“Practicing, Not Preaching”
Matthew 21:23-32
Rev. Désirée H. Gold
St. Mark’s United Church of Christ, Baltimore, MD
Sunday, 28 September, 2008
Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
----
 It drives me crazy when certain people talk about family values. Don’t get me wrong. I believe strongly in the importance of family values, of course. But that’s just it. There are groups of people in this country who use “family values” as a catch phrase to mean that they are against abortion and gay marriage....but that’s as far as “family values” goes for them. They preach “family values” when it comes to those two hot-button issues but do not spend nearly as much time or energy or money on providing support for struggling new mothers or victims of domestic violence, nor do they seem to care much about helping married couples who are going through a rough patch -- divorce is okay, as long as it is between a man and a woman. They scream “family values” and present themselves as better Christians and human beings than anyone else on the planet, but their actions say something else entirely.
These are like the second son in this morning’s gospel. They say one thing but do another. The second son in Jesus’ parable made a promise to help his father, but he did not act on his promise. These particular “family values” folks complain that the American family is falling apart, but they do not actually do much about it.
I don’t really understand how the minds of these folks work. I don’t know if “family values” really does mean only “anti-abortion” and “marriage between a man and a woman” to them, or if they start out with a broader view of “the American family” than that but then get stuck on those two issues. There are certainly other people who preach “family values” but mean something beyond abortion and gay marriage. While I may not agree with all of their beliefs I can at least respect them. I have a difficult time respecting people who use a catch-phrase only as a weapon against people, tearing down but doing little to build up in return.
Then there are the “first sons” in our world -- the ones who initially present themselves as the ornery teenager who won’t do what they’re told...but then go on to do the right thing.
For the past several weeks we have been lifting my friend Richard up in prayer. Richard, you may recall, is in prison in Texas and was recently denied parole. I grieve his parole denial because he is a good example of the first son from our parable.
Richard and I have been writing to each other for more than six years now, and he has been in prison that entire time. In fact, he was in prison for several years before we began corresponding. He will be the first to tell you that he had a very troubled youth. He was involved with the wrong crowd and he did some things of which he is not at all proud. He was convicted of a serious crime, and he readily admits now that he committed that crime.
If Richard had a vineyard owner for a father, he would probably have laughed in his dad’s face when asked to help with the work. I believe that now, however, Richard would jump at the chance to help a family member or anyone else. He would run into that vineyard before being asked and would do as much as he could. Many years have passed since Richard was a juvenile delinquent growing up on the streets of Los Angeles, and in the years that I have known him he has shown me nothing but a good heart. He has been a good friend to me, writing kind words when I going through a difficult time and sharing laughs. My only problem with him is that he is a fan of the Los Angeles Lakers.
Richard is not just a good friend to me. A couple of years ago he was asked to serve as a peer educator to other inmates, teaching them about HIV/AIDS prevention. He underwent training in preparation for this and has taught classes for several years. He does not have HIV or AIDS and he was not previously an expert on the subject, but his status as a fellow inmate makes it a lot more likely that his students will listen to him than if an outsider were to teach the class.
Richard has become a devout Christian while in prison, and our conversations about faith are among my favorite aspects of our friendship. A couple of years ago he began working full time for the prison chaplain’s office. He is also involved with several outside ministries that both provide him with spiritual support and give him opportunities to serve.
Which of these examples is the better one? The Christian who preaches “family values” but does not practice them...or the “bad” kid who did everything wrong but has spent most of his time behind bars trying to reconstruct his life and help others? Which of these examples is the better one? The one who preaches vehemently but doesn’t practice? Or the one who failed his family and society but is making up for it?
We all know people who say they are going to do one thing but do another. It drives me crazy when people do this -- be they politicians or personal friends. However, I am ashamed to say that I, too, have made promises that I have not kept. We know people who portray themselves as one thing when they are really another. There are probably areas in which I am guilty of this too.
Then there are the “first sons” -- the people we figure are good for nothing...until they do something marvelous and outshine us as Christians and as human beings.
Who would you rather be? Of course, the goal is to be a “third son” -- one who says that he will do the right thing and immediately does it. One who presents himself as a humble but kind Christian and actually comes across that way in the way he lives. I know a few people like this -- the Mother Teresas and Gandhis of the world -- but the truth is that most of us are pretty fallible. We are either in the process of making mistakes or recovering from the mistakes that we have made. We are the tax collectors and sinners that Jesus held close to his heart. We are the ones that are in need of redemption. We may not have committed crimes that could send us to prison and we may not be preaching something that we have no intention of practicing. Still, we are in need of grace. That grace is available to us -- yes, even if we are spending years in prison -- if we are willing to swallow our pride, repent, and begin acting like the human beings God has called us to be.
I beseech you, then, to search your souls and find the broken spots. They can be mended. You can go back and do some of those things you promised to do but never did. Even in cases where you cannot go back, you can begin to make up for your past wrongdoing by doing good things right now.
Whatever you do, seek God’s grace...but know that it precedes you. Jesus embraced sinners before you committed your first sin, and Christ will embrace you.
Now let us pray.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Sermon 09/21/08 (Matthew 20:1-16)
“It’s Not Always About What’s Fair”
Matthew 20:1-16
Rev. Désirée H. Gold
St. Mark’s United Church of Christ, Baltimore, MD
Sunday, 21 September, 2008
Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
----
 I have never been very good at sports. When I was growing up I hated playing competitive games in gym class, because I was always one of the last ones picked to be on a team. In addition to my awkwardness on the ball field, I was not one of the popular kids, so those classmates who were higher on the social ladder were even less likely to pick me. They knew I wouldn’t increase their chances of winning the game and I was a nerd, so I didn’t have much going for me.
Because of these painful experiences in gym class, I will never forget the actions of one of my classmates sophomore or junior year of high school. We were playing softball or something similar, and I didn’t get picked for the team much earlier than I usually did. However, once I was on a team and was up to bat one of my classmates -- one of the popular boys who was good at sports, no less -- began encouraging me. “Keep your eye on the ball,” he instructed kindly. Because of the kindness in his voice, I did, and I actually hit the ball. He continued to encourage me as I ran the bases. I do not remember if I made it “home” and I don’t even remember the boy’s name now. What I do remember is my self-esteem going up a little that day. Here was a guy who knew I was not going to be a great asset to the team, but he treated me like I had something to offer. What an act of grace!
In this morning’s Gospel lesson we hear a similar example of the grace of God. After gathering workers several times throughout the day, a vineyard owner goes out one more time and discovers still more workers standing around waiting to be hired by someone. Like an ungainly high school nerd they were the last to be picked for the team.
