Veto Life

Learning to say “yes” to the higher life in Christ

03/02/2017

Luke 9:22-25 

         Jesus said to his disciples: "The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised." Then he said to all, "If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. What profit is there for one to gain the whole world yet lose or forfeit himself?"

          Nothing could be more natural or a “no-brainer” than a person’s desire to live. From the first breath a baby takes in till the last breath an elderly man exhales out, we fight for life and we flee from death. Anthropologists all agree that our strongest instinct is to live; indeed even the instinct to procreate (which is pretty dang strong, too) is really a desire to extend life beyond death. We live on in our children and grandchildren. That’s why when we walk into a dark room, we instinctively put out our arms: we’re willing to lose that member (our hand or our arm) to save our whole life. We choose life so daily and so deeply we don’t even have to think about it.

          I don’t know about you, but I love to see those yellow license plates that say “Choose Life.” Who could possibly disagree with something so painfully obvious as choosing life? But did you know it was an extremely hard, and uphill battle to approve the “Choose Life” license plate? According to the website called “Choose Life America, Inc.” the license plate idea started in Ocala, Florida by Randy Harris in 1996. In 1997 the Florida legislature presented the plan to then-Governor Lawton Chiles, who actually vetoed it. Finally in 2000, Florida passed the Choose Life license plate. And the idea has spread across the country and we even see it here in the frontier of Fort Smith. Our desire to choose life is always instinctive, but knowing how to choose life is never easy. Sometimes we “veto life.”

          Our Scriptures today continue this conundrum of choosing life: easy to understand but hard to practice. In the first reading, Moses asks the people to make a choice between life and death, saying, “I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live.” Can’t you almost sense how offended the Israelites must have felt at such a proposal? It was almost like asking them to choose between purified water and poison. Duh. But in the gospel Jesus complicates the matter considerably more. Our Lord declares: “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.” In other words, in order to choose a higher life, we must say no to a lower life. If we choose to live in Jesus, we can no longer live in sin, and that choice will feel like a “little death.” We all “choose life” – we really can’t help ourselves – but we don’t all choose the higher life of heaven rather than the lower life of sin. Sometimes we must “veto life,” that is, the life of sin.

          My friends, what are you giving up for Lent this year? Maybe you’re giving up television, or Facebook and social media, or alcohol, or desserts, or giving up curse words, or gossiping. Those are all great things to sacrifice.  A priest in the seminary always told us: “Give up ‘sin’ for Lent, you don’t need it anyway.” We seminarians always laughed, and then we gave up chocolate instead. Today, try to look at your Lenten sacrifice - prayer or penance or almsgiving – as a saying “no” to the lower life of sin, so that you can say “yes” to the higher life in Christ. When you feel the pinch and the prickle of your penance you are “losing your life” (it may feel as if you’re almost “choosing death”) for Jesus sake. Authentic spirituality always points to a paradox: to choose life we must first choose death.

          During the forty days of Lent we choose incremental death, so that on Easter Sunday we may enjoy infinite life. Choosing life may be instinctive, but it is never easy. Sometimes you have to “veto life.”

          Praised be Jesus Christ!