A Basket of The Essential: Deny Yourself, Take Up Your Cross

The study of today’s scriptures drew me to this title: paying attention to the essential. To be honest, it didn’t sound like a difficult task at first, but on close examination, you kind of realize that every day we make some choices that do not fit in the category of the essential. Is that necessarily a bad thing? In our world maybe not, I may still live okay if I don’t focus on the essential, but Jesus explains to us that we cannot get to our destination if we don’t know where we are going/ the essential is needed. You may ask: What is this essential that is absolutely necessary in the Kingdom of God? Jesus points us to a category we call “profitable”. We all have this basket inside us and we put things in it, that we think are good/profitable to us. There is a huge gap however in God’s Kingdom, between choices with focus on divine things and those with focus on human things. They don’t mix. The essential has a formula that Jesus gave to his disciples and Paul repeated it on several occasions. This essential was like a map Jesus was spreading in front of us to know and understand the destination of the Kingdom of God. We need the essential. The details of the heavenly map started with Jesus admitting that he was the long-awaited Messiah [You can understand the excitement: He is going to deliver us from Roman oppression!] To their surprise, Jesus tells them that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great sufferings at the hand of Jewish leaders, be killed and be raised on the third day. Peter reaches into his inner basket of profitable and said: “That’s not going to be good for us! God forbid it Lord! This must never happen to you!” We make judgments like this all the time. What we think is profitable to us, end up not being profitable after all. Peter ended up being sharply rebuked for it, which tells me that we deserve to be rebuked for ours as well, for focusing on human things and not on divine things. It’s getting serious! The disciples needed to learn the true mission of Messiah as the suffering servant and understand what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. The Messiah was not the conquering military on a white horse to save Israel. Not in that way, his liberation was different. Their baskets of profitable needed to contains new things focused on God: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” Like a cherry on the top, Jesus described for us the essential’s formula. He said: “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, will find it.” It made me remember those who chose difficult routes in this world because of their faith. Tertullian had told us that: “the blood of the Martyrs are the seed of the church”. Amongst the earliest followers of Christ executed for their faith, were most of Jesus disciples; Stephen in the book of Acts 7. There is also Perpetua and Felicity killed in North Africa in the year 203. Polycarp in Smyrna. What was the problem? They would not sacrifice to pagan gods or burn incense to the emperor. I am sure if we look hard and deep, there might be equivalent of that in today's society. Their baskets of profitable were full of things focused on God. They resisted and ignored popular ways of surviving their era. They abhorred anything calling them to be cozy with sin. They all had an inward journey that shows only the essential in their baskets of profitable. Paul reminded us what the essential will look like for us: “Let your love be genuine, hate what is evil, outdo one another in showing honor. Serve the Lord. Contribute to the needs of the saints. Extend hospitality to strangers. Bless those who persecute you, don’t curse them. Don’t repay evil for evil. Live in peace with others, never avenge yourselves. If your enemies are hungry, feed them, give them something to drink. Overcome evil with good.” That should fill our baskets of profitable. Each one of those, benefits others and perfectly fits Jesus’ essential formula: Deny yourself/lose your life for my sake. Will we reason with Jesus today? For what would it profit me, if I gain the whole world, but lose myself? What could I ever trade my soul for? Pay attention to the essential! Amen.

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