We are not told why they were not hired earlier. Scholar Craig Kocher suggests that they might not have had the necessary skills for vineyard work or been familiar with the language. Maybe they weren’t able to get to the location earlier in the day because of an emergency -- a sick family member, a personal injury. Whatever the case, it was an hour before the day’s work would be done and they were still waiting, having gone an entire day without earning a wage. This would be a huge problem for day-laborers in a subsistence society. It may well mean that they would have no food to put on the table for their families. If they went more than one day without working their very survival may be at stake.
Even if some landowner needed last-minute work and hired them at the end of the day, we would expect them to be paid for the amount of time they worked -- i.e., not very much. I don’t know exactly how payment worked in first century Middle Eastern agricultural society, but in modern America we usually speak of being paid by the hour. Minimum wage is based on hourly wages, and it is expected that people will be paid for the amount of time that they have worked. Even salaried positions usually have an expected number of hours that the employee is to work during the week -- it is understood that 40 hours per week is full time for most jobs, but these days an employee may be expected to work more than that. Either way, the more time a person works the more they get paid.
Clearly, that is what the workers first to be hired in this morning’s scripture story were expecting. They were told that they would receive the usual daily wage, sure, but when the workers who had been hired later in the day got paid that wage, the first ones to be there expected more. When they didn’t get it, they were understandably upset. Those of us who have worked very hard for an hourly wage are probably upset right along with them. “It isn’t fair!” we want to whine to that mathematically-impaired vineyard owner.
Well, to use one of my least favorite parental phrases, “Life isn’t always fair.” This story is about God, remember, and God isn’t always fair. On the other hand, God is almost always right, and this is one of those times. The vineyard owner may not have acted in a way that made sense to the workers or that makes much sense to us, but he did the right thing. The workers who were first to arrive received the usual daily wage, as promised. This wasn’t a lot -- they lived, as I said, a subsistence lifestyle, which meant that they survived from day to day but would never be able to save anything. With the usual daily wage, they would, however, probably be able to put food on the table for their families that night, to get enough nutrition to get them through the next hard day’s work.
If hired by a less compassionate landowner, those hired later in the day would go home hungry. If they were unable to afford food, they would be unable to gain strength enough to continue working. They would get picked later and later in the day until they were forced to beg or simply starve to death because they no longer had the physical ability to do hard labor in the fields.
Instead of suffering this dire predicament they were given another chance by a vineyard owner who cared about their survival. They would be able to eat that night, and thus they would be able to work another day. While probably never able to escape the poverty that day-laborers faced in first-century Palestine (and continue to face today in our country), they would be able to escape starvation for another day.
I can clearly hear the voice of some modern American radio commentator complaining that these latecomers were just “given handouts.” They were clearly lazy bums who would begin to expect such handouts and sit on their lazy behinds eating out of other people’s pockets.
The closest analogy to the day-laborers of our Gospel is probably migrant workers who come up from Mexico or other nations South of the border to work in the American heartland. I have heard people immediately label all of these workers “illegals” (even if they entered the United States legally) and complain that all they’re doing here is trying to get rich off of “our” tax dollars. I have also seen the hard work that immigrant day-laborers do for very, very little pay.
Another easy correlation to this morning’s scripture is anyone who benefits from the welfare system. There are welfare recipients who work several minimum wage jobs but are still unable to pay their meager bills. There are others who are disabled and truly unable to work. Others struggle to find affordable childcare. When they are unable to do so they either choose not to work, knowing that this may mean they will be unable to feed their children, or they leave their children home alone and are promptly labeled “evil child neglecters” by people who do not know their situation. Others have simply made mistakes or faced misfortunes in life -- legal troubles, addictions, broken homes, bad financial decisions, etc. -- and are struggling to get back on their feet. Regardless of the circumstances, they are labeled “lazy,” told to “get a job” (even if they already have one), and people complain that all “these people” are doing is stealing the taxes of “good Americans who actually work.” I do not often hear the viewpoint of the grace-filled vineyard owner on our airwaves.
Our God is not like that. The God we worship believes that each and every one of us, regardless of our contribution to the workforce, is worthy of grace. One could argue, in the vein of our Gospel lesson, that our God also believes every human being deserves a living wage and the ability to put food on the table. Every person, from the star of the high school football team to the illegal immigrant, to the selfless missionary, to the person facing life without parole was created in the image of God. In turn, every one of us is worthy of God’s grace.
Let us find comfort in this. Let us try to emulate it. And let us pray.
Matthew 20:1-16
Rev. Désirée H. Gold
St. Mark’s United Church of Christ, Baltimore, MD
Sunday, 21 September, 2008
Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
----
 I have never been very good at sports. When I was growing up I hated playing competitive games in gym class, because I was always one of the last ones picked to be on a team. In addition to my awkwardness on the ball field, I was not one of the popular kids, so those classmates who were higher on the social ladder were even less likely to pick me. They knew I wouldn’t increase their chances of winning the game and I was a nerd, so I didn’t have much going for me.
Because of these painful experiences in gym class, I will never forget the actions of one of my classmates sophomore or junior year of high school. We were playing softball or something similar, and I didn’t get picked for the team much earlier than I usually did. However, once I was on a team and was up to bat one of my classmates -- one of the popular boys who was good at sports, no less -- began encouraging me. “Keep your eye on the ball,” he instructed kindly. Because of the kindness in his voice, I did, and I actually hit the ball. He continued to encourage me as I ran the bases. I do not remember if I made it “home” and I don’t even remember the boy’s name now. What I do remember is my self-esteem going up a little that day. Here was a guy who knew I was not going to be a great asset to the team, but he treated me like I had something to offer. What an act of grace!
In this morning’s Gospel lesson we hear a similar example of the grace of God. After gathering workers several times throughout the day, a vineyard owner goes out one more time and discovers still more workers standing around waiting to be hired by someone. Like an ungainly high school nerd they were the last to be picked for the team.
We are not told why they were not hired earlier. Scholar Craig Kocher suggests that they might not have had the necessary skills for vineyard work or been familiar with the language. Maybe they weren’t able to get to the location earlier in the day because of an emergency -- a sick family member, a personal injury. Whatever the case, it was an hour before the day’s work would be done and they were still waiting, having gone an entire day without earning a wage. This would be a huge problem for day-laborers in a subsistence society. It may well mean that they would have no food to put on the table for their families. If they went more than one day without working their very survival may be at stake.
Even if some landowner needed last-minute work and hired them at the end of the day, we would expect them to be paid for the amount of time they worked -- i.e., not very much. I don’t know exactly how payment worked in first century Middle Eastern agricultural society, but in modern America we usually speak of being paid by the hour. Minimum wage is based on hourly wages, and it is expected that people will be paid for the amount of time that they have worked. Even salaried positions usually have an expected number of hours that the employee is to work during the week -- it is understood that 40 hours per week is full time for most jobs, but these days an employee may be expected to work more than that. Either way, the more time a person works the more they get paid.
