What Can They Give?

Gospel

Mark 8:34-9:1

34 He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, 'If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. 36For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? 37Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? 38Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.' 1And he said to them, 'Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.'

“There is nothing like suspense and anxiety for barricading a human's mind against the Enemy. He wants men to be concerned with what they do; our business is to keep them thinking about what will happen to them.”

― C.S. Lewis; The Screwtape Letters

“Keep his mind on the inner life. He thinks his conversion is something inside him, and his attention is therefore chiefly turned at present to the state of his own mind--or rather to that very expurgated version of them which is all you should allow him to see. Encourage this. Keep his mind off the most elementary duties by directing it to the most advanced and spiritual ones. Aggravate the most useful human characteristics, the horror and neglect of the obvious. You must bring him to a condition in which he can practise self-examination for an hour without discovering any of those facts about himself which are perfectly clear to anyone who has ever lived in the same house with him or worked in the same office.

― C.S. Lewis; The Screwtape Letters

Not ‘saving’, not ‘losing’. Jesus is not talking about trying to trick yourself into getting saved. He’s not talking about the relative merits of one attitude over another.

He’s talking about not caring about losing your life versus saving it. He’s recommending just getting down to business and doing what needs to be done. As Screwtape said, God wants people to be concerned about what they do, and the best way to get them to forget about that is to persuade them to neglect their most elementary duties in favor of “self-improvement.”

Jesus is recommending self-examination for the purpose of figuring out how to do what needs to be done, how to be useful in the Kingdom. That’s what he means by losing your life for his sake, and for the sake of the gospel. When you are able to forget yourself in the course of paying attention to the beauty, wonder, misery, filth, joy, horror, pathos and magnificence of this created world, then you might be doing all right.

It’s not about this either-or business of being saved or not. Jesus would laugh at that notion. He says it plain as day: “Indeed, what could they give in return for their life?” Not a damn thing. So quit thinking about improving yourself; quit thinking about fixing what’s “wrong.” Do what needs to be done with all your will, and do it with kindness, forbearance, humor, and utter seriousness.