so is the one form of love Paul that does not mention, eros, which while often translated as sensual or romantic love, also stands for our desire for a closer union and participation in the divine. Eros is the love of God with our whole heart, soul, mind and strength, it is the basis of our worship and devotion, and the love that is expressed in what Jesus calls “losing our lives for his sake.” (Matthew 16:25)
We can and should love life. To lose our lives for Jesus’ sake is not to hate it, but to transform them into lasting lives, truly worth living and loving. A life focused only on self is not only not of God, but simply not rewarding, and not fulfilling. We soon notice how hollow it can be. Joy cannot be bought or coerced.
We can and should love life. To paraphrase Mr. Williams’ list of the reasons why we love about our lives: We are powerful - together and with God’s help; we are beautifully made - by God; we are free - of sin and death through the sacrifice of God’s Son; we are wonderful - and wondering in our awe for God’s Creation; we are magical - in our ability to love and to transform the world through live. We love our life - in Christ and that – to quote the last line of Robbie’s song – is where I want to be!
Amen.
