Crazy 4 Jesus

IC XC
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NI KA

The Readings for the 20th Tuesday after Pentecost

• Philippians 2:17-23
• Luke 9:23-27

For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever will lose his life for My sake, the same shall save it.

Luke 9:24

ALMOST ALL English Bibles use the word “life” here. The Greek word used is ψυχή psyche. So, digging in the LXX, it turns out (in Gen 2:7) that the Jews of the Second Temple Era linked psyche with the Hebrew word נֶ֥פֶשׁ nephesh which is the word for soul, not “life”. The Hebrew translation of the New Testament uses nephesh here as well, not the Hebrew word for “life”. “Soul” sounds rather more like psyche, right? We need to think about this more. We’re not called to give up our lives for Jesus: we’re giving up our psyches for him. We all have lives, but there’s something deeper.

What does that mean? It’s not “crazy” in the sense of the APA: it’s something else. I say, “Crazy for Jesus” but I think the APA just hasn’t yet gotten around to calling us crazy, but it will happen…

Working with my Therapist I see, more and more, that what I think of as my “self” is decidedly not me. What was I before I was damaged by people, by my addictions to pleasure, by my choices for mistakes? And yes, I realize that I am who I am because of those things, certainly, but as I work on it all, who is doing the work? There is something that is here that is not all that stuff. What is it?

All that stuff is not me. It’s only the psyche I think I have… but is it the nefesh that God breathed into my physical matter at the moment of conception? THAT is me: that is my real psyche. That is the real me that is walking through all the world doing all this stuff, experiencing all these things. I cannot sacrifice a fake me.

I live in California and I worked in Tech so here’s a quote from Steve Jobs:

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Almost everything–all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure–these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked.

– Steve Jobs

Guess what, Steve? We will ALL BE DEAD SOON.

These things all fall away, what is my nephesh? What is my psyche? What is my real self? To find that out, I need to let go of all the things I think I am. So my “self identified gender choice” can’t be nailed to the cross: I’m a man. I can only give myself, fully, physically, in one way: to a woman who is my wife. I can’t only promise to give up a disordered sexuality and call it “celibacy”. I can only give up the Good thing, that God gave me: marriage. (Giving up disordered sexual expression is just normal Christian Chastity.) The world will say this is crazy because all that stuff can make me “happy” but no, it will only damn me.

If, by grace, I can drop all that, then I can really live. I need to give up all the fake stuff, all the crap I have coating my soul… to find the one needful thing that God has given me. My fake psyche cannot be nailed to the cross. Only I can be crucified with Christ. I must put off the old man (that is, all the crap I imagine to be important) and put on the new one – the one God created as a living soul. Only he can be saved. Then I will be dead.