Jesus is For Losers

(Song written by Steve Taylor)

But Jesus called them to Himself and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. "Yet  it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. "And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave -  "just as the Son of Man did not come to be served,  but to serve, and  to give His life a ransom  for many." (Matt 20:25-27)

The Opposite of Winning
Part of getting older for me has been dealing with loss in many big ways.  There is the loss of my children as they grow old enough to not need my protection, my income and my wisdom; the loss of respect that folks seem to get just for being over 40.  There is the loss of youth, virility, strength and time.  Likewise, there is the impending loss of mobility, health, and eventually life iteself to be concerned about.

So no, I do not find myself at the age of 46 saying victoriously the word “WINNING” like the equally old Charlie Sheen most recently.  Instead I can say with much certainty and conviction loudly that I am “LOSING!”

Every day I stand to lose more and more.

So what happened?
I mean really, this is not the glory story I was told as a teenager in my Jesus-freak youth group.  Certainly it does not smack of the usual optimism.  I mean, that would suppose that you believe the same stories I did.  You are special.  You are important.  You will do great things.  You have a special purpose. You can be a winner.  You just have to work hard and be good and everything will work out for the best.  This lack of optimism may be taken as negativity or worse still, morbidity, but I find myself just wanting to be very honest here.

No, you do not get everything you ever wanted in life.  No love does not stay the same and never change. There is no happily ever after and the sun WILL NOT come out tomorrow most days. If you find something good, I mean really awesome, in your life time you will most likely lose it, and probably in a horrendous way.

However, when I look at the Christian church and most Christians these days you would think they missed the memo.  They are all about winning and claiming the victory.  They seem fixated on simply emoting happiness as if being a Christian has somehow fixed all of their problems.  There was a while there when I played the same game.  Regardless of what happened to me I would simply praise Jesus and of course neglect to tell any of those other smiling happy Christians who never experienced problems about my woes.

We are all Losers
But, the truth is they are all losing – we are.  Right now, in fact you too are losing… something.  It could be love, money, time, friends, family members; other loved ones, life itself, health, longevity. Seriously, the list goes on.  A case could be made that each of us are losing far more than we are winning and will continue to lose even in the midst of winning.

Jesus on the other hand was a Master loser.  He knew how to lose and how to lose big, with little dignity and little saving face.  He demonstrates to us how we can go on with life even after losing so much.

Don’t believe me?  Show me a scripture where Jesus tells us to “Play the Lotto, because you can’t win if you don’t play.”  How about just one that says “Build a big nest egg for your self and constantly defeat your enemies.”  How about one that says “Amass a great big happy family, or obtain a large lovely home, own the most cattle, win, win, win?”

You won’t find it – I looked.  Instead if you truly reflect on the words of Jesus, you will find a common thread among just about everything he has to say.  Here’s a hint – it’s not about winning.

Jesus says “the last shall be first.”  Loosely translated this means that the biggest losers will actually be the winners.  In the upside down world of Jesus and his Kingdom of God, there is value in being last.

Jesus goes on to say things like:

“The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again.  No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.” (John 1:18-19)

Really?
As “Followers” of Jesus aren’t we supposed to be like him?  What would it take for us to value other people’s successes over our own?  This is antithetical to just about everything my parents, church, and school taught me.  Isn’t it all supposed to be about victory, success, winning, building a mansion in the sky, achieving more for myself?

I have this tattoo on my left arm that I have had now since October of 2004.  It is a stern reminder of this message.  Often-times I forget the tattoo is even there, but when I look at it for more than a few seconds, I quickly sober up and remember this mandate.

The tattoo says “Ars Moreindi” in a Gaelic script.  The Latin words simply mean, “The Art of Dying (Death).”  My Mom would think this was awfully morbid and has voiced her opinion of my tattoo on a few occasions, but I continue to try and cling to this message in selfish moments – moments when I want to hold on to my life too firmly – times when I reign supreme and no one else matters — times when I am pursuing the American Dream at the expense of other people and in spite of those that are not doing so well, times when I know I am right and the other person is dead wrong.

