Father Tim Lemlin
His words stayed with me and caused me to reflect on my life. The need to win - to succeed - has been a part of my life since before I can remember. I suspect that one of the reasons why I had a desire to become a priest is because the priesthood, when I was a young person in the 1950's and 60's, was given great esteem. A priest was part of the upper management of a very successful organization. Ordination entitled me, so my thoughts went, to climb the ladder of success to be a pastor, a monsignor, a bishop, a cardinal or even the first American pope. I would be part of an organization that was bigger than me and thought important, which in turn would make me important.
My way of thinking is not unusual for a young person, especially a young person living in this country, and in many ways a necessary way of thinking. Our whole society is based upon winning. I am not belittling our society. The fact is humans in general place an inordinate amount of importance upon winning. This emphasis shows up everywhere including our relationship with God.
Ironically, Jesus tells us that the way to God is not through winning. The only way to God is through losing. The first time I heard this I experienced a great deal of internal resistance. I thought to myself that this can't be true. Most of my life experiences to that point told me that this could not be true. How could I win by losing?
Four or five years after I was ordained a priest I experienced a crisis. (I might have shared this with some of you before.) The esteem that came with being a priest lost its luster. Many of the illusions I had about being part of the upper management of a successful organization disappeared. Failure was evident even here in this organization. I was depressed, and couldn't fix myself. I was even told that I had to receive psychological counseling! I found this completely degrading. Gone were the visions that I would climb the ladder of success.
Somehow the central symbol of our faith became my focus once again. We see it so often that it is easy not to see it or to be scandalized by it any more. It directly speaks of winning by losing.
We have found, through the years, ways to gloss over this symbol, using it to even justify our hatred for other people. We have also changed it, emphasizing the victory rather than the defeat, or removing the evidence entirely. Yet, it will not go away. I began to see the crucifix from a different perspective now that I was on the losing side.
It is humiliating to win by losing. It certainly isn't the way that most humans approach life. It obliterates our belief that I can earn success. It is, however, our only way to God. It is the only way that we can experience real love. Real love can only be known as a gift given. It can never be earned.
That this is true can be found in the bible, which is filled with examples of God choosing the outcast, the murderer, or the one who is handicapped. We hear God saying to the people of Israel in the Book of Deuteronomy that they are chosen not because they are the strongest but because they are the weakest, the least significant among all people. How humiliating that statement is! This is the history of who we are.
God is not found in our strength. God is only found in our weakness. God is only found when we have reached the end of our resources. Only then, when we are powerless, are we free to receive the gift of God's love.
The feast that we celebrate today was introduced into our liturgy as a reminder to nations preparing to war against each other that we are not God. One exists who is beyond us. It was moved to the end of our liturgical year during which apocalyptic readings are used that emphasize de-construction rather than construction, failure of the human race rather than success of the human race, to highlight the reality of our insignificance. Its message, however, that we win by losing was soon supplanted once again with the importance of winning - by having God on our side.
Someone once said, "God has no grandchildren, only children." We cannot pass on our experience of the true God to our children or anyone else. We can only point to the path by the way in which we live our lives. I can tell you by experience (many experiences) that we can find the real God only in our failures - when we have reached the end of our resources. This isn't something that any of us like or want to hear. (I know that I don't.) Yet, look at the crucifix, the central symbol of our faith. Jesus tells us to follow him, to do what he did. And this symbol tells us that Jesus loses. He is powerless to prevent his death at the hands of others. Only then, when Jesus is powerless to fix anything, is the power of God to give life able to be released in him and he rises from the dead. He wins by losing.
