1/18/59

Scripture: Matthew 10: 34-42

Text: Matthew 10: 39; “He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it.”

The teachings, by word and by example, of Jesus, are not easy. The whole spirit and temper of his Sermon on the Mount is that of love for God and love amongst people. Essentially that would seem to imply peace and concord. And yet this is not necessarily so. For even true love may involve something stronger than peace, until concord is achieved.

It may be for the reader of his words now, as it almost surely was for his hearers in Palestine, something of a shock to find Jesus saying: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”

Of course the main import of these words is not literal. For the record is clear that Jesus declined to take up the sword himself or to assert any leadership that might go in that direction. But it is obviously true that he did bring division in the church, in households and families, wherever there arose conflict over the life views which he taught.

This teaching of Jesus is not to be taken as a justification of the war method. Rather, it is a vivid way of saying, what Luke’s version makes clear, that Jesus’ teaching and his way of life may bring division -- and often does!

For Jesus regarded the truth as more important than temporary harmony in the family, the church or the state. Only the Kingdom of God is ultimate. And even the rabbis and apocalyptic writers believed that the days of the Messiah would be ushered in by wars and by family strife. A lot of those who emphasize the second coming of Christ still do! And wherever a creative genius comes forward anywhere in society, an almost intolerable tension arises between the reforms, or new ways, he advocates and the established ways which are defended by devotees of the status quo.

Jesus was out for a fully devoted and dedicated discipleship, and was not tolerant of divided loyalties. In this matter of deciding, and declaring, one’s loyalty, he was most demanding. “I have come,” he said, “to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s foes will be those of his own household.”

There is, in our time, a well known philosophy that deliberately stirs up and fans into flame all kinds of friction and strife in order to capitalize on created discontent. This is a far cry from what Jesus had in mind or taught. But the Master knew that whoever took him seriously, and decided to be his follower, was in for misunderstanding and trouble -- sometimes beginning in his own household. And certainly the sword of persecution has often been held over him and his disciples.

And so Jesus says quite bluntly: “He who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” This saying occurs repeatedly in the gospels. It had a more literal flavor in that time than now, in this sense: crucifixion was a common form of execution for criminals. And the condemned person was usually required to carry his own cross out to the place of execution --- not the whole cross, but the heavy cross beam, upon which his outstretched hands would be tied or nailed, was what the condemned person carried.

That is the picture which Christ used. Jesus appears to have made it clear that following him, in complete devotion, could mean martyrdom. One reason for using this figure of speech was that the disciples had probably all seen condemned men carrying their crosses to some nearby hill of execution. They understood it.

He probably spoke in a deep spiritual sense, though in his own case and in the case of some of his followers, sticking to the truth as he perceived and taught, brought a very literal cross.

There is one writer [W. C. Clow] who has suggested an interesting distinction between “burden,” “thorn,” and “cross.” He says that a burden is the inevitable load which life lays upon every person; that a thorn is the sharp affliction which most people must bear in some form, just as Paul bore his “thorn in the flesh” [II Corinthians 12: 7]; and that a cross is our voluntary self-denial for Christ’s sake.

Probably these distinctions can not be made arbitrary, but there is a difference between the burdens that one is conscripted to bear as circumstance dictates, and the cross or loyalty for which one volunteers.

A person “takes up” his cross for Christ’s sake, and can not worthily avoid it. Paul did not have to carry the message to the Gentiles. Grenfel did not have to go to Labrador. Missionaries did not have to go to the Ancas. These are hazards which comfortable people choose to evade. And Jesus is not interested in any “martyr complex” either. When Simeon Stylites decided to spend the rest of his life on top of a pillar, he was not, by that kind of self effacement, perfecting his discipleship. “For my sake” is the motive. The words “and follow me” are pivotal.

To take up a cross voluntarily for Christ’s sake, is difficult enough. But to carry it, day by day, to any place of crucifixion is harder. “Carrying a cross” was described by one commentator as “the continual practice of small duties distasteful to us.” But this is hardly sufficient or accurate. It is not so much a duty, as an abandonment of the whole life to suffering, loss of all sorts of things for Christ’s sake, and which thereafter proves the voluntary commitment in all things both great and small.

And so whoever will “find himself,” as we say -- who ever will really find his life, is he who is willing to lose it -- to spend it, to dedicate it -- in discipleship to Christ and pursuit of the truth. And whoever hoards his life, dissipates it and loses it.

