Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground
and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much
fruit.
The word diminish holds such a negative connotation in life.
Loss always seems to follow any kind of diminishment. For instance, the loss of sight impedes the
ability to do many things, and unless you live in a community with public
transportation, takes away a tremendous amount of independence. The loss of job
and the income that is derived from the job adversely affects every aspect of
life. The ultimate and greatest loss for us as human beings is death. We can
honestly ask Jesus, “so just where is there any fruit in loss, when loss brings
so much misery and chaos to human life? Are you crazy?”
Time and time again, as many of those who know me have
heard, I go back to the days following a horrendous head-on collision whereupon
I found myself in the trauma unit of North Memorial hospital all trussed up
with tubes and devices. I suffered a high femur break of my left leg, and later
would discover that the accident shredded all the ligaments of my right hand
that would result in the loss of 40% of the use of that hand.
The pastor for whom I worked, walked into my room and asked
me one question. He said, “So, Bob, where is the grace?”
I was plenty peeved (to use a much nicer word than another
word that starts with “P”), and replied, “Steve (it’s good to be on a first
name basis with the boss), 10 years ago, I would find a way to get over to you
and punch you in the mouth. However, I do understand what you are asking, and I
will be damned if know where the grace is. But, I am sure I will find out where
the grace in all of this is.”
At that, my pastor left the room, his point having been
made.
Of course, he was correct. In the loss that I suffered from
that car accident, the loss of ability in performing at the piano, which is a
huge loss for a professional pianist, and the long recovery that followed the
accident, there were tremendous graces that flowed from my losses. To put it in
the terms that Jesus used, there was much fruit produced.
Diminishment of any kind has a way of emphasizing the
aspects of life that are the most important. Loss compels us to sort out the
important from the less important, a sort of separating the chaff from the
grains. I found more important than ever, the primacy of relationship with
others over everything else. Though the loss of being able to perform at the
piano was a huge loss, I valued all the more the gift of having had the ability
to perform at such a high level and knowing that I had not squandered that
gift. This has become all the more important that the arthritis that was predicted
from the hand surgeon is now making the ability to play piano today, more
difficult.
Loss has a way of forcing a person to discover new ways of
living and finding value in life. Loss has the way of diminishing our need to
control all aspects of our life and learn to relax and rest in knowing that we
do not have to control everything in order to find happiness.
On a spiritual level, loss forces us to begin to fall back
on God and our neighbor, to emphasize that our relationship with God and
neighbor is more important than all that we once prided ourselves in having
done. The more we diminish, the more we allow God to fill the space our egos
once took up. Deflating an ego is not the same as deflating ones’ self-worth.
Rather, the deflation of ego builds up one’s self-worth because we find out how
much loved we are by God, often through others.
There is a religious cliché that says, “Let Go and let God.”
Easier said than done, and when used as a pious platitude by the
self-proclaimed righteous, downright offensive. However, loss ends up being all
about letting go and letting God through our neighbor take over. Loss has a way
of making the first commandment of Jesus, loving God and loving neighbor, the
primary commandment of our lives.
Ultimately, as Jesus was forced to face his own diminution
and death, he realized that it was only going through that ultimate passage of
death that the most fruit would be born. If he had not died, there would be no resurrection
for him or for us. How sad and tragic it would be to ask about our life, “Is
this is as good as it gets?” Life is tough enough for most, and if this is the
best of the best, how awful it would be. As Homer Simpson once observed, not
very eloquently but quite accurately, “This is the suckiest suck that ever
sucked!”
Perhaps, along with the greatest lesson we are given in
life, that is to learn how to love as Jesus loved, the other lesson we are gifted
to know through loss is that of learning the value of growing smaller, so that
God can grow greater in our lives. For we must grow small in order to enter
into the fullness of the Reign of God whereupon we will grow beyond anything
that we once imagined in this life.
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