Mark 8: 31-38
- He was only a young man in his twenties, but he was the greatest military genius the world had ever known. He defeated the Persians, the great world empire of his age. He conquered Palestine and Egypt, almost without a battle. His armies swept on east until he had conquered India. And then, so the stories say, he sat down and wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer. He was Alexander of Macedon, but history knows him as Alexander the Great. And then, at the age of 33, Alexander the Great died.
- He was a man in his sixties, and his name was also Alexander, but
that was his last name, not his first. I called on him in the
hospital. He threw back the sheet and showed me his foot. It was
grayish-white and there was a black hole in the side, about an inch
across.
"They're going to amputate my foot," he said. "It's filled with gangrene. But I'm going to die anyway. I'm being killed by my own hate. Eight years ago my brother cheated me out of some property. I've hated him ever since. I was a whole lot more naive twenty-five years ago than I am now."
"If you know your hate is killing you," I said, "why not stop it? Call your brother up and tell him you forgive him."
"I can't do that," Mr. Alexander said. "My brother has been dead himself for three years. But even if he were alive, I wouldn't forgive him!"
"Not even to save your life?" I said.
"Not even to save my life!"
When Jesus asked this famous question, Alexander the Great had been dead 350 years. Yet he was so famous the listeners probably thought of him at once. It's easy for us, even now, to see him as the illustration of Jesus's point. It is harder to see the Mr. Alexander I met in the hospital as another illustration of that point. But he is.
The word that our pew Bibles translate as "life" in today's Gospel reading is psuchee, from which we get modern words like psychology and psychiatrist. Psuchee means "life," but it also means "soul."
Your soul is your I.D. It makes you who you are. Your uniqueness is not in your photograph; you could have plastic surgery, but you would still be you. Your I.D. is not in your fingerprints. All your fingers could be cut off, but you would still be you. Your I.D. is not in your genes and chromosomes. They merely set limits on what you could be; but the "you" that is distinctly you is something less, and something more, than the limitations of your cells. Your soul is that basic identity, that which makes you who you are.
So when Jesus asks the question, "How much is your life worth? How much is your soul worth? How much is your true identity worth?" how would you answer? Well, probably the answer is that it is worth everything there is and more. So, how do you protect that life? How do you take care of that soul? How do you guard your real identity?
Our culture has developed lots of answers to that question. If psuchee means "life," then we work at staying alive. Our answer probably includes doctors and diets and defensive driving. We may decide to give up cigarettes and salt and saturated fats. We may take pills with every meal and more at bedtime, and move to a state where our allergies don't bother us. How much is your life worth? To many people it is worth everything they can pay.
Now suppose psuchee means "soul." Then we would work to maintain our identity, our self-image. We work to protect those attributes that we see as important in our own personal make-up. We might identify ourselves as westerners, as Huskies, as Americans, as male or female, Christian, Disciple. We might see ourselves as mother or father or almost grownup. We might want to be known as generous, loving, forgiving, shy, non-musical, hard-working, overweight, a chocoholic, a chain-smoker, someone who won't take guff off of anyone, a victim of circumstances, a winner or a loser.
Now some of these attributes might seem positive and some might seem negative, but we work to protect them anyway. A part of Mr. Alexander's self-image was that of a person who never forgave an injury. He would rather have died than give up that identity. So, you see, it doesn't really matter whether a part of your self-image, your soul, is negative or positive. You will work to protect it. You will fight to maintain it.
What would you give in exchange for your soul? Mr. Alexander gave up life itself. Not heroically but viciously. What would you give up? Would you give up chocolate, if eating chocolate would kill you? Would you give up life to protect your personality? Would you give up part of your personality to save your life? What would you be willing to give up? And what would you try to save?
And while you're thinking about that, consider this: What Jesus says doesn't seem to make any sense at all! Jesus says if you try to save your life you'll lose it. Jesus says if you try to protect your soul, you'll find it slipping away.
Jesus says you can only save your life by risking it. No, worse than that, you can only save your life by dying! Take care of your soul by ignoring it. Discover your true identity by forgetting about yourself! Boy, does that go contrary to common sense!?
And yet, if I think about those two Alexanders, I can get a glimmering of what Jesus might mean. What if the one was not truly made to conquer the world; and what if the other was not truly made to hate his brother? What if neither one is dealing with his true soul, but only a false soul, a fake I.D?
A couple of weeks ago we read the scripture from Second Corinthians that included these words, "The god of this world has blinded their minds." There are forces at work; and it doesn't matter whether you name those forces "Satan" or "Advertising" or "Peer Pressure" or "Secular Culture." There are forces working to blind us, blind us to who we really are. There are forces working to supply us with a fake I.D.
If this is true, then only by giving up our soul, our false identity, can we save our soul, our true personality. We can never truly begin to live until we sacrifice the imitation lives we lead. What does it profit us if our fake self-image conquers the world, or even if we can force our brother to admit he was wrong? What profit is there if our real personality is never allowed to come to life?
When I was a boy growing up we didn't have Mother Teresa to admire, but we did have Albert Schweitzer. He was a multi-talented man. He was one of the greatest organists of his age. He was one of the greatest theologians of his age.
What does it profit a person to be one of the greatest organists who ever lived? What does it profit a person to write the book that changes the way the whole world does theology? Albert Schweitzer asked that question, and then decided that his true self belonged on the mission field serving others. He never wrote another world-changing theology book. He played on a piano made of tinned steel, which wouldn't rot in the jungle. He devoted his life to being obscure. And he found his true identity.
And to each of us Jesus says, "If you want to be my disciple, deny your false self, take up your cross, and follow me."
(Comments to Don at donhoffman@w-link.net.)
Northwest Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
Seattle, Washington, USA