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Our poet today is the Pulitzer Prize winning, American poet, Elizabeth Bishop and her poem One Art which, as I read it, explores the issue of suffering and the inevitability loss through a cascading list of losses from door keys, time, places, names, houses and even loved ones. The earlier items seem to prepare Bishop for bigger losses recognizing that one can cope with loss, reflect upon it, and even when all hope seems lost, survive it, and, perhaps, even “master” it (though, I certainly hear her being tongue and cheek about that). I know it’s weird to say but I think Jesus would have loved this poem. You see – Jesus was a loser. Don’t be shocked. He was hated, mocked, and offended many people. He suffered terribly and died a criminal. But even more than that he spoke and taught about being a “loser,” about practicing and mastering loss, and even fought with the Devil about it. And think about this – that one of the greatest Satanic strategies for trying to derail Jesus was to encourage and affirm him as a winner. And Jesus responds with two losing strategies for us today: 1) First, there is an art to losing that isn’t hard to master – it’s accepting that you do and you will. It’s what it means to be human.; 2) The art of losing isn’t a disaster – it’s the recognition that that is how we are currently being saved and keeping our soul by refusing to win. The art of losing isn’t hard to master . . .
1. There is an art to losing that isn’t hard to master – it’s accepting that you do, you will, it’s what it means to be human.
From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. 22 Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!” 23 Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”
Our passage begins with Jesus raising the stakes of a losing spirituality by engaging in a surprising confrontation with the devil and his own disciple. And as he calls Peter out he reveals that the ethic of Satan, the worldview of Satan, is to always be a winner and never have to suffer or be frail and fragile. A refusal to suffer might mean choosing not to do the right thing if it doesn’t give you the advantage. A refusal to suffer will mean ignoring a compassionate moment, a person in pain, if it doesn’t offer you recognition or if it might hurt.
By the way, I don’t think, in this moment, that Peter is possessed, at least not in the traditional way. That is, I don’t believe that Satan is speaking through him. In the Old Testament satan is both a noun and a verb. The verb occurs six times and can mean “to accuse,” “to slander,” or “to be an adversary” or “to oppose.” Five of the six occurrences are in the Psalms and are actions committed by human beings, e.g. Ps. 109:4. As a noun the word means “slanderer, “accuser,” or “adversary.” In 1 Samuel 29:4, David is referred to as a “satan [adversary]” of the Philistines.
In the same way, I think that Jesus is, albeit strongly and stridently, calling out Peter for being an adversary of Jesus himself. And that makes sense, right? Most of the adversaries of Jesus, if I’m being perfectly honest, seem to exist within the church rather than without it. And what is Peter sataning – that Jesus need not be human.
To lose like Jesus, is to accept the reality of the human condition. That to be human, even if one was sinless, is to accept a frail and fragile existence. And yet there is agency even in this place, of course. And Jesus and Elizabeth Bishop would remind us that it can both be practiced and mastered. And that agency is acceptance. Bishop ironically encourages us: “Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn’t hard to master.” I have this funny image in my head of Jesus being tired and little cranky, forgetting where he put his walking staff.
Peter will even invoke God in his rebuke, “God forbid it,” and use the double negative. The Greek literally means “this will not in no way happen to you.” Ironically, on behalf of God and with double-negative certitude, Peter’s refusal to believe that Jesus could suffer denies God’s whole redemptive plan of becoming human as a “man of sorrows, acquainted with grief” to save us.
In response Jesus remarks that Peter “the rock” has become a skandalon. In secular Greek, the word normally meant “trap” but among Greek-speaking Jews whose primary literature was the Scriptures the word meant “stumbling block” (see Lev. 19:14: “You shall not . . . put a skandalon before the blind.” Used figuratively, it referred to causes or occasions of sin (e.g. Matt. 13:41; 18:7) or hindrances to faith (1 Cor. 1:23; Gal. 5:11). So Simon the Rock has become a rock to stumble over because he cannot imagine that anything or anyone of God should suffer. One of Satan’s strategies is to suggest that if we’re good, God would never allow suffering or that if we were sinless, we would always win. Let me be clear: Jesus is NOT saying that “suffering” by itself is inherently good or that God is a sadist who enjoys making us suffer. He is speaking about an acknowledged reality of powerlessness that we cannot avoid and that God has entered into, in order that we discover that even in suffering, God is there, “though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.” I want to encourage you to do that as well – write it down – in God’s economy suffering can be a redemptive and divine place.
If there has to be suffering, Satan wants you to avoid it all cost. I imagine Satan whispering, “Don’t incorporate it into your life. Don’t lovingly suffer for others in any way. Maintain good boundaries, vote in ways that always protect your interests, and always carry a weapon.” And if we listen to that voice, I believe we fall prey to one of two Satanic outcomes: 1. We will unnecessarily make others suffer. What we cannot accept, we will project. 2. We will determine to do nothing that is inconvenient. If suffering is not an element of our discipleship, then the very presence of suffering will cause us to avoid it all cost. Friends, Satan doesn’t want you struggle. In fact, he’s willing for you to gain the whole world.
2. The art of losing isn’t a disaster – it’s the recognition of we are currently being saved, keeping our soul, by refusing to gain the world.
24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save their life[a] will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. 26 What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? 27
So we’re not only talking about “losing” as the human condition. We’re also talking about “losing” as the Jesus way “because” of him (vs. 25).
