Week 47—Wednesday Mark 10:35-40
Week 47—WEDNESDAY
Mark 10:35-40
THE UNSURRENDERED SELF THE ROOT—ALL ELSE FRUIT
So the Christian faith strikes at the center of sin—self-centeredness. It strikes at it not by God issuing a commandment against it—verbal advice—but by God surrendering, by giving up all but love and taking on our humanity, our sins, and our sorrows—and our death. God strikes at self-centeredness by being an offering. The God who requires is the God who inspires.
The God who gives up life finds it again—finds it in the deathless affection of those who see this. The so-called Incarnations of Vishnu are temporary embodiments for a temporary situation, and Vishnu retreats back into himself after the crisis is over. But in this real Incarnation it is not temporary—our humanity is taken up into God permanently. God is the God of the Scars—the God of the Radiant Scars. For this God knows the joy of Self-giving, the deepest joy that this universe knows.
So when God asks us for self-surrender, God has already taken that way and knows by experience what it means. So God’s command for self-surrender is more of an invitation to share God’s experience. We join the ranks of the emancipated—the emancipated from the tyranny of an unsurrendered self. For the unsurrendered self is the center of all our sins and hence of our problems and our miseries. Just as my fingers are rooted in the palm of my hands, so all our sins and problems and sorrows are rooted in the unsurrendered self. Why are we dishonest? Because we think the self will gain advantage. Why do we commit adultery? Because we imagine the self will find pleasure. Why are we touchy and bad-tempered? Because the self has been crossed. Why are we jealous and envious? Because someone is getting ahead of self. These sins are the fruit—the unsurrendered self, the root. They are the symptoms, the unsurrendered self, the disease. So don’t fight symptoms—surrender the disease.
Jesus, Lord of my life, I thank you that you have laid your ax at the root of my trouble—the unsurrendered self. I give you permission to use that ax. Cut this root of bitterness from my life. For I would be free—in you. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: So I shorten my line: the unsurrendered self is my real and only enemy.