This morning’s Gospel reading is Mark 8:27–35:

Jesus and his disciples set out for the villages of Caesarea Philippi. Along the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” They said in reply, “John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others one of the prophets.” And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter said to him in reply, “You are the Christ.” Then he warned them not to tell anyone about him.

He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and rise after three days. He spoke this openly. Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. At this he turned around and, looking at his disciples, rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”

He summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it.”

 What does it mean to lose? And what does it mean to win?

We get caught up in these questions every day of our lives, from the petty to the enormous, and all points in between. One more amusing example: buying cars. That has become somewhat more straightforward these days, as more dealers in new cars use firm pricing and negotiation has become less of the norm. But for the first couple of decades of my car-buying life, I never really knew when I'd won or lost in the haggling. And the one time I thought I'd won, the vehicle turned out to be a lemon, although it manifested just after the period passed to force the dealer to make good on it. 

Life can look like a series of win/lose propositions, and to a large extent, it is. We deal with conflict and cross-purposes by attempting to defend our interests, whether that happens in the workplace, in social settings, or among family. Our whole lives, we fight to win, or at least not lose, based on what we value most in our lives. And very often, especially when we base those strategies on the values of this world, we find ourselves losing more than we win, and perhaps losing opportunities to cooperate on mutually beneficial outcomes as well.

Today's Gospel and the other two readings challenge us to consider the basis on which we fight and work. What point is there in winning according to the values of a fallen world? 

Jesus came to shake us out of our sleep to the true caritas of the Lord. His interaction with Peter in one of the most memorable scenes in the Gospels demonstrates just how difficult that can be, even for those whom the Lord has chosen. In practically the same moment, Jesus offers Peter the keys to the kingdom, and then rebukes him as "satan" for not grasping the point. 

Peter understands that Jesus is the Messiah, an insight possible through the blessing of the Lord, but he's still stuck in the paradigm of a fallen world. Peter likely still sees the Messiah as someone who will triumph in the sense of the fallen world -- a new temporal power that will restore the old Davidic kingdom. But the old Davidic kingdom collapsed because of the same clinging to worldly values and ambitions rather than fully embracing the eternal mission the Lord granted it. They won, too ... for a while. Eventually, their fall into idolatry to curry favor with other temporal powers led them away from the Lord and His mission, and it collapsed multiple times. 

The world is a harsh place for those who play that game and rely on its values. 

To truly win in the eternal sense means to lose one's grasp on the material in this life. The material world is not intrinsically evil; God pronounced it good, let's not forget. But it was meant as sustenance for us as we followed His plans for salvation and eventual union with Him as His sons and daughters, not as an end of its own. It is our sinful attachments to it, and our attempts to "win" by climbing over others, that render it as a fallen tragedy.

Jesus teaches the disciples in this passage how they must shed their assumptions about winning and losing, in this life and the next. It is through detachment from worldly appetites and ambitions that God's work can be done, a lesson the ancient Israelites and Judeans didn't learn. In a sense, these are tactical losses that provide a path to strategic victory for the Messiah, which is to become the sacrificial Lamb of the Passover that absolves the sins of His people, once and for all, and through eternity. To interfere with that -- even to wish to interfere with that -- would be to condemn everyone to the abyss.

Jesus makes this explicit in His rebuke. "You are not thinking as God does," He says, "but as human beings do." We certainly see that now, but we have the benefit of the whole arc of Jesus' mission, too. All Peter knew was that Jesus was the Messiah, and yet all he heard as a consequence was what he considered (reasonably) to be losses. And that was because Peter had not yet seen that the world as it was and is today has to be lost to us, and all that impedes us from loving the Lord has to be lost to us as well, in order for us to truly follow Christ. 

In that context, Jesus' direct teaching at the end of this passage gives sharp clarity on what is expected of us:

“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it.”

That's no easy task, and it cuts against everything we know about winning and losing. It is not enough to have faith, as we understand it; the Israelite and Judean kingdoms had faith, nominally speaking, but didn't put that faith into action to serve the Lord. In his epistle, James emphasizes that action is required to work for Christ, even and especially action that involves sacrifices and loss:

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,” but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it? So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead. 

Putting aside the ecclesial differences today that this passage provokes, this clearly can be seen in the arc of salvation history, as well as the apostles' work after the Ascension. Jeremiah warned the Judeans of the cataclysmic consequences of ignoring the Lord's prophecies; they responded that they had the Temple and that their faith was in that. The Lord had called the Israelites and Judeans to works for centuries, but they chose to go their own way while still professing faith in the Lord. 

In contrast, the apostles understood the need to sacrifice and risk to serve the Lord. They all gave their lives to the Gospel and Christ, living in poverty while founding churches all over the region. Most of them died as martyrs, killed for the sake of the Gospel, without ever seeing any temporal triumph. 

But they knew Jesus had already triumphed. They had to lose so that we could eventually become part of that victory. Ever since, the church Christ founded has grown even as it has divided, lost, been suppressed and persecuted, and stumbled along the way. We cannot measure winning by the standards of this world, but only by the measure of the Lord. And we can win by losing our own ambitions and attachments and instead allowing our will to conform to His, and become His adopted sons and daughters. 

Because in the end, what have we got to lose? 

Previous reflections on these readings:

• Losing to beat the devil: Sunday reflection (2021)
• Everybody's working for the weekend: Sunday reflection (2018)
• Sunday reflection: Mark 8:27-35 (2015)

The front page image is "Jesus Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter" by Willem van Herp, 17th century. Held by Museo del Prado in Madrid. Via Wikimedia Commons.  

“Sunday Reflection” is a regular feature, looking at the specific readings used in today’s Mass in Catholic parishes around the world. The reflection represents only my own point of view, intended to help prepare myself for the Lord’s day and perhaps spark a meaningful discussion. Previous Sunday Reflections from the main page can be found here.