This is truth at any level. If money is hoarded, it is lost. For money is not God. Money is a means of exchange by which life is spent, lived, found. If health is hoarded it becomes a hypochondriac obsession. Good health is to be used -- wisely and joyously spent! If life is clutched, it is lost; if given or spent, it is found.

Now of course there is that within us which urges self-preservation. Fifty years ago a steamer ran aground off the coast of Korea. On board were some Koreans, not a few Japanese, and some American missionaries. As the steamer listed, and the life boats were lowered, one Japanese man made it clear that he intended to be in that life boat. He spoke enough English to say excitedly to a missionary woman, “It’s the law of self-preservation.” And that law he proposed to demonstrate right then and there.

Now it was not his Japanese race that evoked this determination, but rather his human race. For his kind are to be found everywhere among all sorts of folk who assume that “self-preservation is nature’s first law:” --- especially for them! Indeed, it is a popular assumption that, when a person is up against the choice between life and death, he will struggle to the last ditch to save himself.

Indeed, it is believed fatal if one loses his will to live. Some years ago a young Hollywood actress became ill and died. Her career had begun with great promise. But before long she injured her spine and suffered a partial paralysis. When, later, her physician announced her death, he said, “I felt that, for the last few months, she had lost the will to live.” It is a bit unusual, though physicians do observe it.

More often, a patient, even one stricken with a known fatal malady, will assert his will to live and will have times of such dogged hopefulness that he will say “I’m going to lick this thing yet!”

Loss of the will to live is very different from willingness to spend one’s life -- even to giving all of it, for Christ’s sake. Christ came to enrich the world by the giving of his vital, dedicated, fruitful life. And he demands the same sort of spending by his disciples.

Some readers might explain Jesus’ words as applying particularly to the martyrs of the first Christian century. They suggest that maybe the gospels were just meant to reassure the early persecuted Christians that if they gave up their lives for the faith, they would surely enter heaven.

But to leave it at that is not quite in line with our Lord’s teaching. Jesus did not work on the principle of bartering one’s earthly suffering for future paradise. He came to enrich life in the here and now. This was made clear in his first sermon to his neighbors at Nazareth when he announced that he was fulfilling Isaiah’s prophesy to give sight to the blind, healing to the bruised, deliverance to the captives, and good tidings to the poor --- not in the future alone, but then and there, or anywhere else that he might go.

The gospel of Jesus was not, as the communists assert, a bait offering of “pie in the sky bye and bye.” The gospel of Jesus is a challenge to spend life, in order to give life here and now. Much broader than a promise of heaven to the Christian martyrs was his principle, “He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it.”

Let us look further. How do we lose by trying to save our lives?

(1) First, by playing everything safe. Jesus calls for courage that is willing to take risks. The church has become such a comfortable and conventional institution that it is hard for us to realize what a tremendous risk it once was, and in some circumstances still is, to follow Jesus, to be seen with him or his associates.

The Master issued no call for hot-headed, impetuous followers who would rush in without realizing what it takes. He had to cool Peter down more than once, to tell him to put up his sword, to remind him that he was still unstable and not yet completely dependable (even though Jesus had called Peter a “rock.”) Remember how he stopped some would-be disciples and bade them count the cost lest they start and be unable to finish? Jesus wanted courage, not foolhardiness.

Jesus described that kind of courage in the parable of the talents. The man who was entrusted with ten talents, and the man with five, were willing to invest what they had. And in time they doubled their investments. Investment usually involves some risk. But the sound investor calculates the risk. They accepted the necessary risk and were counted worthy to receive greater trusts. The man with one talent, in that story, was so careful to protect himself that he buried his talent for safe keeping, and had it taken away.

We would not be here in peace and freedom if George Washington had played it safe. And Washington would not have had his place and time in history if Columbus had played it safe. One well-known historian claimed that in 150 years our nation has changed from a land of opportunity to a land of safety first. And a recent writer taunts that “when a young fellow comes looking for a job, his first question is likely not what are the chances of promotion, but what kind of pension will he get forty years hence.” Caution is a good thing up to the point where it has guarded away from foolhardiness. But when it becomes the controlling thought, it misses courage and stifles life.

One irony of it is that when we arrange our work and livelihood so that we not longer venture for great things, then we gamble on little things. That is why so many people will gamble on horse races and dog races, when the times cry for a venture on freedom and a spending in liberty.

