Why gain the world and lose your life ?

Did you know that we have just 116 days to Christmas Day ?  We are more than 2/3 of the way through the year, and we are well into the Trinity Season, the longest season in our Church calendar.

This season is one in which we traditionally seek growth and today’s New Testament Readings (Romans 12:9-21 & Matthew 16:21-28) show what an incredible message this is.

But as I’ve just reminded you Christmas is coming ! And what a season that is too – we celebrate the birth of a baby born to save the world not through might or force, not through dictatorship but through love…

Amidst the commercial chaos that is Christmas we are called to look at the birth of a baby who changed history. And as we go through this Trinity season in church that message is no less relevant – Jesus was born to change the world and to change us, and he did that with the example of a perfect life, but also the willing sacrifice of his life on the cross – the disciples didn’t understand, the authorities thought his death would get rid of everything he stood for, but as the message of Jesus reminds us time after time, love will win.

Paul wrote to people in a pretty barbaric city which was what Rome was at the time, and he wrote a message that shattered the illusion that money and power and success were the things that were most important.

He said, ‘Let love be genuine, hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another….’ 

Paul is reminding us that Jesus calls us to a very radical love !

Most of us are very good at being polite, at least most of the time. Sometimes we’re polite even when we don’t particularly feel like it, but what Jesus wants of us is the kind of love that does forgive enemies as he did; it’s the kind of love that does look out for those who are hungry and give them food even if they are our enemies; it’s the kind of love that doesn’t look to inflict revenge on those who hurt us, but actually makes us respond with love for that person…

It’s not an easy task, and Jesus never promised it would be. In our gospel reading Jesus is explaining to his disciples how he would go to Jerusalem and die and they didn’t get it at all – Peter was the one who responded that this couldn’t happen, but he’d missed the point – practicing the sort of love that Jesus offered meant doing the unexpected and it meant being willing to give everything for anyone.

That’s what Jesus did – we are amongst the anyone for whom he gave his life. We, in spite of our weaknesses and failings, are the ones he still loves… That is radical love – the love that prayed for forgiveness for those who had put him through the agony of the cross, the love that offered forgiveness for the thief hanging next to him; the love that had approached the Samaritan woman, the tax collector, and other people who didn’t seem to have a friend in the world… The love that is there for each one of us….

Sadly there are far too many tragic stories of lives around the world at the moment and of people being treated in incredibly barbaric ways but whilst our knowledge of it is greater and the situations no less evil, such barbaric treatment is not new.

But neither is that message of Jesus – it is a message of peace and reconciliation that isn’t naïve or foolish, but honest and hopeful; it’s a message that each one of us is a brother or sister born into the image of God, tarnished perhaps but still made in that image…

And if we begin to see each other in those terms then perhaps the world can be a better place because whilst it takes the actions of governments and armies and charity organisations to make a huge difference, it also takes us.

God is calling each one of us to work with him to build his kingdom not in some distant place, but here…

Paul knew that he had to preach this message in Rome. It was a ruthless, bloodthirsty society, built on war and fear, built on the wealth of a relatively small number, and so he offered a message of love, a message of turning the other cheek, a message that said to help those unable to help themselves. This was a message that turned the ‘usual’ upside down… Paul was echoing the teaching of Jesus to do the right thing, do the thing that may not make headlines nationally, but will make a real difference to perhaps even just one individual – feed the hungry, give a drink to the thirsty, don’t let those who seek to hurt you with words or anything else stop you from loving them !

It was a dramatic message then, and it’s a dramatic message today. One of the things that perhaps the Western Church has lost is its radicalism – but the gospel of Jesus isn’t one of a comfortable, easy lifestyle, but one of determination to do the right thing in God’s sight, to love when all of our instincts are perhaps pointing us to something different. To offer real transformation and hope, made obvious in love.

So many things can be dramatically changed today, and that is true of our lives – if they’re not we’re missing something… But even with a life dramatically and radically changed, doing the right thing is still not always the easy thing…

Many people would have been like Peter and wouldn’t have understood the need for Jesus to go and die on the cross, just as many of the people to whom Paul wrote and spoke would not have understood his message, and today there will also be people who won’t listen or won’t understand, but the message of this morning’s readings is that we must persevere in doing right, persevere even when we think nothing’s happening, persevere even when it seems nobody’s listening, persevere even when people mock us or criticise us…

Doing God’s work is always doing the right thing… That work is to look for need around us, and to seek ways of addressing that need, it is to look for the good in everyone, not just those from whom good instantly jumps out.

It is to overlook the person who criticises us, or who says nasty things about us behind our backs, and just keep loving that person and praying for them, it is to stop being nasty, in thought, word or deed, to the person we find it difficult to like or understand.

God’s work is to love, even when loving seems the hardest thing in the world to do… that is our work too…

The American preacher Tom Long said, “although the cross may look insignificant and foolish to the world, bearing a cross counts in the kingdom of heaven, it counts to God.

A life that is spent soothing the pain of the sick, caring for children in need, hammering nails in houses for the homeless, sharing bread with the hungry, visiting those in prison, and denying oneself may seem like a squandered life in the economy of a self-centred age, but in heaven, it is a lavish treasure….. Following Jesus may be hard. But it’s also very, very good!”   AMEN