YOLO? YODO!

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  • Sumo

I started a sermon talking about YOLO, one of those trendy abbreviations perfectly suited to electronic communication.

YOLO: you only live once. That’s the simple meaning, the set of words that match each letter. But, of course, the saying has more than mere words. YOLO arrives with a feel, an attitude, and an implicit spur to action.

And that spur is towards folly. “I decided to jump, because, you know, #YOLO.” “Yeah, maybe that was dumb, but #YOLO.”

As I said in the sermon, the reality of only one life is a strange excuse for activity likely to end life early.

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”

So I suggest an alternative, an alternative direct from Jesus’ upside-down invitation into true life. He said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” To follow Jesus – which is life itself! – is to accept the invitation to die.

My alternative: YODO, you only die once.

Since we only die once, make it a good death. Make it a real death, death to self. Make it a worthwhile death, from following Jesus not following the crowd.

Will this catch on as the latest hashtag? Of course not! But I’m not worried, because, like, #YODO.