Bible Reading: Mark 8:27-38
Dear Friends,
We are a people with a distinct aversion to consequences. We want to be able to do whatever we please, and if we get caught doing something we shouldn’t, we want to be able to get out of the consequences. In fact, we think we should be able to get off the hook, because people get away with things every day. As a people, we’re not very fond of “you reap what you sow.” And yet, the principle of reaping what you sow is one that has pervaded human culture from the beginning. Hindus and Buddhists call it “Karma.” More practical-minded people say, “What goes around comes around.” But throughout history there has been a profound awareness that our choices and our actions bring their own consequences with them. As Christians, we may be more comfortable with concepts like forgiveness and grace than reaping what you sow.
Jesus didn’t have a lot to say about consequences, but he did address the issue especially to the spiritual hypocrites of his day. But I think our Gospel lesson for this week Mark 8: 27-38 presents us with a similar kind of choice. Like wisdom, Jesus calls to all who would hear him, and challenges them to deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow him in a life of “doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with our God.” If we reject the path of discipleship because the price is too high, because Jesus asks too much of us when he asks us to give ourselves away for the sake of others as he did, we may hang on to some things we hold dear, but he warns that we will lose our very soul. If, on the other hand, we choose to follow him, we may very well face losses in this life. We may face significant losses. But Jesus promises that if we follow him we will have gained our very souls.
I will be the first to admit that a life of giving ourselves away for the sake of others is not an easy one. It’s one that asks for all the very best we have to give, and continues to ask for that over and over and over again. It’s easy to burn out when you’re always giving to those around you. That’s why it’s so important to maintain some kind of spiritual discipline: reading, prayer, meditation, something. It’s essential to have some way to build yourself up, to maintain your own inner resources if you’re going to continue living a life of giving yourself away.
Consequences are built into the very structure of life. We can accept that fact, or we can spend our lives in an effort to get around them, to get out of paying the price of our choices, to get off the hook for our actions. But it will be a futile effort. Because, in the end it is always true that we reap what we sow. We will “eat the fruit of our ways” as Wisdom reminds us. And as Jesus points out, this is not only true for life in general, it is also true for the spiritual life. It is especially true for the spiritual life! Jesus not only taught us, he showed us that the only way to truly live is to give yourself away for the sake of others. If we refuse that choice because the price of surrendering our own self-interest is too high, the consequence is that we will lose the very heart and soul of what it means to really live. But if we have the courage to follow him, then we will find that this path of self-giving is the way to freedom, and true joy, and all the life that God wants to give us each and every day.
Solomzi