A year ago, just after Easter, I lost my home. He is Risen!  I lost my Home!  He is Risen Indeed!  Someone could have died, but He will come again!  Everything I own was in limbo for weeks at a fire restoration facility.  He is Risen!  I am not a fan of Easter.  In my opinion it was a holiday created by Christians designed to gloss over Jesus’ entire life’s work including everything he ever said and demonstrated, by celebrating his resurrection from the dead.  Whoop-dee-freakin-doo, I was not feeling very Easterful last year.

If you were unfortunate enough to catch the movie “The Passion of Christ” you know that Jesus didn’t just rise from the dead though, right? He was tortured to death first.  It took hours.  At least he didn’t have to watch the movie, or work closely with Mel Gibson.  But seriously, read the white spaces in the Bible (between the words) and see exactly all that he lost prior to his end on earth.

He lost his status as a carpenter. He lost his family business. He lost dignity and respect. He lost his position in society as a teacher. He lost all of his friends. He lost the possibility of ever having a wife and kids of his own. He lost his Mother and Father and brothers and sisters and cousins.  Don’t you think he wanted those things?  Don’t you think he loved his family and friends as much as we do?

He gave up on all that stuff, all those people.  He was good at giving up wasn’t he?  He held on to everything – every blessing, every friendship, everything —  very lightly.  It’s like he knew that he could lose it all at any moment, and was already prepared to do so.

How then shall we live? 
If we are to be followers of Jesus, why do we fight so hard to not just keep ALL that we have, but to get more and more in spite of others?  Why do we work so hard and for so many hours away from each other?  Why do we fight so hard for principles that have nothing to do with these words of Jesus? What are we trying to do anyway?

Does the fact that Jesus lost everything somehow mean he did not care about anything?  I don’t think so.  I think he cared an awful lot about all of it, all of us and all of them.  It’s just that he knew that life was a blessing.  All of the good stuff did not BELONG to him, nor did he have a right to possess it.  So when he lost it all he was most definitely hurt by the loss, but he somehow knew it could happen.

Sometimes I feel that we as Christians missed the point completely of his death.  We see it as a means to his resurrection, which we celebrate so victoriously on Easter, being remarkably silent on Good Friday. We see him as a winner, a victor over death, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Prince of Peace and all that other mumbo-jumbo which means very little to people who are still alive and having to live with loss on a regular basis. So rather than embrace loss as a way of life, we are forced to sort of pretend that everything is lovely all the time and losing a loved one is no big deal because we will “See them in Heaven.”

We don’t understand why things go so wrong at times and why even though we are living “victorious” lives we still lose so much.  We think sometimes that maybe we are not living victoriously enough and that is why bad things happen.  So we turn it up a notch, the entire time going in the wrong direction, moving further and further from the God of losing — moving more and more towards the God of winning — a fictitious, evil god that is never satisfied.

Or even worse, we blame God for the bad things — for the loss.  See him as some kind of cruel cosmic game master in the sky plotting against us, we who have served him so well for so long.  How could God take these things away?  We deserve so much better.  How does he expect us to claim the victory when he keeps taking, taking, taking?

What we fail to see is that we as followers of Jesus, are to lay these things down — give them up — hold on to them looser than we currently hold on to them. No one can take them away from us, no one, because we lay them down on our own accord (John 1:18-19 again). I know, hard words to hear, and harder words to live by.  Thanks a lot, Jesus.  Why couldn’t you have just told us to infiltrate a major American political party and dominate the federal government with the intentions of legislating morality based on our own interpretation of scripture?  So much easier.

The Loser’s Club
The good news is that we are not alone.  Not only is God with us (in my opinion), but we have each other to lose with. We can have our own Loser’s Club to be associated with. 

In the novel “It” by Stephen King there was a special kind of camaraderie that the main characters shared in being part of this special club of kids called The Losers’ Club by their schoolmates.  But in the end, this band of would be losers somehow proves over and again their ability to sacrifice everything they have for one another.

Love, sacrifice, commitment, compassion, these are the principles that come about when we are used to losing and are held hostage by no-thing.  Jesus knew that.