_{[Your reading experience will be better on a larger format screen – laptop or tablet.]}

by Demi Prentiss

This past week’s Gospel reading – “deny [your]selves and take up [your] cross and follow me” – inspired a convicting reflection on the scripture (Mark 8:27-38) by Brian Malison, a graduate of Luther Seminary, in their daily posting “God Pause”:

“Christianity has a PR problem. It is impossible to put a positive spin on the statement, ‘Come join our church and learn how to deny yourself.’  There are no books on how to diminish yourself. It just isn’t the American way. There are plenty that tell you how to maximize your potential or how to become your very best self, but self-help books on taking up your cross are rarely to be found. Which may be why Jesus isn’t popular. Unless, that is, you are sick and tired of keeping up, you have found the pursuit of happiness to end in disappointment, or you have discovered that your very best self is not someone you like. Then the alternative of following Jesus, who welcomes all and offers redemption, sounds pretty good. Losing one’s fake life for the sake of Jesus is actually gaining real life. Now, how do we market that?”

Almost as though he was responding to Malison’s search for a “self-denial” tool, my longtime friend Christopher Thomas, rector of St. Thomas the Doubter in Dallas, TX, recently offered this “prayer for daily use” to his congregation and his Facebook followers. It serves as a powerful reminder that living the baptismal covenant – the outline of the calling God has placed on our lives – is not “one and done.” It’s intended to be a daily pattern, a “just for today” surrender to the fullness of life that God desires for us.

May God lead us to practice our baptismal promises intentionally today and every day, experiencing God at work through us. That’s the self-denial that allows us to become our truest self – the image of Christ that God dreams for us. That’s the promised transformation – of self and of the world around us – that sells.