Clearly, that is what the workers first to be hired in this morning’s scripture story were expecting. They were told that they would receive the usual daily wage, sure, but when the workers who had been hired later in the day got paid that wage, the first ones to be there expected more. When they didn’t get it, they were understandably upset. Those of us who have worked very hard for an hourly wage are probably upset right along with them. “It isn’t fair!” we want to whine to that mathematically-impaired vineyard owner.
Well, to use one of my least favorite parental phrases, “Life isn’t always fair.” This story is about God, remember, and God isn’t always fair. On the other hand, God is almost always right, and this is one of those times. The vineyard owner may not have acted in a way that made sense to the workers or that makes much sense to us, but he did the right thing. The workers who were first to arrive received the usual daily wage, as promised. This wasn’t a lot -- they lived, as I said, a subsistence lifestyle, which meant that they survived from day to day but would never be able to save anything. With the usual daily wage, they would, however, probably be able to put food on the table for their families that night, to get enough nutrition to get them through the next hard day’s work.
If hired by a less compassionate landowner, those hired later in the day would go home hungry. If they were unable to afford food, they would be unable to gain strength enough to continue working. They would get picked later and later in the day until they were forced to beg or simply starve to death because they no longer had the physical ability to do hard labor in the fields.
Instead of suffering this dire predicament they were given another chance by a vineyard owner who cared about their survival. They would be able to eat that night, and thus they would be able to work another day. While probably never able to escape the poverty that day-laborers faced in first-century Palestine (and continue to face today in our country), they would be able to escape starvation for another day.
I can clearly hear the voice of some modern American radio commentator complaining that these latecomers were just “given handouts.” They were clearly lazy bums who would begin to expect such handouts and sit on their lazy behinds eating out of other people’s pockets.
The closest analogy to the day-laborers of our Gospel is probably migrant workers who come up from Mexico or other nations South of the border to work in the American heartland. I have heard people immediately label all of these workers “illegals” (even if they entered the United States legally) and complain that all they’re doing here is trying to get rich off of “our” tax dollars. I have also seen the hard work that immigrant day-laborers do for very, very little pay.
Another easy correlation to this morning’s scripture is anyone who benefits from the welfare system. There are welfare recipients who work several minimum wage jobs but are still unable to pay their meager bills. There are others who are disabled and truly unable to work. Others struggle to find affordable childcare. When they are unable to do so they either choose not to work, knowing that this may mean they will be unable to feed their children, or they leave their children home alone and are promptly labeled “evil child neglecters” by people who do not know their situation. Others have simply made mistakes or faced misfortunes in life -- legal troubles, addictions, broken homes, bad financial decisions, etc. -- and are struggling to get back on their feet. Regardless of the circumstances, they are labeled “lazy,” told to “get a job” (even if they already have one), and people complain that all “these people” are doing is stealing the taxes of “good Americans who actually work.” I do not often hear the viewpoint of the grace-filled vineyard owner on our airwaves.
Our God is not like that. The God we worship believes that each and every one of us, regardless of our contribution to the workforce, is worthy of grace. One could argue, in the vein of our Gospel lesson, that our God also believes every human being deserves a living wage and the ability to put food on the table. Every person, from the star of the high school football team to the illegal immigrant, to the selfless missionary, to the person facing life without parole was created in the image of God. In turn, every one of us is worthy of God’s grace.
Let us find comfort in this. Let us try to emulate it. And let us pray.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Sermon 09/14/08 (Exodus 14:19-31)
“The Cost of Freedom”
Exodus 14:19-31
Rev. Désirée H. Gold
St. Mark’s United Church of Christ, Baltimore, MD
Sunday, 14 September, 2008
Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
----
 This weekend we are particularly aware of the power of water. The news is filled with stories and pictures of the destruction left by Hurricane Ike. On Friday authorities warned that “certain death” awaited anyone who did not heed the orders to evacuate. While it appears that many of those who stayed behind survived the brunt of the storm, there was one point on the coast that was hit by a 15 foot wall of water. The fate of anyone standing in its wake could only have been “certain death.”
The storm has begun to pass but flood waters remain, and thousands of people in the area are clamoring for rescue. Those who cannot be rescued, or who still choose to stay behind, face the distinct possibility of drowning.
"So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at dawn the sea returned to its normal depth. As the Egyptians fled before it, the Lord tossed the Egyptians into the sea.
The waters returned and covered the chariots and the chariot drivers, the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea; not one of them remained.
But the Israelites walked on dry ground through the sea, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left.
Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. "
This is one of the most recognizable stories in our Bible. Moses parts the Red Sea and the evil Egyptian slavemasters drown, while the Israelites remain safe. We can immediately picture a powerful-looking Charlton Heston raising his hand and commanding the sea or numerous other movie scenes or paintings.
Artistic renderings of Moses parting the Red Sea show a tremendously VIOLENT event. The formerly enslaved Israelites walk across dry land in triumph, but then the Egyptians and their horses are thrown violently into the water to drown. As the Egyptians get stuck in the mud, the water rises around them, similar to those stuck in the floods of Southern Texas. No wall of water comes crashing down upon them, but the end result is their deaths nonetheless.
We are supposed to celebrate this event. I’m pretty sure I sang about it in Sunday School, and we might even have acted the scene out in Vacation Bible School when I was growing up. But now that I am grown up I am shocked by it, especially as I pore over of pictures of hurricane devastation.
I realize that the story of the Israelites’ escape has been hailed for centuries by other victims of slavery. African slaves who had converted to Christianity saw it as a sign that God was on the side of the oppressed rather than their slaveowners. It was a sign for them that God would one day help them to be free.
I realize, too, that victims of slavery -- the Israelites, the Africans who were brought to America and elsewhere, and slaves in every culture, from ancient times to the present, are victims of violence. Many are physically abused, sexually abused, emotionally abused, some even violently killed. Even those who are treated well by their “masters” are still considered the property of another human being and that, in itself, is violence.
I am currently reading the historical novel _Chesapeake_ by James Michener. The book begins in the early 17th century, when settlers were just arriving in North America. As farms were established labor was required, and slaves were brought from Africa and indentured servants from England. The indentured servants were considered the property of their masters until their time of court-ordered servitude was past, and sometimes they were treated even worse than the slaves. I recently got through a part in the book in which an indentured servant hits his master over the head with a shovel and leaves him for dead, before escaping. While I cheered his freedom to some extent (the character is a notorious thief), I struggled with the violent means by which he got it. Even when the most deserving slaves escape their evil masters, I wince at the acts of violence sometimes used to attain such aims.
