Lose Your Life for the Sake of Christ

Homily for Wednesday, February 28, 2024
Wednesday in the Second Week of Lent
Matthew 20:17-28

The story we just heard comes from St. Matthew’s Gospel.  In Mark’s version of the story, it is not ”the mother of the sons of Zebedee” who asks if “these two sons of mine [can] sit, one at your right hand and one at your left,” it is the disciples themselves who ask.  Coming on the heels of Jesus foretelling his death and resurrection, the disciples’ ask suggests some “wishful hearing” on the disciples’ part.  T he disciples heard only what they wanted to hear (about Jesus’ kingdom) and not what Jesus actually said (about his death).

I feel for the disciples with their wishful hearing – it must have been difficult for them to hear Jesus foretell his death. Jesus’ words at the end of tonight’s passage likewise are difficult to hear:

Whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant [Jesus said], and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.

By these words Jesus suggests that we – like Jesus – are not so much to be served as we are to serve.  And Jesus seems to suggests, too, that we –like Jesus – are to serve to the point of being willing to give our lives.  As Jesus said elsewhere :

If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross… Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. (Matt 16:24-25)

Though I can hear what Jesus said about serving, I find myself practicing “wishful hearing” in regards to what he said about dying.  I don’t want to hear it.

But I’ve heard about people who are willing to lose their lives for his sake.  For example, in September of 1958, Martin Luther King, Jr. was at a book signing in Harlem when a woman approached him,asked if he was Martin Luther King Jr., and when he said he was, she stabbed him in the chest with a letter opener.  King remained calm as he was taken to the hospital, where the letter opener was removed surgically.  The surgeon said the letter opener was so close to an aorta that, had King panicked or even sneezed, he might have died.  King later wrote:

If I demonstrated unusual calm, it was not due to an extraordinary power that I possess.  Rather, it was due to the power of God working through me.  Throughout this struggle for racial justice, I have constantly asked God to remove all bitterness from my heart and to give me the strength and courage to face any disaster that came my way.  This constant prayer and trust in God have given me the feeling that I have divine companionship…  To believe in nonviolence does not mean that violence will not be inflicted upon me.  The believer in nonviolence is the person who will willingly allow himself to be the victim of violence but will never inflict violence upon another.  He lives by the conviction that through his suffering and cross-bearing the social situation may be redeemed. (Ebony magazine)

I’m not sure I could return violence with non-violence, as did Martin Luther King Jr..  But I would love to have at least some of his courage.  Perhaps if I could truly (and not merely wishfully) hear Jesus’ words about forgiving not seven times but seventy-seven times (Matt 18:22) or his words about turning the other cheek (Matt 5:39); or if I could truly (and not merely wishfully) hear Jesus’ words about loving my enemies (5:44) or about being meek and merciful and a peacemaker (5:5, 7 and 9)…  Perhaps, if I can practice “true” and not merely “wishful” hearing of these words, then maybe I could have “the strength and courage to face any disaster that came my way,” as King wrote, and maybe I could have even a fraction of King’s ability to “live by the conviction that through suffering and cross-bearing the social situation may be redeemed.”

Though Jesus’ words are challenging, they are also life-changing.  I pray that this Lent, we may all practice not wishful but true hearing of Jesus’ words, so that we might better serve, so that we might better be able to drink whatever “cup” may be in store for us, and so that we even more faithfully might follow him as his disciples.

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