“For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?”
One of my very favorite films is “A Man for All Seasons.” Written by Robert Bolt, the film is based on the life of Thomas More and chronicles his relationship with Henry VIII – it’s a brilliant film. There is a scene where More is confronted by his accusers at his trial, and one in particular, Sir Richard Rich, perjures himself and accuses More of treason. Rich had recently been appointed as Attorney General for Wales and was wearing the appropriate chain of office – embossed with a red dragon. Sir Thomas More asks Rich what the chain is for and, on being told says, “For Wales? Why Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world, but for Wales?”
As I look at the situation of our nation and the world I suppose we could fill-in the response with any number of things, couldn’t we? How many people have sold their souls, ruined themselves and their families, in the pursuit of profit, or of political power? How many people have sold themselves to get ahead, only to discover that they’re not even close to being ahead. The tragedy of the human condition is when we simply forget who we are and then try to “gain the whole world” to fill the hole in us that can only be filled by right relationship with the God in whose image and likeness we are made.
I so appreciate what contemporary spiritual writer Cynthia Bourgealt has to say in her wonderful book Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening. She writes, “Jesus taught from the conviction that we human beings are victims of a tragic case of mistaken identity. The person I normally take myself to be—that busy, anxious little “I” so preoccupied with its goals, fears, desires, and issues—is never even remotely the whole of who I am, and to seek the fulfillment of my life at this level means to miss out on the bigger life. This is why, according to his teaching, the one who tries to keep his “life”
(i. e., the small one) will lose it, and the one who is willing to lose it will find the real thing.” God’s way of helping us not to lose sight of the real thing, of the bigger picture, of the real life to which we are all called – and for which we were all destined – is the covenant.
What we see in the reading from Genesis is the beginning of that covenant relationship. When God extends the promise of relationship to Abram and to his descendants, which the Romans reading reminds us includes us. What, then, is a covenant? A covenant is a solemn promise made binding by an oath. The oath may be either verbal or symbolic. The oath demonstrated the actor's obligation in making good the promise. The covenant-concept was quite prevalent in the ancient near East, but there are profound differences between those and the Hebrew idea of covenant. Typically a covenant is a bi-lateral arrangement; this is not the case with that entered into by God and Abram and what will become the nation of Israel. The covenant is seen as a gift God makes to the people, which takes the covenant-relationship beyond the level of a contract into that of a bond of communion. The Dutch Old Testament scholar, Theodore Vriezen, has said, "the Covenant between God and the people did not bring these two 'partners' into a contract-relation, but into a communion, originating with God, in which Israel was bound to him completely and made dependent upon him." To put it into the most basic terms – it’s a relationship.
While God sacrifices none of his holiness, he extends participation in that holiness to his people. The people may violate the covenant, may depart from the covenant, but they are forever marked by its effect. The implications of this communion are made even more profound when considered in the light of the Old Testament understanding of humanity made in the "image and likeness of God" (Genesis 1:26ff). Or, in the words of the Psalmist: "what is man that thou art mindful of him?. . .Yet thou hast made him little less than God, and dost crown him with glory and honor" (Psalm 8:4-5). The covenant brings a dignity to humans called into this relationship that is far more than any mere contractual arrangement could ever bring.
In the person, the life, and the work of Jesus Christ the covenant-concept is raised to a new level, as is the divine-human relationship. The law of love becomes the definitive standard for the Christian community, since it was by demonstrating this law in his act of absolute self-giving on the cross that the Christ brought salvation. This is Paul's point when he talks about how it was in faith that Abraham became the father of many nations and reckoned to him as righteousness. It is through our faith in this new covenant made in Jesus that will bring us to that same righteousness and bring us back into the relationship for which we were destined. As Paul says, “Now the words, ‘it was reckoned to him,’ were written not for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.”
What is more, in the covenant of grace God pursued fallen humanity and brought it back to its original situation. Here the individual believer is given a new dignity, like the dignity given to all of Israel. The relationship entered into by God and a particular person in the covenant of grace implied a relationship between all those who had entered into the covenant, which is undertaken through Baptism. This is why we renew it each year at Easter time.
The covenant, then, reminds us that there is such a thing as a common good, that there is a bigger picture and of which we are a part of it.. It is very important for us to remember that what happened with Abram, later Abraham, was that God took an individual and brought a people into being. It wasn’t about Abram, it was about God’s gift of relationship and the widening of that relationship from a single family to a much, much wider picture.
So we have to remind ourselves again and again that our life in faith, our growth in spirituality isn’t ultimately about our own self-satisfaction or our own self-fulfillment. Rather, it’s about being part of the bigger picture and finding our true selves in that relationship. As William Neil points out in his book, The Difficult Sayings of Jesus: “It
has been clear to every martyr what Jesus meant when he said: ‘What does a man gain by winning the whole world at the cost of his true self?’ or in the more familiar words of the King James Version: ‘What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?’ For them ‘the whole world’ meant home and family, security and a peaceful life. All of this they were ready to sacrifice rather than be false to their commitment to Christ. It would have meant for them, as the author of Hebrews says, ‘crucifying the Son of God again—and making mock of his death’ (Heb. 6:6).… Self-sacrifice, self-denial, and self-giving are the hallmarks of our true selves, the men and women that God means us to be. This is the abundant life to which Jesus calls us, compared with which worldly success, fame, and fortune are tawdry baubles, which end with our bodies in the grave. But a life lived in the spirit of Christ will never die. It has a quality that is eternal.”
God’s response to our self-focused condition is to extend God’s self to us through the covenant; a covenant, a relationship which was put into flesh in the person of Jesus the Christ. God’s response to our condition tells us just how much we’re valued. How do we respond to God’s invitation to covenant relationship? How do we demonstrate that we see a picture with a focus larger than ourselves? Perhaps by living as freely toward God as God has lived toward us in Christ? What does it profit……