So, where is the balance? Is it ever okay to use violence (even God’s violence) to achieve one’s ends? Can we rightfully cheer the violent death of the Egyptians in the Sea of Reeds, since they are the oppressors and the Israelites had suffered under them for so long? Can we cheer when slaves (fictional or real) commit acts of violence while attempting to gain freedom?
One article I read this past week mentioned this dilemma briefly but said flat-out that it wasn’t the point. The article, on the UCC web site, notes that “This wasn't one army against another, however outnumbered and outgunned. This was a ragtag group of impoverished ex-slaves escaping their captors not by their own strength or wits or organizational skills or strategic planning, but by the power of God.”1 Most articles I read focused either on the power of God or the marvelous gift of freedom. I, too, marvel at these things, particularly the gift of freedom to an oppressed people.
While I have never been oppressed in the way that the Israelites were and while I have never known the oppression of racism experienced by African Americans, I have heard first-hand stories of racial oppression and read about the desperation of the Israelites. There are terrible stories of cruelty, and the idea of believing that you can own someone boggles my mind. Still, I get caught up on the violence.
With the images of innocent Texans caught in the hurricane fresh in my mind, I imagine the horror of the Egyptian soldiers as they realize they are going to die. I struggle with the idea that God, Creator of humankind, would choose to kill God’s own creations. Of course, this is not the only place in our scriptures where we see this. In the story of the Great Flood, God saves Noah and his family but wipes out the rest of “evil humanity.” At the end of that saga, however, God promises that it will not happen again. Does the fact that the Egyptians did not worship the God of the Israelites factor into God’s willingness to kill them? I struggle with that too.
I do not have an answer to these questions. If I were enslaved and my only opportunity for freedom was to commit violence against my captor, would I do it? Most likely, yes. Would I feel guilty about it? I honestly don’t know. If someone I knew personally was kidnapped and their only chance of escape was to commit violence against their kidnapper, would I chastise them for it? I cannot imagine doing so. But as I sit here, a free woman, the question lingers. How can a loving God kill even the most vile of God’s Creation? Are they not worthy of redemption?
Is it a double standard when I (and many people) believe that violence committed against bad people can be an act of God, while the violence and destruction of a hurricane, and the subsequent suffering of millions of innocent people, is not? --that I believe God frees the oppressed but does not cause the suffering of the innocent?
I have more questions than answers this morning, but perhaps that is not a bad thing. We are called as people of faith to wrestle with the concerns that face our world. My prayer is that you will struggle with these things too -- that you will celebrate the freedom of the oppressed but also question stories describing the violence required to gain that freedom.
I believe in a loving God. I also believe in a powerful God who deplores oppression in all its forms. I cannot always reconcile those two. So I prayerfully wrestle. So, I pray, will you.
Now let us pray.
--
1 Sermon Seeds. September 14, 2008, Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Exodus 14:19-31. http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/september-14-2008-twenty-four.html. Accessed 09/13/08.
Exodus 14:19-31
Rev. Désirée H. Gold
St. Mark’s United Church of Christ, Baltimore, MD
Sunday, 14 September, 2008
Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
----
 This weekend we are particularly aware of the power of water. The news is filled with stories and pictures of the destruction left by Hurricane Ike. On Friday authorities warned that “certain death” awaited anyone who did not heed the orders to evacuate. While it appears that many of those who stayed behind survived the brunt of the storm, there was one point on the coast that was hit by a 15 foot wall of water. The fate of anyone standing in its wake could only have been “certain death.”
The storm has begun to pass but flood waters remain, and thousands of people in the area are clamoring for rescue. Those who cannot be rescued, or who still choose to stay behind, face the distinct possibility of drowning.
"So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at dawn the sea returned to its normal depth. As the Egyptians fled before it, the Lord tossed the Egyptians into the sea.
The waters returned and covered the chariots and the chariot drivers, the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea; not one of them remained.
But the Israelites walked on dry ground through the sea, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left.
Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. "
This is one of the most recognizable stories in our Bible. Moses parts the Red Sea and the evil Egyptian slavemasters drown, while the Israelites remain safe. We can immediately picture a powerful-looking Charlton Heston raising his hand and commanding the sea or numerous other movie scenes or paintings.
Artistic renderings of Moses parting the Red Sea show a tremendously VIOLENT event. The formerly enslaved Israelites walk across dry land in triumph, but then the Egyptians and their horses are thrown violently into the water to drown. As the Egyptians get stuck in the mud, the water rises around them, similar to those stuck in the floods of Southern Texas. No wall of water comes crashing down upon them, but the end result is their deaths nonetheless.
We are supposed to celebrate this event. I’m pretty sure I sang about it in Sunday School, and we might even have acted the scene out in Vacation Bible School when I was growing up. But now that I am grown up I am shocked by it, especially as I pore over of pictures of hurricane devastation.
I realize that the story of the Israelites’ escape has been hailed for centuries by other victims of slavery. African slaves who had converted to Christianity saw it as a sign that God was on the side of the oppressed rather than their slaveowners. It was a sign for them that God would one day help them to be free.
I realize, too, that victims of slavery -- the Israelites, the Africans who were brought to America and elsewhere, and slaves in every culture, from ancient times to the present, are victims of violence. Many are physically abused, sexually abused, emotionally abused, some even violently killed. Even those who are treated well by their “masters” are still considered the property of another human being and that, in itself, is violence.
I am currently reading the historical novel _Chesapeake_ by James Michener. The book begins in the early 17th century, when settlers were just arriving in North America. As farms were established labor was required, and slaves were brought from Africa and indentured servants from England. The indentured servants were considered the property of their masters until their time of court-ordered servitude was past, and sometimes they were treated even worse than the slaves. I recently got through a part in the book in which an indentured servant hits his master over the head with a shovel and leaves him for dead, before escaping. While I cheered his freedom to some extent (the character is a notorious thief), I struggled with the violent means by which he got it. Even when the most deserving slaves escape their evil masters, I wince at the acts of violence sometimes used to attain such aims.
So, where is the balance? Is it ever okay to use violence (even God’s violence) to achieve one’s ends? Can we rightfully cheer the violent death of the Egyptians in the Sea of Reeds, since they are the oppressors and the Israelites had suffered under them for so long? Can we cheer when slaves (fictional or real) commit acts of violence while attempting to gain freedom?
One article I read this past week mentioned this dilemma briefly but said flat-out that it wasn’t the point. The article, on the UCC web site, notes that “This wasn't one army against another, however outnumbered and outgunned. This was a ragtag group of impoverished ex-slaves escaping their captors not by their own strength or wits or organizational skills or strategic planning, but by the power of God.”1 Most articles I read focused either on the power of God or the marvelous gift of freedom. I, too, marvel at these things, particularly the gift of freedom to an oppressed people.
