Thursday after Ash Wednesday -- February 14, 2013
Thursday after Ash Wednesday
Luke 9:23 - 25
Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for you to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit your very self?
It is possible to gain many things in the world (success, knowledge, money, acclaim, power, influence, education, rank) but lose yourself.
In fact, conventional wisdom says that gaining these things will help you find yourself, or at least make it easier for you to find yourself, but that almost never happens. Accumulating “the world” is a hollow acquisition, because whatever we accumulate is never enough. Like a thirsty person drinking salt water, we hunger for more. We accumulate, and figure it will take just a little more – always, just a little more – to quench the thirst.
More of “the world” (knowledge, vocation, relationship, etc.) can never give you yourself.
Jesus’ words in the passage are counter-intuitive. To take them seriously invites a major life-shift.
Finding self is much more a matter of letting go than of accumulating . . . much more about subtraction than addition.
Luke 9:23 - 25
Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for you to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit your very self?
It is possible to gain many things in the world (success, knowledge, money, acclaim, power, influence, education, rank) but lose yourself.
In fact, conventional wisdom says that gaining these things will help you find yourself, or at least make it easier for you to find yourself, but that almost never happens. Accumulating “the world” is a hollow acquisition, because whatever we accumulate is never enough. Like a thirsty person drinking salt water, we hunger for more. We accumulate, and figure it will take just a little more – always, just a little more – to quench the thirst.
More of “the world” (knowledge, vocation, relationship, etc.) can never give you yourself.
Jesus’ words in the passage are counter-intuitive. To take them seriously invites a major life-shift.
Finding self is much more a matter of letting go than of accumulating . . . much more about subtraction than addition.
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