Sermon for February 28, 2021 - The Second Sunday in Lent - Year B - The Rev. Elise A. Feyerherm

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16                                                                        

Psalm 22:22-30                                                                                              

Romans 4:13-25                                                                    

Mark 8:31-38 

What does it look like to forfeit one’s soul? What does it feel like? How would we know if it were happening?

Jesus said, “Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?” The Greek word that is translated “life” in this passage is the word we know as “psyche” – it can also mean “soul,” or “self.” As he teaches his disciples, Jesus seems to be describing the possibility of losing something deeper than physical existence. He is suggesting that there are choices we make in our lives that, while they might preserve our earthly existence, might do much greater damage to our very selves.

What does it look like to lose one’s soul, one’s very self? How do we know if it is happening? 

It is much easier, I think, to see it happening in someone else, than to see our own souls slipping away. The evidence is all around us. Politicians cling to the power of their office, win another election, by refusing to challenge injustice, sacrificing their own integrity and their vow to uphold the law. Wealthy business owners give themselves raises while refusing to pay their employees a living minimum wage. Celebrities hawk commercial products that promise the moon to those who can’t afford them, while gaining fame and reaping royalties.

What does it look like to save one’s life and forfeit one’s soul? I immediately think of dramatic examples from history or literature; of Faust, for instance, who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for knowledge and pleasure. One more example of how I find the pointing of the finger, as Isaiah says, so much easier than to turn my gaze inward.

One of the reasons the Church practices a yearly season of penitence is this tendency we often have to focus on other’s sins at the expense of our own. We think we know what losing one’s soul looks like out there – but until we can see it happening within our very selves, much of what God’s work within us will continue to be stymied. It’s not an either/or proposition – we need to look for life and what potentially threatens life everywhere, both without, and within.

Decades ago, when I was a graduate student, I shared an apartment with roommates. If one wanted anything bigger than a studio, one needed people to share the rent with. Given the constant shift in the student population in Boston, not a year went by that didn’t see one roommate leaving and another coming in. One particular year, a roommate I especially enjoyed having around thought she might need to move out of state for a job. Reluctantly, we decided that we needed to look for a new person even though the current roommate wasn’t sure she would have to move. I interviewed people, and verbally offered the spot to someone. Not too long after, my current roommate discovered she didn’t have to move after all.

To be honest, I didn’t want a new roommate – I didn’t want to have to make the adjustment, and better a roommate I knew I could get along with than a relatively unknown quantity. So I called the new person, and essentially went back on my word. 

Did I forfeit my soul, my self? Perhaps not like Dr. Faustus. But yes, in a way I lost part of my soul in order to save the comfortable life I had. It is possible to lose our soul not all at once but in little pieces. I lost a little bit of integrity, of the person who keeps her word. I forfeited a piece of compassion for the person who would now have to start all over again. What I lost, gave up, was a piece of who God made me to be, a bit of my deepest self, created for communion with God and with others. All to save my “life,” as it was then.

This was a long time ago, yet it still haunts me. A piece of my soul still feels broken, or weak. 

It is not all I am – there have been other times when I’ve accepted discomfort or challenge for the sake of someone else. But I would be lying if I pretended that I have always taken up the cross that Jesus offered, if I said that I always was willing to lose my life in order to gain it. Perhaps for you it is more natural to give up your life for others. It is not for me.

The gospel for today in some ways does not feel like very good news to me. It mostly reminds me of how often I fail to follow Jesus. How often in my actions I tell the world I am ashamed of the Son of Man. In the same way, the reading from Romans does not always sound like good news, when Paul reminds us that it is not only those who adhere to the law but those who share the faith of Abraham who will find God. Faith sounds like just another requirement, just another opportunity to fall short. Another opportunity to fall short, even lose part of your soul.

Luckily, Paul’s message to the Romans – and to us – isn’t so much about Abraham or about our capacity for faith as much as it is about God and God’s promises of new life. The “faith” that Paul talks about is not about our ability to believe or do the right things but is grounded in God’s abiding faithfulness. This is a God who, in Paul’s day, could bring together in Christ both those who follow the Torah and those who found Jesus in the Gentile world. This God can actually “give life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.”

“Faith” can also be translated “faithfulness,” and for Paul, it is God’s faithfulness that really matters. We may renege on our promises, and we will, from time to time. God’s promises, Paul reminds us, never fail, and in the end, this is what saves us. We are often afraid, or too tired, to take up our cross. The One we follow, however, has already taken up that cross and will not put it down until the power of death has been destroyed forever.

What does it look like to forfeit your soul? Let’s ask a different question: What does it look like to receive yourself back again? It looks like forgiveness and compassion, flowing ultimately from one who knows our weakness and will never stop loving us. Receiving yourself back again looks like hearing an impossible promise and knowing that it doesn’t depend on your strength to make yourself worthy of that promise. It looks like hoping against hope, as Abraham did, even when we have nothing left of our own to give.

If God can call into existence things that do not exist, then surely God can and will give us back ourselves, our lives, even when we think we may have forfeited them. Even when we feel as if what we have chipped away leaves our souls beyond repair or recognition. This promise comes to us from none other than the faithfulness and power of God, and it is on these divine things that we set our minds, as well as our hearts, not only during Lent, but every day of our lives.

Let us pray:

God of Abraham and Sarah, of Peter, of all of us, who are in peril daily of forfeiting our souls in order to grasp at what we think is life: call into existence our nonexistent faith, give life to what is dead in us, and help us to receive your abundant promise. Keep us ever with Jesus, who takes up his cross, bids us follow, and who each day gives us our lives back again. We praise you, who with Christ and the Holy Spirit live and reign, one God, for all ages. Amen.