How can we save our lives by losing them? Immanuel Kant wrote that whenever we are faced with an apparent paradox, that’s a sign that we are confusing truths on two distinct levels. And so it may be with the notion of saving our life by losing it (and losing it when we try to save it). The life that we stand to lose and the life that we stand to save are not the same thing.
The Greek word translated “life” in our Gospel reading is actually psyche. The lexicon at the back of my Greek New Testament translates psyche as “self, inner life, inmost being.” Thomas Merton famously distinguished between the false and the true self. The false, or illusory, self seems to exist apart from God, while the true self exists entirely in relation to God.
Thus, Matthew’s Jesus may be saying that it is only by releasing our false self that we find and develop our true self. Peter seems not to realize that the only way Jesus could save himself from being tortured and killed by the state would be to renounce the message and ministry that caused the state to perceive him as such a threat—the message and ministry, rooted in the prophetic tradition, of healing and restoring dignity to the outcast and powerless. To renounce this mission, taken on in light of his relationship to his Abba, would cost Jesus the very essence of his identity. Thus, Jesus would lose his true self in the effort to save his life.
Jesus says that any who would follow him must “deny themselves” (their false selves). One translation of “deny” in my Greek-English lexicon is “renounce one’s claim to.” Jesus renounces his claim to his worldly life for the sake of his true self rooted in God. Saint Benedict, in Chapter 33 of his Rule, asks the same of monastics, saying that they “have free disposal of neither will nor body” and that in the monastery, “all things are to be common to everyone.” This is not self-denial for its own sake, but an acknowledgement that our existence and true identity are rooted in relationship to God and community and that our lives are most meaningful when we live in accord with that awareness.
And how wide is the community our true lives are rooted in? Who is our neighbor? Benedict says to welcome every guest as Christ. Thich Nhat Hanh’s lovingkindness meditation has us wish well-being “first for those you like… then one that is neutral to you, and finally the one you suffer the most when you think of.” Paul’s circle of compassion also ripples outward: “Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers. Bless those who persecute you… If your enemies are hungry, feed them…”
Are we really to bless our persecutors, to feed those we consider our enemies? What kind of justice is there in this? Peter’s objection to what’s about to happen to Jesus might spring in part from a certain conception of divine justice, one that considers justice to be the repayment of evil for evil and good for good and that considers divine justice to be a matter of God’s administering evil or good fates to people according to their deeds.
All three of today’s readings raise the question of the nature of divine justice. Jeremiah feels outraged and betrayed that God has not yet brought down retribution on those who persecute him for his righteous rebukes. The Romans need to be told not to “repay anyone evil for evil.” And Matthew also mentions supernatural repayment.
But what if divine justice is not a matter of God’s orchestrating an appropriate outcome for each person? What if, instead, it’s a question of how we are to conduct ourselves if we are to be considered just by God’s lights? And what if being just by God’s lights is not about repayment at all, but something entirely different?
God turns our expectations upside down regarding who deserves blessing. We heard Paul urging us to bless—and not curse—those who persecute us. Jesus says those who receive persecution are blessed, too. And so are those who are poor. And those who seek God, whether they are successful or not. The parable about equal wages for eleventh-hour workers directly contests the equation of justice with repayment.
The divine response to Jeremiah (“if you turn back… if you utter what is precious and not what is worthless”) suggests that Jeremiah’s thirst for retribution is misguided. Paul, after telling the Romans not to repay evil with evil, explains, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good”—with compassionate care, no exceptions. As for Jesus, he taught us to stop casting stones, to turn our focus away from others’ sins, to find and remove the beam in our own eye, and to tend to our neighbor, who is anyone in our path who needs help.
If you’re finding it hard to let go of the equation of divine justice with divine repayment here and now, consider where it leads. If God is fair by this definition, then people’s actual level of well-being must reflect what they deserve. A popular belief sometimes called the prosperity gospel claims exactly this: that God gives earthly prosperity to everyone who lives rightly, while denying it to everyone who doesn’t. If this is true, then everyone who struggles is at fault—and everyone who gets away with violence, deception, thievery, or exploitation is acting with God’s blessing and deserves to thrive. But that’s just the law of the strongest—the law that justifies whoever comes out on top—disguised as theology.
To identify the law of the strongest with the law and ways of God is indeed a distortion and ruse worthy of Satan. No wonder Jesus rebukes Peter in strong terms. Peter is appalled by the prediction of Jesus’s execution partly because he’s sure that a just God will not allow an innocent to suffer. But that assumption belongs to the prosperity gospel.
The innocent can and do suffer. Job suffers. People in war zones suffer. Infants are born into terrible circumstances and pay a lifelong price. In John 9, the disciples meet someone blind from birth. They assume it’s a punishment. But Jesus calls it an opportunity to reveal the works of God, and he extends a healing hand. Even his own undeserved passion Jesus treats as an opportunity for the true nature of divine justice to shine forth. Embracing the limitations of being human, at the Last Supper he gives his fate covenantal meaning for his disciples, making it a sign of God’s faithful love, and he commissions them to extend their own hands in service.
The law of God is not the law of the strongest. The law of God is love. At least in this world, divine justice is not reward or punishment from on high. Divine justice is a helping human hand.
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