While Jesus Christ on his cross was staking his whole life on the goodness of God, small souled Roman soldiers were gambling over his robe on the ground at the foot of that cross. While brave men spend, and lose, their lives pioneering in new fields and struggling up un-cleared paths, others in the safely of home shelters let their spirits die inch by inch in their little games.

Our generation is in the grip of quite a gambling mania. But we don’t venture for big enough issues! And thus we lose our unused, unspent lives!

(2) Secondly, some lose their lives in trying too hard to conserve their energy. Those who become health misers, usually make themselves miserable. This is true both in the realm of organic physical health and in mental health. The intelligent student does not say, “I’m going to need all my physical and mental health for a good job four years from now, and so I’ll have to save myself while I’m in college.” There are some students who appear to live by that dictum. But mental talents and body strength are not increased by being buried. They grow with vigorous use. Whoever would save his memory by not using it, will lose it. Whoever shuns the work of reasoning so that he will have that power to use later on, loses it. Whoever lets his body atrophy for lack of exercise loses strength. And whoever cultivates mental and physical vigor, gains it.

(2) A third way to lose ourselves by seeking to save ourselves is to try to get all we can! We have a possessive impulse built into our instincts. Jesus recognized various kinds of hunger and wove it into parables. He told of a fellow who learned of a pearl of great price in a field and who set out to buy it - field and all. Jesus did not condemn that. What he did warn against was the spirit of greed and covetousness which drags us on until our possessions possess us!

A very wealthy American man was asked “How much wealth does it take to satisfy a man?” With a philosophical twinkle in his eye, he replied, “Just a little more.”

Dr. Ralph Sockman recalls that when he left seminary to take his first parish, which incidentally he still holds, a professor advised him: “Just make sure that they give you enough salary so that you don’t have to think about money.” Sockman dryly remarks that his church has never reached that salary level! And that perhaps it never will, for where do we -- any of us -- reach the point where we do not think something about money?

But a normal desire for possessions and services need not become tragic, and there is a point where it does.

Tolstoi tells the story of a man who was promised all the land he could walk around between sunrise and sunset. [“How much land does a man need?”] He started out with an ordinary pace. But soon the lure of the fine black earth seized him and he quickened his step to walk around more land. Then his greed speeded him to a feverish run. He began to pant, and his legs began to fail. But he summoned every ounce of drive -- throwing off his jacket, forcing his heart and nerve to carry him on. Just as the sun went down, he hurled himself forward to the goal that would enclose an exceptionally large plot of land. And he dropped dead. He was buried in the earth he had over-tried to get.

I wonder if the Kremlin reads Tolstoi. For that matter, I wonder if we do! Now let us look at the other side of Christ’s statement, “Whosoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

(1) For one thing, we find our lives by losing sight of them, by getting so busy with life that we lose preoccupation with our own lives. Studying a mirror is usually a poor way to find life. Jesus did not repeat the Greek advice: “Know thyself.” Jesus said that the first and great commandment of living is: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind, and strength. And the second commandment is like unto it; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” [Mark 12: 30-31].

Of course we should know something of ourselves. But only for the purpose of redirecting our thoughts and energies in better channels. Our real selves are but discovered or disclosed, in breaking out of our introversions to a stretching of mind and muscle in service.

(2) Another part of the principle is this: “We strengthen ourselves by spending ourselves.” A woman was in such frail health that her husband took her on a Mediterranean cruise in hope of increasing her vigor. It succeeded but not in the way he had anticipated. For he died suddenly at sea. The wife, forgetting about her own delicate health, rose to her responsibility as head of a household and mother of a large family. She astonished all of her acquaintances with her abounding energy. She became a tower of strength in her house, her church, her community.

Most of us live far below our possibilities. And we are surprised when a crisis calls out what we did not know we had within our being!

(3) One thing more can be said. We save ourselves by giving ourselves.

In his book, Magnificent Obsession, Lloyd Douglas wrote of a physician, run down and mentally ill, who found a secret of cure in serving others so discretely that his deeds were freed from all public knowledge and even from all self-consciousness. He literally fulfilled Christ’s command not to let his left hand know what his right doeth.

Something about that theme made the book a best seller for edition after edition, and its screen version a top attraction.

Strange beings, aren’t we? When our main motive is to save ourselves, we get lost in ourselves. When we forget ourselves in spending ourselves for others and for Christ’s sake, we are freed and saved.

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Delivered at Wisconsin Rapids, January 18, 1959.