Calling someone a loser seems the way to wage national and international arguments. It’s not the most endearing term, but we throw it around. In high school, I remember the title came with a hand gesture of making an “L” sign on the forehead. The book “How to Be a Loser” wouldn’t make a best-sellers list, as no one wants instructions on losing. No one wants to lose at the stock market. No one wants to lose at the playoffs. No one wants to get the rejection letter for a job. No one wants to be in Nepal caught in torrential flooding and lose absolutely everything.
What would it look like to lose everything and start over? To lose electricity, your housing, money, a friend, your health…
Most of us will hopefully never experience a great loss due to flooding, but all of us at some point will experience loss of some form. No one is immune to the suffering. Author Richard Rohr writes that eventually all of us will have to “lose” at something. There will be something that we “cannot fix, control, explain, change, or even understand.”
What do these words of Jesus mean: to deny ourselves and take up the cross? To lose our lives, and in the process save them?
Jesus is the one who loses everything for our sake. The one who doesn’t repay evil with evil, but offers forgiveness to those who persecute him. The cross means Jesus lifts up and does not ignore the world’s pain.
Peter wins! Jesus calls him a rock. Who else has a church named after them in Rome?
When Jesus tells the disciples that his mission as Messiah will lead to suffering and death, that infuriates Peter. In fact, Peter thinks Jesus is a loser for talking about his future in grim terms.
But Jesus rebukes Peter. Then Jesus suggests that the way to find your life is through losing it—becoming a loser. What, Jesus? Early Christians took Jesus’ words literally. Martyrs were persecuted for their faith.
Being a loser means looking at our own losses and finding in them God still at work. Think back on experiences of loss; God births new life. Or in the words of Dolly Parton’s lyrics: “after a long night, I’ve been a waiting’ for the mornin’ … I can see the light of a brand new day.”
If you think to the greatest losses you have faced in your life, you would certainly not have chosen them. But they now define you now. t’s not that God wants us to suffer. It’s not that God wills people to be losers. It’s not that victims of injustice should bear their suffering in silence. Rather, out of these experiences of loss, God births new life.
As English priest William Temple puts it, “Humility does not mean thinking less of yourself than other people. Nor does it mean having a low opinion of your gifts. It means freedom.” There is a feeling you get when you are immersed in something you love. A song. A game. A walk. A book. And you lose track of time. And the sense of freedom you get.
The sculptor Donatello carved a statue of the prophet Jeremiah, whose words we heard in the first Scripture lesson for today. Donatello’s sculpture of Jeremiah is 6 feet 3 inches tall and made of marble. It depicts Jeremiah’s frustration, exhaustion, and resolve in his words. Jeremiah dismisses the idea that God will give an easy life but instead that God works meaning, deliverance, and redemption. Or as Paul summarizes in the reading from Romans: “do not be overcome by the evil but overcome the evil with good.” It is a counter-cultural notion that life is not merely about me, myself and I but our lives are caught up in one another, the creation and God entering and enlivening the world. We share in the burdens and concerns of one another and each other’s gifts and resources. And for the next month of September, we will focus on the burdens and concerns and well as the gifts and resources of the creation we share.
Life is filled with danger and risk. Over and over again we are called to let go and trust. And to receive gifts of grace that will sustain us amid anxiety and struggle. In the words of the Rev. Dr. Brian Konkol: “We can be good at being hectic and not so good at being helpful, busy without being beneficial, chasing status without significance, being loud over lasting, and risk being incarcerated by the immediate rather than the important.”
In fact, we see God’s power hidden in the vulnerability of the manger and the cross. Jesus Christ, an ultimate loser whose resurrection is vindication. In God’s mercy, those the world declares to be losers- those who are hated- receive healing and hope.
Presiding Bishop Yeheil Curry likes to say: “Be somebody. Go somewhere. And do something.” In other words, know you are a child of God. Find your purpose in service. In losing yourself for the sake of something larger than yourself. Or the instructions from the book of Romans read earlier: “love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. 11 Do not lag in zeal; be ardent in spirit; serve the Lord. 12 Rejoice in hope; be patient in affliction; persevere in prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of the saints; pursue hospitality to strangers.”
Sometimes losing everything is what leads us to our truest selves. Or a deeper, simpler, fuller life. Sometimes losing everything means finding God, trusting God, knowing God in a new way. Christ the loser in death, yet risen and present in and among us, can lead us in new life to more than we could ever imagine.
