Lent 5c.07                                                             March 25, 2007

Sometimes we give things up,
       maybe for awhile, maybe forever.
We give up a bad habit or we give up a relationship
       or we give up a dream.
Other times, we just lose things.
       We don’t give them up.
       They are taken from us.
Either way, life progresses through a process
       of coming and going, gaining and losing,
               acquiring and giving up.

As Joni Mitchell put it,

       “Something’s lost and something’s gained
       in living everyday.”

We don’t have to make a spiritual discipline
       of self-denial in order to experience loss.
Loss is an inevitable part of every life..
Without loss, there is no moving forward.
So there is no life without loss,
       no growth without grief.
It isn’t up to us whether we let go.
What is up to us is what we let go for.

In his letter to the Philippians, St. Paul
        recalls what a success he was in his youth

        – a man blameless under the law,
                zealous for the faith,
                and a rising star in the rabbinic tradition.

There’s an implicit wistfulness about his memories.
Paul had liked his life, liked it well enough
        to live it intensely, aggressively.

Then he says something startling”

        “But whatever gain I had, I count as a loss
                for the sake of Christ.”
He goes on,

        “More than that, I count everything as loss
                because of the surpassing value
                of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”

Now Paul didn’t know the historic Jesus of Nazareth
        anymore than you or I do.
But Paul got glimpses of the Risen Lord
        through prayer and meditation,
                and sensed a glimmer of his presence,
                in the lost and lonely people,
                         just as you and I can.

Paul came to love Jesus, became devoted to him,
        gave Jesus his heart, and then his life.

“For his sake,” Paul writes, “I have suffered the loss
        of all things, and count them as refuse
                in order that I may find Christ.”
Notice he is still looking for the object of his love,
        still hoping to “find Christ”
        because so far, he’s only had a glimpse

        – but that was enough to set him on a livelong quest.

The word for Paul’s new way of life is “devotion.”
It means giving oneself, committing oneself

        – not something modern people do readily.
It runs counter to our contemporary view of religion
        as one option in the supermarket
                 of self-help techniques.

Devotion isn’t using Jesus to make ourselves feel better.
It’s loving Jesus enough to not worry
        about how we feel.

[The Sanskrit word for “devotion” is bhakti.
Hinduism’s patron saint of bhakti is a talking monkey

        – a sort of South Asian Curious George.
Hanuman becomes a sidekick helper to an avatar,
        a divine man, named Ram.
Ram has a perilous adventure,
        and Hanuman works wonders to help Ram succeed.

At the victory party,
        Ram gives Hanuman a thank you present.
It is a priceless ring.
Hanuman examines the ring,
        then chews it into a piece of junk,
                and throws it away.

Another guest laughs and says,

        “See what a waste to give valuable things
                to a silly monkey.”]

[“Not so,” Hanuman replies.

        “The ring was worthless to me
                for it had not the name of Ram anywhere on it.”
The guest says,

        “By that reasoning you should throw away
                your own body.”
“Not so,” Hanuman says, and he opens his chest
        to expose his rib cage.
The name of Ram has been carved on each of his bones.
That’s bhakti. That’s devotion.]

That’s what Jesus meant to Paul.
And when Jesus means half that much to us,
        all our losses and all the things we lose or give up
                take on a new context.

Whatever we lose brings us that much closer
        to Jesus, leaves us that much more completely
                in his hands of mercy.

If we aren’t devoted to Jesus as Paul was,
        that’s not much comfort.
But if we can catch a glimpse of Jesus,
        and get just a hint of who he is,
                then everything, all of life,
        will remain precious in itself,
                but like refuse compared to the joy
                        of his presence.

St. Ignatius of Loyola caught a glimpse of Jesus
        though imaginative prayer with Scripture.
After that he prayed,

        “All that I am and all that I have you have given me.
        I give it all back . . . Grant me only the comfort
                of your presence and the joy of your love.”
That’s devotion.

Devotion to Christ will cost us everything,
        but that’s nothing we won’t lose anyway.
And devotion to him will set us free from bondage
        to self-indulgence, addictions,
                and the futile rat race of chasing after money,
                         power, and ego-credentials.

Human nature keeps us painfully obsessed with ourselves
        constantly asking:

        “Am I happy? Am I safe? Am I smart? Am I right?”
We can’t live our lives
        because we are too busy
                for checking our own temperatures.

St. Augustine was like that
        until he got tired of thinking about himself.
He became bored with Augustine..
He wrote, “I had become a great problem of myself.”

Then he caught a glimpse of Jesus, and prayed,

        “How late I came to love thee, O Beauty,
               so ancient and so fair.”

We are indeed great problems to ourselves,
         and the solution to that problem
               is to lose ourselves in love of the Risen Lord,
         whose being and whose beauty are so vast, so spacious,
               that we can sink into him forever.

                                                         Amen.