I know that Jesus’ point is far more life and death, on one level. But I think there is a certain kind of losing that must also be explored and which must be mastered – voluntary renunciation. “Taking up one’s cross” isn’t only accepting that suffering is baked into the world in which we currently find ourselves. It’s also in recognizing that the way of Jesus is cross-bearing love. When we sing, they’ll know we are Christians by our love,” we are saying that they will know that we know God because of a love that doesn’t seek our own comfort, way, advantage, first. That kind of love is revealed by its “inconvenience.”
When Jesus invokes Satan what was Peter opposing? Peter was opposing the cross, and Jesus’ way of self-giving love. And this cross isn’t just for Jesus, but for every follower of Jesus (Matthew 16:24-26). The satanic then is anything that tempts us away from voluntarily suffering for following Jesus. And satanic means everything that is opposed or adversarial to self-giving, sacrificial love. So on one level it’s totally in keeping with the biblical vision of satan and the redemptive suffering of the cross to say:
Hate is the satan of suffering-love.
Exclusion is the satan of suffering-inclusion.
War is the satan of suffering-peace.
Oppression is the satan of suffering-justice.
Tearing down is the satan of suffering to build up.
Competition is the satan of suffering-cooperation.
Revenge is the satan of suffering-mercy.
Harm is the satan of suffering-care [compassion].
Hostility is the satan of suffering-reconciliation.
Jesus’ response to Peter is interesting and signals that he is speaking to Peter and not some other-worldly being. He calls Peter to resume his rightful place “behind me.” When Jesus encounters the angelic devil in Matthew 4 he ends by saying “Go, Satan!” (Matt. 4:10) However, when Jesus encounters Peter acting like Satan – he doesn’t send him packing but says, “Resume your proper role as a disciple; learn from me, don’t try to teach me. And don’t stand in my way, but follow it. I am the master of losing and following me will always cost you something.” Every element of discipleship that Jesus calls us to will at some point require us to suffer.
Jesus defines the struggle with Satan as a struggle over the concerns of God in this life (vs. 23). Everything has a spirituality that animates it, which seek to shape our vision, aim our worship, and give us everything that we think we need. (As you walk through your day try and pay attention to the many ways that advertisers seek your attention, your loyalty and your love – it truly is the air we breathe)This means that rather than Ouija boards, the satanic plan may have much more to do with commercials during the Super Bowl and techno-devices like our smart phones, which allow us to buy with a god-like whim. In fact, I urge you to spend 5 minutes this week pondering the spirituality of your cell phone. What is it shaping you to do/be?
The art of losing as a Christian is to follow Jesus and lose your life(style).
Friends, I want to humbly suggests that if we are to “resist the devil” we must begin with the values of a global marketplace that tell us never to suffer, urge us to acquire more, no matter what the costs to others or the planet. A world where advertisements are the air we breathe quite adept at coaxing us with religious language to shed our crosses and self-denial in order to buy, possess, and to accumulate more A couple of years ago, I heard an announcer on the radio say, “Sometimes you’ve just got to believe. Believe in a miracle. Believe in a leap of faith. Believe that there’s something bigger than yourself. Believe in a second chance. . .” At this point I was ready to repent until I heard, “California Lottery Powerball. You just gotta believe.” I am suggesting that the Satanic plan says that you don’t find yourself by self-denial or the wisdom of the cross but by an infinite commercial “yes” where global corporations exists as “powers and principalities” which aim to shape and redefine not only what we love but even what love is. Do you want to know what a satanic message sounds like? Well, this quote from the t.v. show Mad Men’s Don Draper captures it perfectly:
Advertising is based on one thing: happiness. And do you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It's freedom from fear. It's a billboard on the side of a road that screams with reassurance that whatever you're doing is OK. You are OK.
Marianne, who is quite passionate about environmental concerns, and teaches environmental courses at Westmont College, told me that one of the interesting issues between France and American with respect to environmental messaging is the key element of renunciation as an important element. In France, environmentalists press the profound point that we simply cannot care for the planet and maintain our current spending, fossil fuel usage, lifestyle. And yet, in American, she says, environmentalists have learned that to talk about any sort of renunciation is a non-starter, rather, one must pitch “green” buying but buying can’t be touched.
So what should we do? What can we do? How do we challenge this air of dogmatic God-talk which costs us nothing and a gospel of consumption that foments violence, exploitation, against people and the earth? How can we resist the devil?
I want to suggest that what we are about to do in communion offers us two ways for us to resist the devil and practice losing. By taking communion, we “get behind, Jesus.”
First, we are rehearsing a story that connects God to losing and suffering-love to winning. This allows us to inhabit our world of suffering with the confident hope of its demise. It allows us to take our present time of suffering and not ignore it and believe it can hold redemption – God is there. Write it! Remember it! Tuck these words into your Bible, scratch them in your journal, tattoo them on your heart. The practice of the cross will always look like a story of losing until the end.
Second, we are participating in a shared meal where no one has any more than anyone else. There is no hoarding, there is no scarcity, there is simply “enough.” Let the enough-ness of this meal remind you of our future and judge our current vision of capitalism – a competition for things. The only way through is to remember that this is a meal for losers who in losing will discover that it only looks like, like disaster.
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