In our gospel reading for today, Jesus is at the pinnacle of his global popularity. He has just recently raised his friend Lazarus from four days dead, leading to a huge surge of new followers. Many of these new followers have just recently waved palm branches to mark Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem as a king, like we will next week. And then to top it off, some sophisticated Greeks arrive who are so keen to see Jesus, that they suck up to his scruffy Galilean fisherman bodyguard, saying “M'Lord, we wish to see Jesus.” What does Jesus do with these signs of amazing success? Jesus uses them as his cue to proclaim his quickly approaching death....
Did you ever have a time in life where it just seemed like everything was going your way? You absolutely NAILED your performance for music festival, AND the adjudicator liked you. You had some calves show up early, AND the March weather was warm and dry. You stepped on the scale and found that you lost 5 pounds AND you weren't even dieting. These are wonderful times, and the temptation when we're in them, is to assume that they will continue in unbroken fashion, as some kind of entitlement or reward from God.
Jesus was going through a wonderful time – the PEAK of his influence in ministry. And what was his response? Jesus warns his disciples, “Those who love their life, lose it.” No matter how well things are going in this world, at some point, success in this world will be stripped away from you. There will be setbacks in ministries, if not complete failures. Times of economic hardship and reversal are likely, if not inevitable. Relationships go through cycles of fire and ice. And in the end, our bodies WILL lose their functioning, bit by bit, and eventually, we will be done here. Don't get too attached to the good life here, Jesus warns. Don't let it steal your focus from eternity.
That is hard advice to listen to in this part of the world, because our good life is, on average, historically, very, very good. And we are very, very good at rationalizing and justifying WHY we have it so good. We assume it must be because GOD is so very, very good, and God loves us so much. But that is a trap! If the good life is linked to God's love, then we can always find people whom God apparently loves MORE than us. And we can always justify the plight of those in poverty as people that God loves LESS than us. But if the unthinkable happens, and everything goes south for us, and some catastrophe rolls through town, does that mean God has STOPPED loving us?
This trap works on churches as well. We can get caught chasing numbers and dollars and buildings and other visible, worldly signs of success, instead of pursuing faithful discipleship. We try to take credit for a growing church as a sign we are doing something pleasing to God, when really, some of the fastest growing churches and sects in the world are far from Christian. Or the reverse can happen, and we assume that if our church is shrinking or troubled, it must be because the church is being unfaithful, and God is no longer present with us. Linking worldly success with the love of God flies in the face of martyred prophets, imprisoned apostles, our own experiences of tragedy, and of course, the experience of Jesus himself.