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The biggest loser wins.
That's the premise of the popular weight-loss reality show featuring women and men who are hundreds of pounds overweight. Whoever loses the most, wins. Every week, as someone is voted off the the weight-loss ranch, a compassionate host must confirm, "You are not the biggest loser." Dejected, the not-loser packs up his or her belongings and heads home.
If the scene feels weirdly familiar, it's because it's a story that's been told before. In Matthew 25, Jesus describes a divine host who gathers all the contestants and divides them up into two teams. Up until then, they'd all been living and dining and working out together in one big group. The host forms a red team and his right and blue team on his left. And although the show's producer knows how the cut was made, the participants aren't yet privy to the behind-the-scenes priorities.
Then the host turns to the red team and says, "You win! You're the biggest losers! You lost your life, for me. You saw me hungry and shared your healthy snacks. When I was thirsty, you offered me your water bottle. When I was brand-new here, you welcomed me. When the airline lost my luggage, you shared your clothes. When I was sick, stuck in my room, you visited me. Even when I landed in jail, you visited."
... Once you've grieved the disappointing ending for the blue team, you're left with the gospel-driven men and women on the red team who are daily choosing to lose their own lives for the sake of the ones Jesus loves. In this kingdom reversal, whether a relationship elevates one's own status or meets one's own needs becomes less important than the ways it confirms the inherent worth of another and satisfies his or her needs. Giving one's life away in relationship with those in need -- according to Jesus -- is the way to gain it. Whoever loses the most wins.
... Rather than being driven by the natural anxieties that propel so many of us, [Jesus] moved through the world and into relationships pretty fearlessly. Instead of being repelled by those marked by difference or by need, he was attracted to them and give little thought to his own comfort, reputation or security. Again and again in the Gospels, we see Jesus moving toward those who -- by their gender or disability or pain or sin or religious preference -- seem most unlikely.
Today, as captain of the red-team losers, he invites those of us who want to play for his team to lose our lives instead of secure them. We we are no longer driven by self-preservation, Jesus moves in and through us to engage with others across natural barriers... to live fearlessly in relationship with others, however, doesn't depend on courage. Fathers who rush into burning buildings to save their children, wives in accidents who lift automobiles off of their husbands and friends who keep one another alive in an air pocket under an avalanche of snow -- such people aren't moved by courage at all. They're moved by love.
... Courageous self-giving love depends on God's unshakable love for us and God's unwavering love for those in need. Just as the Father's love drove Jesus to be for you and me, his love is exactly what drives us from comfort to be for the ones God loves who are in need.
~ Margot Starbuck, in Small Things with Great Love: Adventures in Loving your Neighbor
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