On this second Sunday in Lent the lectionary brings us a reading from Mark's Gospel that challenges us. It almost dares us to fit its content into our understanding of what it means to be a Christian in the twenty-first century. This past Wednesday night here at Rutgers, after our vesper service in the sanctuary Charles Amstein lead a stimulating study on the theme "Ordering Our Loves." As part of the evening, we read the verses from Mark's Gospel we heard a few minutes ago. Charles then asked for comments on the reading. After a long silence one brave person said, "It's a hard reading." And it is.
It's appropriate that we hear this reading in the season of Lent, which the Christian Church instituted centuries ago when it became obvious that Christianity had lost some of its distinctiveness, that people who called themselves Christians and who thought of themselves as Christians weren't markedly different from everybody else. That hadn't always been the case.
When Jesus of Nazareth was alive and for some years afterwards, the men and women who became his followers established a reputation for their distinctive quality of life. It was said of them almost with a kind of awe, "See how these Christians love one another." When I think of those early Christians, I think of what a historian said of the English settlers who came to New England in the seventeen century: They wanted for their children a life in the soul.
For me the verses we heard from Mark's Gospel are about life in the soul. In the translation we use most often, the last two verses say, "What will it profit people to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in exchange for their life?" I don't usually prefer the old King James translation, but in this case I do. The King James Version, slightly altered, has it this way, "...what shall it profit a man or woman if he or she gains the whole world and loses his or her soul? Or what will a person give in exchange for his or her soul?" The Greek word psuke or psyche can be translated life, but it doesn't mean life in the way the Greek words bios or zoe mean life. Psyche means inner life or soul.
The central question of the Gospel text, then, is what do we gain if we get everything we want and lose our souls in the process. Or, for what do we trade our souls? Soul music has its roots in Gospel and Rhythm and Blues. Soul music deals with the longings of the human heart—those things that define the core of our being. Listen to soul music, and you will hear about hearts that beat together, hearts that get broken, about family and friends, about love and death. You will even hear about God in soul music.
You won't hear about gross national products, personal net worth, or twelve-hour work days. I think a life in the soul could mean turning off cell phones, blackberries, and even computers for eight consecutive daylight hours once a month, or twice a month, or every week—in order to breathe deeply, listen to music, read poetry, or smell some flowers.
Friday I read a column by David Brooks in the New York Times. He calls himself a moderate or a centrist; in reality he is a token Republican in the generally liberal Times. His column Friday was an acknowledgment that he had heard from President Obama's people in response to an earlier column he had written about the president's budget. Friday's column was conciliatory, even positive about some of the things the president hopes to do.
What struck me was a sentence Brooks wrote, after mentioning health care reform and social security. He went on to write, and I quote, "That's spending for education, welfare and all the stuff Democrats love." I wanted to say, "Wait a minute. Didn't George W. Bush talk a lot about education—about leaving no child behind—even though he didn't do anything about it? And what are you calling welfare? Unemployment compensation for people who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own? Is it only Democrats who care about such things? What happened to compassionate conservatism? Wasn't that a Republican term? Isn't compassion something we can all agree is important in human interaction?" Where is the soul of our nation in all this?
In this morning's reading Jesus said to his disciples, "Those who want to be my people should be ready to deny themselves, take up a cross, and follow me." And then he went on to talk about getting all one wants and losing one's soul.
As I hear those words, I remember that the people who followed Jesus during his brief ministry of teaching and healing became profoundly changed. They had followed him because he challenged old ways of understanding God and godliness. Instead of requiring adherence to a set of rules and regulations, Jesus offered a way of life based on God's unconditional love for the world and God's desire that all human beings enjoy life in its fullness. I hear the call for self-denial in that context. For me following Jesus doesn't mean becoming a doormat or repressing all my needs and desires in deference to the needs and desires of other people. It means knowing myself well enough to know what I have to work on to become the person God created me to be and feeling good enough about myself so that I can love other people and work for peace with justice in a healthy way.