While I have never been oppressed in the way that the Israelites were and while I have never known the oppression of racism experienced by African Americans, I have heard first-hand stories of racial oppression and read about the desperation of the Israelites. There are terrible stories of cruelty, and the idea of believing that you can own someone boggles my mind. Still, I get caught up on the violence.
With the images of innocent Texans caught in the hurricane fresh in my mind, I imagine the horror of the Egyptian soldiers as they realize they are going to die. I struggle with the idea that God, Creator of humankind, would choose to kill God’s own creations. Of course, this is not the only place in our scriptures where we see this. In the story of the Great Flood, God saves Noah and his family but wipes out the rest of “evil humanity.” At the end of that saga, however, God promises that it will not happen again. Does the fact that the Egyptians did not worship the God of the Israelites factor into God’s willingness to kill them? I struggle with that too.
I do not have an answer to these questions. If I were enslaved and my only opportunity for freedom was to commit violence against my captor, would I do it? Most likely, yes. Would I feel guilty about it? I honestly don’t know. If someone I knew personally was kidnapped and their only chance of escape was to commit violence against their kidnapper, would I chastise them for it? I cannot imagine doing so. But as I sit here, a free woman, the question lingers. How can a loving God kill even the most vile of God’s Creation? Are they not worthy of redemption?
Is it a double standard when I (and many people) believe that violence committed against bad people can be an act of God, while the violence and destruction of a hurricane, and the subsequent suffering of millions of innocent people, is not? --that I believe God frees the oppressed but does not cause the suffering of the innocent?
I have more questions than answers this morning, but perhaps that is not a bad thing. We are called as people of faith to wrestle with the concerns that face our world. My prayer is that you will struggle with these things too -- that you will celebrate the freedom of the oppressed but also question stories describing the violence required to gain that freedom.
I believe in a loving God. I also believe in a powerful God who deplores oppression in all its forms. I cannot always reconcile those two. So I prayerfully wrestle. So, I pray, will you.
Now let us pray.
--
1 Sermon Seeds. September 14, 2008, Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Exodus 14:19-31. http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/september-14-2008-twenty-four.html. Accessed 09/13/08.
Sermon 09/07/08 (Romans 13:8-14; Matthew 18:15-20)
“The Substance of Church Membership”
Romans 13:8-14; Matthew 18:15-20
Rev. Désirée H. Gold
St. Mark’s United Church of Christ, Baltimore, MD
Sunday, 7 September, 2008
Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
----
 The day is finally here! In a little while we will welcome five new members into the official community of St. Mark’s United Church of Christ. Mary, Patti, Sue, Danny, and Timmy are already baptized Christians. Timmy was raised Methodist. Patti and Mary were Catholic. Sue has been both Catholic and Methodist. Danny, as we know, was baptized in our very own UCC. But when we are baptized, we are not baptized Catholic or Methodist or UCC or Presbyterian or Lutheran or anything else. We are baptized Christian, we are members of the family of Jesus Christ. This means that these five people were already our sisters and brothers in Christ. They have belonged to this church, the community of St. Mark’s for many months too. But when they stand before us this morning to reaffirm their baptisms and accept membership into this church, and we extend to them “the hand of Christian fellowship” and present them with membership certificates, we will be formalizing the relationship, recognizing them for the commitment they have already shown to our little church.
In the past months I have already talked with them, and we have talked as a larger congregation, about what church membership is all about. We have talked about discipleship, the importance of serving the church and possible ways to serve. We have talked about the history of the United Church of Christ and what the UCC is all about today. We have shared meals together, and the new folks have been introduced to recipes that have been shared in this congregation for many years. We have gotten to know each other and, I hope, to like each other.
But we haven’t talked a lot about the other “L” word yet: “Love.” It’s nice to like the person sitting in the pew next to you. It’s pleasant to be friends with your fellow church members. But liking our church friends isn’t really (or shouldn’t be) the reason we’re here. Love is the basis not only for church membership, but for Christianity itself. God sent Jesus Christ to us because God loved us, and the primary message that Jesus brought was one of love. The word “love” occurs 301 times in the New Testament. It occurs some 458 times in the Old Testament. That’s a lot of love! Whether we are speaking of God’s love for us, our love for God, God’s love for God’s Son, Christ’s love for us, our love for Christ, or our love for one another, the word is everywhere.
Most of the places where love is mentioned in our scriptures, it is referring not to ooey-gooey, Valentine’s Day, hearts-and-flowers, romantic love -- known in the Greek as “eros” or “philia” love. Instead, it’s referring to “agape” love, the kind of love that is divine, self-sacrificing, unconditional. This is how we are commanded to be in relationship with our fellow human beings on this planet. We are to love them unconditionally, be willing to make sacrifices for them, love them as much as God loves us (or at least as close as we can get). It is love like this that is the real substance, not just of church membership, but of Christian life.
Indeed, in our reading this morning from Romans, the Apostle Paul tells us that we are obligated to love one another. He reminds his listeners of the commandments and tells them that loving one’s neighbor is the fulfillment of the law itself.
Even though this passage from Romans has been around for a very long time, we’re not accustomed to thinking about love in this way. People fall in love -- they don’t just love someone because they have an obligation to do so...right? We are taught that “you can’t help who you love” and that, in turn, you can’t help it if you no longer love someone. ...But here it is: “Owe no one anything, except to love one another.”
“Love” here represents action more than it represents a beating heart. Paul suggests that “love does no harm to a neighbor.” Therefore, we are obligated to do no harm to one another.
This should be obvious, especially when we’re talking about loving our fellow church members. Church folks are members of a family, right, and you’re not supposed to harm members of your family. But, unfortunately, church life isn’t always that easy. Anyone who has ever had a relationship of any kind with another human being knows that relationships aren’t easy, and “doing no harm” isn’t always easy either.
Life at St. Mark’s seems pretty blissful, relationship-wise. In the two years I have been here I have not seen a whole lot of conflict; people seem to get along fairly well. Those of you who are joining this morning have been around even less time than I have, and unless I am not privy to some underlying conflicts, St. Mark’s is a pretty easy-going church. But I can guarantee you that members who have been around here for decades have seen conflicts arise. I have been in other churches that have split over one disagreement or another, and in these situations any thought of Christian love -- doing no harm -- can go flying out the window.
