The Second Sunday of Lent 2024
Texts: Mark 8:31-38
“Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
“To set the mind on human things” What immediately comes to my mind is what is essential to live, the basic needs—food, water, shelter, and safety.
In 1943 psychologist Abraham Maslow developed a theory of the hierarchy of human needs. It has been widely used to develop public policy, charity, and even the mission work of the church all over the world. It is often depicted as a pyramid. At the base of the pyramid are needs that are fundamental to all human beings. We could not live without these needs being met—food, water, shelter, and safety.
I’ve recently seen independent video of what is happening on the ground in eastern Ukraine. No matter whose responsibility it is, people in Ukraine are struggling to keep alive. It’s cold, there is no power or water, there is little food, and people of all ages are huddling together in dark basements. When a missile explodes in a residential area, there is very little medical help for the injured. People are suffering physically and psychologically, and just trying to survive.
Many people all over the world spend so much of their time and energy obtaining basic needs, it seems there’s not much time or energy left to put into their other needs, which are also real, important needs. So, if we survive, what meaning does our life have?
Next up the chain in Maslow’s hierarchy are psychological needs—love and belonging, intimate relationships and friends, esteem and accomplishment. It is interesting that in most of the West, people who are not so occupied with getting their basic needs met spend most of their time here. Who am I? Where do I fit in? Who can I trust? Why do I feel this way? What do I want? What do I need to feel secure?
In our time this has become the realm of psychology and self-help books, but for thousands of years, people found answers to these questions in the wisdom of the Bible.
After psychological needs in the pyramid comes ‘self-actualization’, the need to achieve one’s full potential. In Maslow’s theory not everyone will reach the level of having these needs met, because they are still trying to obtain their physiological and psychological needs.
At the very top and the smallest part of the pyramid is transcendence, experiencing aspects of God’s nature and power, independent of the material universe. This is the realm of prayer, meditation, dreams, and visions. It seems that Maslow expects this to be experienced by the fewest number of people, and that it cannot be experienced until after all the other needs are met. However this is not supported by thousands of years of human experience with God.
Moses was tending sheep, tending to basic needs, when God appeared to him in a burning bush. Jacob was on his way to make amends with Esau when the angel wrestled him and Jacob received a new name, Israel. The son of a carpenter from a small Jewish town that was so insignificant it was never mentioned in the Old Testament would be revealed as the Son of God when he was 30 years old. This is about God revealing himself to mankind, not us finding God.
Jesus tells Peter to set his mind on divine things, otherwise Peter would be serving Satan.
I believe it’s a common mistake in outreach ministry to think that we cannot introduce people to Christ unless all their physical needs are being met first. Our belief in Christ is why we are there to help them in the first place, and it is often what they most need—to feel His love for them.
We talk to our children about God while they are still very young. Early on they come to know they are loved, and that their lives have purpose and meaning.
Growth from having physical needs met to an experience of the transcendent God was not intended to be sequential. First we obtain this, then we obtain that, next comes this, inevitably if we live long enough and everything goes according to plan, then we can reach our final destination of transcendence.
We are to set the mind on divine things now.
In the basement of one of those buildings in Ukraine was an older woman holding a cat. Very few of her basic needs were being adequately met. She was petting the cat as the interviewer asked her questions. Toward the end of the interview the woman said she believed in God and that she prayed to Him, and that she felt He was near her. She did not know if she had any family left. She said no matter what happened to her, she knew she was loved and that her life has purpose and meaning. She is waiting for God to help her, and she trusted her Savior Jesus Christ to save her soul. The interview ended with her kindly smiling at the interviewer.
Jesus said, “For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?”
What is the value of life without God? We might have everything we need and still feel empty or alone. There is life beyond what we experience, and this is what Jesus is referring to.
Jesus is talking about the life of the soul, that part of us that will live eternally. We were created to share in the life of God who is eternal. The physical body inevitably ages and fades away, but the eternal soul lives on. Many people live their lives as if this physical life is all there is, trying to gain the whole world, but losing sight of what is most important.
Jesus is coming with the glory of the Father and the holy angels to save our souls. I think the Ukrainian woman in the dark basement knew that. Amen.
