Learning how to lose
The saying is recorded in all the gospels and gets repeated up to six times: “Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” Jesus is not talking about a religious theme. He is expounding to his disciples where the true value of life lies.
The saying is expressed in a paradoxical and provoking way. There are two very different ways of directing our life: one leads to salvation, the other to perdition. Jesus invites everyone to follow the path that seems harder and less attractive; it is the path that leads human beings to the definitive salvation.
The first path consists in clinging to life by living exclusively for oneself, making the “I” the ultimate and paramount objective of existence. This manner of living, always seeking my own gain or advantage, leads me to ruin.
The second path consists of knowing how to lose, living like Jesus, open to the ultimate goal of the Father’s humanizing project, knowing how to renounce our own security or gain, seeking not just my own good but also the good of others. This generous way of living leads human beings to their salvation.
Jesus is speaking out of his faith in a God who is a Savior, yet his words are a serious warning for all. What future awaits a divided and fragmented Humanity, where the economic powers that be seek their own benefit; countries, their own welfare; individuals, their own interests?
The logic that at present is guiding the course of the world is irrational. We, as nations and as individuals, are falling little by little into the slavery of “always having more.” Nothing is big enough to satisfy us. In order to live well, we always need more productivity, more consumption, more material well-being, more power over others.
We are insatiable in our search for well-being, but are we not constantly dehumanizing ourselves a little bit more? We seek to “progress” all the time, but what progress is this that leads us to abandon millions of fellow human beings to misery, hunger, malnutrition? How many years can we enjoy our own welfare while closing our borders to the hungry?
If we in privileged countries seek only to “save” our standard of well-being, if all we want is not to lose our economic potential, we will never take steps toward a worldwide solidarity. But let us not fool ourselves. Due to such narrow preoccupation, the world will be all the more insecure and inhabitable for everyone, including ourselves. In order to save human life in the world, we need to learn how to lose.
José Antonio Pagola
August 31, 2014
22 Ordinary Time (A)
Matthew 16, 21-27