At times like these, when brothers and sisters in Christ fall into disagreement, we can pull out this morning’s reading from the Gospel of Matthew. Here Jesus essentially teaches his followers effective and healthy conflict resolution skills: When you become angry at another member of the church (sometimes translated: “another brother or sister”), try to work the matter out between the two of you first. If that doesn’t work, bring in witnesses, and if there is still no resolution bring the matter before the whole church. ...Now, this scripture must be dealt with carefully, as it can be misused. I read a story this week about a senior pastor who used the scripture to indicate that a conflict with his associate pastor should stay between the two of them; by using the scripture in this manner he hoped to avoid taking responsibility for the wrong he had committed against her. (He conveniently left out the rest of the scripture, in which the offended person can bring in witnesses and ultimately bring the issue to the entire congregation.) But I believe that Jesus’ intent was to point out the fact that yes, disagreements will erupt within the community, and that they can be dealt with in such a way as to avoid doing harm. Just about any counselor will tell you that the key to healthy relationships is conflict resolution, and this was Jesus’ way of teaching it to his followers.
It is certainly my hope that life at St. Mark’s will be conflict-free, but in those inevitable times when it is not I encourage you to remember both Paul’s words, that we are called to do no harm to one another, and the words of Jesus, that we are called to resolve conflicts in a healthy manner. I suspect that if more churches were reminded of (and chose to follow) these words, there would be less hurt and fewer splits.
Being in Christian community is hard, but it can have tremendous rewards, not just heavenly either. First, we do often make good friends in the church, and church can be just plain fun. Second, we are surrounded by a community that can help us in times of trouble. And third, but most importantly, we have a place to worship and praise God together.
Now let us do so with prayer!
Romans 13:8-14; Matthew 18:15-20
Rev. Désirée H. Gold
St. Mark’s United Church of Christ, Baltimore, MD
Sunday, 7 September, 2008
Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
----
 The day is finally here! In a little while we will welcome five new members into the official community of St. Mark’s United Church of Christ. Mary, Patti, Sue, Danny, and Timmy are already baptized Christians. Timmy was raised Methodist. Patti and Mary were Catholic. Sue has been both Catholic and Methodist. Danny, as we know, was baptized in our very own UCC. But when we are baptized, we are not baptized Catholic or Methodist or UCC or Presbyterian or Lutheran or anything else. We are baptized Christian, we are members of the family of Jesus Christ. This means that these five people were already our sisters and brothers in Christ. They have belonged to this church, the community of St. Mark’s for many months too. But when they stand before us this morning to reaffirm their baptisms and accept membership into this church, and we extend to them “the hand of Christian fellowship” and present them with membership certificates, we will be formalizing the relationship, recognizing them for the commitment they have already shown to our little church.
In the past months I have already talked with them, and we have talked as a larger congregation, about what church membership is all about. We have talked about discipleship, the importance of serving the church and possible ways to serve. We have talked about the history of the United Church of Christ and what the UCC is all about today. We have shared meals together, and the new folks have been introduced to recipes that have been shared in this congregation for many years. We have gotten to know each other and, I hope, to like each other.
But we haven’t talked a lot about the other “L” word yet: “Love.” It’s nice to like the person sitting in the pew next to you. It’s pleasant to be friends with your fellow church members. But liking our church friends isn’t really (or shouldn’t be) the reason we’re here. Love is the basis not only for church membership, but for Christianity itself. God sent Jesus Christ to us because God loved us, and the primary message that Jesus brought was one of love. The word “love” occurs 301 times in the New Testament. It occurs some 458 times in the Old Testament. That’s a lot of love! Whether we are speaking of God’s love for us, our love for God, God’s love for God’s Son, Christ’s love for us, our love for Christ, or our love for one another, the word is everywhere.
Most of the places where love is mentioned in our scriptures, it is referring not to ooey-gooey, Valentine’s Day, hearts-and-flowers, romantic love -- known in the Greek as “eros” or “philia” love. Instead, it’s referring to “agape” love, the kind of love that is divine, self-sacrificing, unconditional. This is how we are commanded to be in relationship with our fellow human beings on this planet. We are to love them unconditionally, be willing to make sacrifices for them, love them as much as God loves us (or at least as close as we can get). It is love like this that is the real substance, not just of church membership, but of Christian life.
Indeed, in our reading this morning from Romans, the Apostle Paul tells us that we are obligated to love one another. He reminds his listeners of the commandments and tells them that loving one’s neighbor is the fulfillment of the law itself.
Even though this passage from Romans has been around for a very long time, we’re not accustomed to thinking about love in this way. People fall in love -- they don’t just love someone because they have an obligation to do so...right? We are taught that “you can’t help who you love” and that, in turn, you can’t help it if you no longer love someone. ...But here it is: “Owe no one anything, except to love one another.”
“Love” here represents action more than it represents a beating heart. Paul suggests that “love does no harm to a neighbor.” Therefore, we are obligated to do no harm to one another.
This should be obvious, especially when we’re talking about loving our fellow church members. Church folks are members of a family, right, and you’re not supposed to harm members of your family. But, unfortunately, church life isn’t always that easy. Anyone who has ever had a relationship of any kind with another human being knows that relationships aren’t easy, and “doing no harm” isn’t always easy either.
Life at St. Mark’s seems pretty blissful, relationship-wise. In the two years I have been here I have not seen a whole lot of conflict; people seem to get along fairly well. Those of you who are joining this morning have been around even less time than I have, and unless I am not privy to some underlying conflicts, St. Mark’s is a pretty easy-going church. But I can guarantee you that members who have been around here for decades have seen conflicts arise. I have been in other churches that have split over one disagreement or another, and in these situations any thought of Christian love -- doing no harm -- can go flying out the window.
At times like these, when brothers and sisters in Christ fall into disagreement, we can pull out this morning’s reading from the Gospel of Matthew. Here Jesus essentially teaches his followers effective and healthy conflict resolution skills: When you become angry at another member of the church (sometimes translated: “another brother or sister”), try to work the matter out between the two of you first. If that doesn’t work, bring in witnesses, and if there is still no resolution bring the matter before the whole church. ...Now, this scripture must be dealt with carefully, as it can be misused. I read a story this week about a senior pastor who used the scripture to indicate that a conflict with his associate pastor should stay between the two of them; by using the scripture in this manner he hoped to avoid taking responsibility for the wrong he had committed against her. (He conveniently left out the rest of the scripture, in which the offended person can bring in witnesses and ultimately bring the issue to the entire congregation.) But I believe that Jesus’ intent was to point out the fact that yes, disagreements will erupt within the community, and that they can be dealt with in such a way as to avoid doing harm. Just about any counselor will tell you that the key to healthy relationships is conflict resolution, and this was Jesus’ way of teaching it to his followers.