A few years ago Douglas John Hall, a Canadian theologian, wrote a book Why Christian? in response to something he often heard from students at the university where he taught. What he heard went like this: "...I don't see why anybody today would be a Christian." I suspect the students were disillusioned because they hadn't seen many "Christians" who were like the early disciples of Jesus, full of life and energized in working for the betterment of the world as well as for the transformation of lives.
I believe the current financial crisis and the sense of dislocation all around the world will offer the Christian Church an opportunity to speak to the soul-needs of people everywhere. We have good news, and we can share it with our neighbors without trying to impose it on them or manipulate them. Our good news is about God's love and the primacy of love in all of life. As I have said before, it's not always fashionable to talk about such things in our secular society. But if we are to be prophetic in the best sense of that word, we need to admit that in our frantic pursuit of wealth, as a nation we have neglected the things of the soul.
Think what happened after the fall of Communism in Soviet Russia in 1991. We rushed in to teach capitalism as our highest priority—not democracy, not mutual caring and responsibility. Capitalism. Capitalism is fine if it's regulated and controlled as an economic system. But it's not the crowning glory of the American dream. Our crowning glory is liberty and justice for all—for poor and middle class as well as rich, for white, black, red, yellow and brown, for young and old, for gay and straight—liberty and justice for all, freedom from want and fear (health care and education), freedom to live up to our potential as people made in the image of God.
God, as we know God through Jesus, is a God of love—a God of righteousness and judgment also. But first and foremost a God of love—love that is astonishingly inclusive in its scope; love that is affirming and accepting; love that reaches out to care for all people, especially people on the fringes of society and people deprived of dignity and justice; love that invites dynamic relationship as response.
Robert Fulghum in one of his books writes about Alexander Papaderos, a Greek man born on the island of Crete, who went on to become a doctor of philosophy, a teacher, and a politician. In his mature years he established an institute on the island of Crete, on land donated by a Greek Orthodox monastery. The institute is dedicated to human understanding and peace, a lofty goal in light of what the Cretans of the area experienced during the Second World War.
When asked about the meaning of his life, Dr. Papaderos took out of his wallet a small round mirror, about the size of a quarter. He said,
When I was a small child, during the war, we were very poor and we lived in a remote village. One day, on the road, I found the broken pieces of a mirror. A German motorcycle had been wrecked in that place.
I tried to find all the pieces and put them together, but it was not possible, so I kept only the largest piece. This one. And by scratching it on a stone I made it round. I began to play with it as a toy and became fascinated by the fact that I could reflect light into dark places where the sun would never shine—in deep holes and crevices and dark closets. It became a game for me to get light into the most inaccessible places I could find.
I kept the little mirror, and as I went about my growing up, I would take it out in idle moments and continue the challenge of the game. As I became a man, I grew to understand that this was not just a child's game but a metaphor for what I might do with my life. I came to understand that I am not the light or the source of light. But light—truth, understanding, knowledge—is there, and it will only shine in many dark places if I reflect it.
I am a fragment of a mirror whose whole design and shape I do not know. Nevertheless, with what I have I can reflect light into the dark places of this world...and change some things in some people. Other people may see and do likewise. This is what I am about. This is the meaning of my life.
That is what we at Rutgers Church are about as a faith community. The light of God's love shines into our hearts. Like a mirror we can shine the light of God's love into our world that is struggling to find its way again. I do not believe the world will ever again be what it has been for several decades, a place where the frantic pursuit of wealth has wrought all kinds of havoc and where too many people have been pushed aside uncared for, a place where souls have shriveled and human need has been ignored.
Being a Christian in 2009 can be and should be an adventure of the soul—not something routine or disheartening. Jesus calls us to love in ways that stretch us and involve us in taking risks and reaching out with imagination and energy. May God guide us and help us re-set our priorities as we journey through Lent toward the cross and empty tomb.
Thanks be to God.