Next Sunday’s Lectionary has some hard sayings of Jesus. According to Mark’s gospel, he says;-
“8:34 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.
8:35 For 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.”
A couple of notes – who has the authority to ask this kind of sacrifice? Not anybody except Jesus himself, not anyone with power over you, and not even the Church. Second, he’s talking to a bunch of people, ‘the crowd with his disciples’, and this is not a path we walk alone: we have companions. Third, it’s inexplicable, but it kind of works. You cannot ‘find yourself’ by storing up the things that will make your life nice. Fourth, for people under persecution this losing of life may be actual life – this is a place I have never been.
Today did the ‘collect’ thing at Argos having ‘clicked’ on a piece of kitchen equipment. Since I was there I made a brief visit to Big Tesco – first time in a proper supermarket for nearly a year AFAIR. It was spacious and nearly empty, so OK. I’m not planning to go there for regular shops, there were just one or two harder-to-get items and needs for the next couple of days.