How to Lose a Life

Matthew 7:13-14

Willem immediately understood what he heard. The sentences were few and simple but it was only later that night that their significance began to well up in his heart overflowing into his body and mind. It was as though knowledge or perhaps truth or whatever it isthat words can carry actually had weight to it. It pressed him down on the rustled sheetsof his bed. Then as though his nose were too heavy to be held upright his head slowly fell to his left and turned towards the window where he caught the light the moon. Themoonlight held his gaze and he lay there motionless drifting away from what he wascoming to realize. A slight kink in his neck broke the trance and he tilted his head slightly to stretch it out. With his head now facing the window at a new angle the moon somehow looked different. Willem sat up in bed and broke the silence by something between a laugh and sigh. The window was open at an angle and the moon that he sawwas only a reflection. . . . The moon was not there. He took heart and almost allowed a smile. What he thought he had was no longer his. His life was not his own. His life wasat the mercy of . . . what? He wondered what exactly was holding him together?

What Willem “heard” that day could be any number of things. It could be the loss of a job or life’s savings. It could be the knowledge of his wife leaving him for someone else.It could be finding out that his parents had just died in car accident. Perhaps a doctor toldhim he had a year to live or that he could no longer do what he was passionate about.The glue that was holding Willem’s world together came undone. He was left with thesense that he was at the mercy of something behind or beyond the passing images that hehad trusted in. He was still intact, but by what?You would think after centuries of human civilization we would come to acceptwhat must be thrust on all of us at some time.

Our life is not our own

. Whatever else wemight dispute about the Bible’s theology I am not sure that we can get around thisconcept. The Bible begins and ends assuming this to be true.The Bible continually asks us, “How will you lose your life?” Jesus makes thestatement concise in Matthew 16:25,

For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it

. In either case we must at some point experiencethe loss of life. That we will lose our life is not an option, what we are offered is theopportunity of how and when.

2As I was getting into this sermon it started to feel more and more morbid or bleak.

Okay everyone lets talk about how we need to put our worldly lives to death and then wecan go enjoy this beautiful afternoon

. I am convinced, however, that many of our feelings about this sort of death come from the contrast it has with our culture. Wecontinue to worship at the shrine of youth, strength and beauty. We are obsessed withstopping the effects of aging. We have continued and intensified our quest for the HolyGrail. Scientists receive huge grants and funding for their research into extending humanlongevity. Already in his mid-fifties scientist and inventor Ray Kurzweil stated in aninterview his belief that the science of immortality will be developed within his lifetime.In a perceptive response to Kurzweil biologist Lee Silver states that even if thetechnology of immortality were available the motivation behind its development anddistribution would doom its ever being accessible to humanity at large. Silver states thatthe motivation behind this technology is self-preservation. Control of this technologywould likely result in more fighting and deaths than lives it would save. Knowing how tokeep a heart beating is much different than knowing how to save a life. Now Jesus’s life and message certainly do not carry any latent suicidaltendencies. This is not a message of despair or escape. Ironically, in light of Jesus’swords suicide is not even about someone losing a life. Rather it can be viewed as another attempt to take back control of our life when we feel that it has been lost too far in thechaos around us. This could well have been one of Willem’s responses in the openingscene that I read. Jesus is not talking about a response to how we feel about life. Jesus istrying to tell us about what our life actually is.

Our life is not our own

.This idea was already the basis of our other reading this morning fromDeuteronomy 30:15-20. After all of the laws, promises and curses are laid out in

3Deuteronomy Moses tells the people that they now have the opportunity to choose life or death. Life was not the prize they received for following all the laws that Moses gavethem. Rather the laws and the way they lived were a response to recognizing where their life came from. Listen to how Moses begins the renewal of the people’s covenant withGod,

Your eyes have seen all that the LORD did in Egypt to Pharaoh, to his officials and to all his land. With your own eyes you saw those great trials, those miraculous signs and great wonders. . . . During the forty years that I led you through the desert, your clothesdid not wear out, nor did the sandals on your feet. You ate no bread and drank no wineor other fermented drink. I did this so that you might know that I am the LORD your God.

It was as the people were going to cross the river Jordan and enter the land of Israel thatGod had promised them that God called them to choose a life that reflected how theywere treated in the desert. In the desert the people’s life was not their own, it was at themercy of God, fully and daily.Moses even warns them that this covenant will be something completely differentif they do not trust God and put their trust in other things. He says that “when such a person hears the words of this oath, he invokes a blessing on himself and therefore thinks,‘I will be safe, even though I persist in going my own way.’” To this one who is trying tosave their life Moses says disaster will come. This is why the New Testament can stillaffirm the Old Testament because it was always based in trust and not in works. This iswhy Moses can tell the people in this same section,

What I am commanding you is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. . . . No, theword is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it

.Then as the section concludes in Deuteronomy 30:20 Moses concludes,

Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life