It is certainly my hope that life at St. Mark’s will be conflict-free, but in those inevitable times when it is not I encourage you to remember both Paul’s words, that we are called to do no harm to one another, and the words of Jesus, that we are called to resolve conflicts in a healthy manner. I suspect that if more churches were reminded of (and chose to follow) these words, there would be less hurt and fewer splits.
Being in Christian community is hard, but it can have tremendous rewards, not just heavenly either. First, we do often make good friends in the church, and church can be just plain fun. Second, we are surrounded by a community that can help us in times of trouble. And third, but most importantly, we have a place to worship and praise God together.
Now let us do so with prayer!
Sermon 08/31/08 (Matthew 16+21-28)
“What is Your Cross?”
Matthew 16:21-28
Rev. Désirée H. Gold
St. Mark’s United Church of Christ, Baltimore, MD
Sunday, 31 August, 2008
Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time
----
 In my April newsletter article, I mentioned that my little sister was in the cast of “Jesus Christ Superstar” several years ago and that one of her roles in the show was to nail Jesus’ body to the cross. I noted that it was hard for me to watch my sister play the part. That was putting it mildly. I saw the show more than once, and every time I watched this powerful scene I cringed. My little sister...was nailing Jesus...to the cross. Of course, I knew that Rochelle was not really a Roman soldier, and I knew that “Jesus” was only an actor. But the scene touched me, and it was horrifying to even consider the idea of Jesus suffering -- at the hand of my little sister, no less!
...Now imagine the scene from this morning’s Gospel reading. Jesus had been spending time with his disciples, teaching them and preaching to the multitudes. In scenes that appear shortly before this morning’s reading, Jesus feeds four thousand people with only a few loaves of bread and heals many people from their ailments. Then, suddenly, the mood changes.
In the scriptures we have heard over the last several weeks this miracle-performing Jesus has turned from a miracle-worker into an ornery curmudgeon with nothing but harsh words to say. He even snaps rudely at a woman who begs him to heal her daughter!
This morning, this dark shift in our Gospel story comes to a head when Jesus gathers his disciples to him and begins to tell them that he will undergo great suffering and, indeed, be killed. ...He will what?! Yes, the disciples heard right. He will undergo great suffering and be killed. Can you imagine what horrifying words these are to hear from one’s leader, from one’s teacher and mentor?! If I cringed to watch my sister nailing “Jesus” to the cross, I can only imagine the reaction of Jesus’ disciples when they were about to witness the real thing!
Considering the horror the disciples must have felt, Jesus’ response to Peter seems a little cruel. When Peter calls Jesus aside and rebukes him for revealing these horrifying things, Jesus refers to him as “Satan” and condemns him. Scathing words toward a protégé who has just learned his mentor will endure great suffering and die soon! ...And yet Jesus is not finished. He goes on, calls his disciples and a crowd to him and continues. He tells them that they must deny themselves, that they must take up their cross and follow, that they must lose their whole lives in order to gain the world.
The disciples knew discipleship was hard, but their ears must have been ringing with this double-whammy of a narrative -- “I’m going to suffer greatly, be rejected, and die. Oh, and by the way, you’ll need to endure something pretty similar if you want to really follow me.”
Two thousand years later, we do not hear Jesus’ words any more clearly. We hear the foretelling of Jesus’ death with the knowledge that Jesus will suffer horrible humiliation, but we also know that that his death will be followed by his Resurrection. It is with this knowledge that we can hear the frightening stories of how Jesus suffered and died on the cross.
But when we hear Jesus’ call to action, it is more difficult to hear the words. “Take up your cross and follow me.” We tend to hear the words as a flowery little metaphor -- “follow Jesus, for Jesus loves you.” Or we may hear the words and shudder to recall recent misuse of Jesus’ words -- in abusive cult situations, for example, where leaders like David Koresh draw their followers unto death. Either way, the words do not really ring true. Even when we do actually hear the words, our modern American culture renders it almost impossible to consider the idea of “denying ourselves.” We live in a nation of excess, and “self-denial” is not a term that fits in our vocabulary. What does it mean to “take up our cross” anyway?
I spoke last week about sacrifice, but the sacrifices Jesus asks his disciples to take here go deeper than merely the sacrifice of our time or energy. We sometimes associate “taking up our cross” or making the sacrifices Jesus asks of his disciples with Lent, and indeed the scripture we heard today is frequently read during the Lenten season. But often our Lenten sacrifices only last those 40 days. What Jesus is asking of his disciples is lifelong sacrifice. This is hard for us. Our modern American sensibilities are not tuned in to this kind of a sacrificial lifestyle. To give up everything that we have, to give up those things which we find pleasurable but which are, in fact, unnecessary either for life or for the service of God, is unthinkable to us. Like Peter, our minds tend to be very much on human things rather than on the divine. We can barely comprehend the idea of Jesus’ suffering, much less our own. It’s hard to deny ourselves!
Biblical scholar Lamar Williamson points out, however, that Jesus calls us not to deny ourselves of some thing but rather to deny self. There is a difference. Williamson argues that denying ourselves merely of things can make us self-righteous, because “the self can ride as comfortably on a bicycle as in a limousine.” Denying the self does not mean self-hatred but rather a denial of the grasping self in order to liberate the greater self.
But how can we, as modern American Christians, understand what it means to “take up the cross,” to deny self and follow Jesus? Scripture is intricate, and there is much debate over what it means to “take up one’s cross.” Yet surely it means, at the very least, the willingness to endure suffering for the sake of another. When we hear the call to “take up our cross,” we can picture Jesus carrying, dragging, his heavy wooden cross through the streets, enduring the struggle with the object that would bring his death, but then lead to his resurrection and new life.
When we picture this image, we may wince, as I did when I watched my sister “nailing” an actor to a stage-built cross. But perhaps we can also draw nearer to discerning our own cross, that object of heaviness that will draw us and the world closer to freedom and life eternal. It is not the cross itself that will draw us to divine things. Jesus was not holy simply because he died on the cross. Rather, he was holy, in part, because of what he was willing to give up, what he was willing to sacrifice for the world.
So, what is your cross? What is the cross you must take up in order to follow Jesus? And are you willing to bear it?
Those who went to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina (and who may go after this current hurricane season), and those who work for peace in the Middle East, know that they will not be comfortable and that they may not return in one piece. But there are other ways of discipleship, and there are other kinds of suffering. There are many ways to “take up the cross.” The call to discipleship is as diverse as Creation. The crosses that we take up are those things that draw us closer to the realm of God. They may involve deep suffering, personal pain, and possibly even death. The suffering is not, in itself, divine, but the hope that comes from our willingness to deny self will draw us nearer to the One who calls.
