This past Sunday, I shared with you all a story of my childhood dog, Dakota. She was a good dog, but one habit she never grew out of was finding Mom’s socks. She’d never do anything with the socks. Never shred em. She’d just take ’em around the house with her all day, and greet us at the door with ’em stuffed in her mouth.
As one can guess, this led to commands of “drop it,” which, often wasn’t heeded the first time. So sometimes, in desperation, we’d try a “trade.” Trade the socks for a treat (not great dog training!), resulting in (eventually) getting the socks back.
In our Gospel this past weekend, we heard a strong command from Jesus to “deny ourselves.” Other Gospels sometimes use the phrase “lose yourself.” Over the course of church history, this command has been interpreted to mean a whole host of things. But at the core, Jesus was inviting his disciples, and us, simply to let go of the things that we often hold so tightly onto (physically or metaphorically) that keep us from receiving the “treat” of God’s Kingdom that Jesus is trying to offer us.
So as we take this Sunday’s message with us into the coming week, I encourage you to consider these questions:
- Are there things, expectations, perceptions, or long-held beliefs that you’re clutching, keeping you from receving Christ’s promise for you?
- Are you satisfied with the “sock” that you have? Or, do you desire something more?
- What would need to happen for you to let go of the “sock” you’re holding to receive God’s life for you?
As we’ll discover in the weeks to come, Jesus’ call to discipleship isn’t always a fuzzy-wuzzy, comfortable message. But the irony is that as we lose ourselves to Christ, and to one another, we actually won’t be losing anything…and we will be gaining everything.