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
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 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.