...Jesus’ suffering was real, and it is a painful reminder of his humanity. Like Peter, we may momentarily dwell on this human aspect and struggle to move on to the divinity of his call. Yet rebuke us, he does, and his rebuke carries with it a great hope. In the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “the cross is not the horrible end of a pious, happy life, but stands rather at the beginning of community with Jesus Christ.”
“For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”
Now let us pray.
Matthew 16:21-28
Rev. Désirée H. Gold
St. Mark’s United Church of Christ, Baltimore, MD
Sunday, 31 August, 2008
Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time
----
 In my April newsletter article, I mentioned that my little sister was in the cast of “Jesus Christ Superstar” several years ago and that one of her roles in the show was to nail Jesus’ body to the cross. I noted that it was hard for me to watch my sister play the part. That was putting it mildly. I saw the show more than once, and every time I watched this powerful scene I cringed. My little sister...was nailing Jesus...to the cross. Of course, I knew that Rochelle was not really a Roman soldier, and I knew that “Jesus” was only an actor. But the scene touched me, and it was horrifying to even consider the idea of Jesus suffering -- at the hand of my little sister, no less!
...Now imagine the scene from this morning’s Gospel reading. Jesus had been spending time with his disciples, teaching them and preaching to the multitudes. In scenes that appear shortly before this morning’s reading, Jesus feeds four thousand people with only a few loaves of bread and heals many people from their ailments. Then, suddenly, the mood changes.
In the scriptures we have heard over the last several weeks this miracle-performing Jesus has turned from a miracle-worker into an ornery curmudgeon with nothing but harsh words to say. He even snaps rudely at a woman who begs him to heal her daughter!
This morning, this dark shift in our Gospel story comes to a head when Jesus gathers his disciples to him and begins to tell them that he will undergo great suffering and, indeed, be killed. ...He will what?! Yes, the disciples heard right. He will undergo great suffering and be killed. Can you imagine what horrifying words these are to hear from one’s leader, from one’s teacher and mentor?! If I cringed to watch my sister nailing “Jesus” to the cross, I can only imagine the reaction of Jesus’ disciples when they were about to witness the real thing!
Considering the horror the disciples must have felt, Jesus’ response to Peter seems a little cruel. When Peter calls Jesus aside and rebukes him for revealing these horrifying things, Jesus refers to him as “Satan” and condemns him. Scathing words toward a protégé who has just learned his mentor will endure great suffering and die soon! ...And yet Jesus is not finished. He goes on, calls his disciples and a crowd to him and continues. He tells them that they must deny themselves, that they must take up their cross and follow, that they must lose their whole lives in order to gain the world.
The disciples knew discipleship was hard, but their ears must have been ringing with this double-whammy of a narrative -- “I’m going to suffer greatly, be rejected, and die. Oh, and by the way, you’ll need to endure something pretty similar if you want to really follow me.”
Two thousand years later, we do not hear Jesus’ words any more clearly. We hear the foretelling of Jesus’ death with the knowledge that Jesus will suffer horrible humiliation, but we also know that that his death will be followed by his Resurrection. It is with this knowledge that we can hear the frightening stories of how Jesus suffered and died on the cross.
But when we hear Jesus’ call to action, it is more difficult to hear the words. “Take up your cross and follow me.” We tend to hear the words as a flowery little metaphor -- “follow Jesus, for Jesus loves you.” Or we may hear the words and shudder to recall recent misuse of Jesus’ words -- in abusive cult situations, for example, where leaders like David Koresh draw their followers unto death. Either way, the words do not really ring true. Even when we do actually hear the words, our modern American culture renders it almost impossible to consider the idea of “denying ourselves.” We live in a nation of excess, and “self-denial” is not a term that fits in our vocabulary. What does it mean to “take up our cross” anyway?
I spoke last week about sacrifice, but the sacrifices Jesus asks his disciples to take here go deeper than merely the sacrifice of our time or energy. We sometimes associate “taking up our cross” or making the sacrifices Jesus asks of his disciples with Lent, and indeed the scripture we heard today is frequently read during the Lenten season. But often our Lenten sacrifices only last those 40 days. What Jesus is asking of his disciples is lifelong sacrifice. This is hard for us. Our modern American sensibilities are not tuned in to this kind of a sacrificial lifestyle. To give up everything that we have, to give up those things which we find pleasurable but which are, in fact, unnecessary either for life or for the service of God, is unthinkable to us. Like Peter, our minds tend to be very much on human things rather than on the divine. We can barely comprehend the idea of Jesus’ suffering, much less our own. It’s hard to deny ourselves!
Biblical scholar Lamar Williamson points out, however, that Jesus calls us not to deny ourselves of some thing but rather to deny self. There is a difference. Williamson argues that denying ourselves merely of things can make us self-righteous, because “the self can ride as comfortably on a bicycle as in a limousine.” Denying the self does not mean self-hatred but rather a denial of the grasping self in order to liberate the greater self.
But how can we, as modern American Christians, understand what it means to “take up the cross,” to deny self and follow Jesus? Scripture is intricate, and there is much debate over what it means to “take up one’s cross.” Yet surely it means, at the very least, the willingness to endure suffering for the sake of another. When we hear the call to “take up our cross,” we can picture Jesus carrying, dragging, his heavy wooden cross through the streets, enduring the struggle with the object that would bring his death, but then lead to his resurrection and new life.
When we picture this image, we may wince, as I did when I watched my sister “nailing” an actor to a stage-built cross. But perhaps we can also draw nearer to discerning our own cross, that object of heaviness that will draw us and the world closer to freedom and life eternal. It is not the cross itself that will draw us to divine things. Jesus was not holy simply because he died on the cross. Rather, he was holy, in part, because of what he was willing to give up, what he was willing to sacrifice for the world.
So, what is your cross? What is the cross you must take up in order to follow Jesus? And are you willing to bear it?
Those who went to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina (and who may go after this current hurricane season), and those who work for peace in the Middle East, know that they will not be comfortable and that they may not return in one piece. But there are other ways of discipleship, and there are other kinds of suffering. There are many ways to “take up the cross.” The call to discipleship is as diverse as Creation. The crosses that we take up are those things that draw us closer to the realm of God. They may involve deep suffering, personal pain, and possibly even death. The suffering is not, in itself, divine, but the hope that comes from our willingness to deny self will draw us nearer to the One who calls.
...Jesus’ suffering was real, and it is a painful reminder of his humanity. Like Peter, we may momentarily dwell on this human aspect and struggle to move on to the divinity of his call. Yet rebuke us, he does, and his rebuke carries with it a great hope. In the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “the cross is not the horrible end of a pious, happy life, but stands rather at the beginning of community with Jesus Christ.”
“For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”
Now let us pray.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
