Sermon for September 15, 2024
Pentecost 17B
Mark 8:27-38
Rev. Karl-John N. Stone
It’s happened to me more times than I care to admit, and perhaps you can relate. I get on my phone to check one thing, and before I realize what’s happened, 30 minutes have gone by! When I put the phone down I wonder, “what was I even looking at?” Sure, there’s a time and place for relaxing and kind of “tuning out” for a bit. And it’s important to find things that you enjoy and are fun. But so often, especially with a smart phone, the “tuning out” occurs without even realizing it. But it doesn’t even have to be scrolling on your phone. Modern-day culture offers plenty of distractions that can be enjoyable for a time, but can under certain conditions even become addictive, or a stumbling block to living the kind of life we’d like to live.
It’s easy to pick on smart phones, but there are plenty of choices (which in themselves might be good, bad, or indifferent) that might tune us out from really enjoying life—anything from video games to television, gambling to pornography, or even compulsively buying stuff. But it’s not a matter of morality or lack of morality that keeps us coming back for more. It’s much more biological than that: Dopamine.
Dopamine is a hormone made in your brain. To simplify something that’s quite complex, basically it sends messages within your brain, as well as between your brain and body. Dopamine itself is a good thing—a necessary thing that we need to live. It allows us to “to create, to learn, to build, to improve” and “to explore”. It also plays a role in allowing us to feel pleasure. And we love pleasure. And why not? The ability to feel pleasure and enjoy life is a gift from God. But there can also be too much of a good thing, which is the paradox of pleasure. As the psychologist Anna Lembke has written in her book Dopamine Nation, “the paradox is that hedonism, the pursuit of pleasure for its own sake, leads to anhedonia, which is the inability to enjoy.” Too much pleasure-seeking leads to not being able to enjoy it at all! [David Brooks, The Junkification of American Life, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/05/opinion/entertainment-junk-psychology.html]
The writer David Brooks has some observations about all of this in a recent essay of his. He notes that “We have access to wonderful things. But they require effort, so we settle for the junky things that provide the quick dopamine hits. [For example,] We could all be eating a Mediterranean diet [which studies show leads to a healthy long life], but instead…[we prefer] potato chips and cherry Coke.” Furthermore, the way modern life is structured makes us vulnerable to being seduced by the quick dopamine hit. “[Many] People live overwhelmed lives,” Brooks points out; they are “exhausted, anxious. Willpower is drained.” The dopamine hit gives us a momentary lift. But then we ask “Why did I do that?” It’s like St. Paul writes in Romans 7, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate… But in fact it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells within me…. For the desire to do the good lies close at hand, but not the ability…” You see, this is not only an affliction of modern life.
We can look at today’s gospel from Mark 8, where Jesus teaches about “setting your mind on divine things instead of human things.” And part of that mind-setting is about not being consumed by a desire for the quick fix of craving what you don’t really actually want, but instead leaning into the positive side of dopamine, which leads to a higher form of desire, a desire that results in connecting with others, building community, finding a sense of purpose [Maia Szalavitz, A Dopamine Fast Will Not Save You From Addiction, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/13/opinion/addiction-dopamine-brain-chemistry.html]. As Jesus speaks to his disciples, he teaches us how to “play the long game” that results in a more life-giving desire—a desire for God and God’s kingdom.
This part of the gospel is a big turning point in Jesus’ ministry. Jesus has taken the disciples on a road trip, walking about 20 miles north of Galilee to Caesarea Philippi. They are in a beautiful spot, at the foot of the mountains, in a lush place with fresh spring water flowing out of a cave. And in this spot, the Roman Emperor had built a temple to himself, so he could be worshiped as a god. So there they are, visiting a sacred site that symbolized the Roman power that ruled and oppressed them, and who wielded that power by crucifying anyone they felt threatened their power.
Furthermore, Peter has just spoken on the disciples’ behalf, confessing the belief they had gradually come to realize: Jesus is the Messiah. And if he really was the Messiah, the disciples would have had some commonly-held expectations of the time for what that means, including this: the Messiah would need to defeat their enemies by putting those Romans in their place. An exciting and dangerous prospect! What a dopamine hit just to think about it! Perhaps they were even thinking that by traveling there, right into to Caesarea Philippi, right up to the gates of a place teeming with Roman power and presence, the great battle would begin.
And what does Jesus do? He starts talking about how he “must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” Peter doesn’t like this one bit. This is not the job description of a Messiah, as far as he’s concerned. But Jesus is teaching a whole new way of being Messiah, and it seems to involve him losing, and asking all of them to lose right along with him.
“If any want to become my followers,” Jesus says, “let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and the sake of the gospel, will save it.” Follow me, it seems Jesus is saying, and I will re-wire your desires. I will teach you how to play the “long game” of striving for what is truly worth wanting—and which, in the long run, is much more uplifting than the quick hits of dopamine excitement that lead you to crave the wrong things, which might leave you momentarily thrilled but ultimately weary and unsatisfied.
The psychologist Anna Lembke, whom I mentioned earlier, recounts a story of a patient who was depressed and anxious, unable to stop scrolling through social media. What happened next points toward a modern-day application of when Jesus said, “save your life by losing it, and lose your life in order to save it.” Dr. Lembke suggested that her patient unplug from her devices for a while and “let her own thoughts surface.” The patient balked: “Why would I do that?” These devices had become her life—yet the doctor could see that her patient needed to lose this life in order to gain a fuller kind of life, so she explained: it’s a way to become “familiar with yourself” and “not consumed by distractions”. The patient still objected, saying “But it’s so boring.” The doctor replied, “Boredom can be good and allow you to reflect.” The patient finally agreed and shared her results: “It was hard at first. But then I got used to it and even kind of liked it. I started noticing the trees.” She noticed the trees! And she actually like it! She started truly connecting to the world around her; she started connecting to reality.
And all true spirituality is grounded in reality. The tree of the cross that Jesus carried on our behalf was his connection to reality as well: The reality of sin and death and suffering and pain, that plagues human existence; and to the even greater reality of God’s forgiveness and new life, grace and healing, that has been let loose in the world by Christ’s rising from the dead.
Save your life by losing the things that distract you from reality. Gain true life by embracing reality and meeting Jesus there, where through faith he can “re-wire” your desire for what is truly life-giving. Taking up your cross and following Jesus means trusting him to show us what is truly worthy of desire. Things like: God’s mercy that builds bridges between people. God’s justice that overcomes deep-seated evil. God’s healing to sustain us when we’re weary. God’s forgiveness so we can learn from the mistakes of our past, and grow into better ways of relating to others and to our own selves. God’s grace to form us into a new humanity, where everyone is honored as a beloved child of God. God’s love which compels us to reach out in loving service and prayer. And God’s kingdom, which weaves a beloved community from the strands of a diverse bunch of people. Amen.