"Taking Up Your Cross"
A Sermon by the Rev. Dr. Hilary J. Barrett
Preached at Pleasantville UCC, March 8, 2009
Lent 2, Year B, Mark 8:27-38

“He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them,
‘If any want to become my followers, 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 for the sake of the gospel, will save it.’”
(Mark 8:34-35)

On a small bulletin board outside my office there is a cartoon from the New Yorker Collection of a couple as they meet with the minister in preparation for their upcoming wedding.  Sitting across the desk in the Pastor’s office, they smile and say:

“We’d like you to leave out the poorer, sickness, and death parts --
they’re a little dark.”

Precisely half way through the Gospel according to Mark, we come to the dark part.  And Peter’s reaction to Jesus’ words is a little bit like the couple in the cartoon: “Come on Jesus, can’t we do without all that suffering and dying talk?  It’s a little dark.”

Mark’s gospel is sixteen chapters long.  It opens with the words:

“The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

And for the first half of the gospel, for the first eight chapters, Mark unfolds one story after another that mean to prove to us beyond the shadow of a doubt that Jesus is, in fact, the Son of God:

-                           the baptism of Jesus tells us how the heavens opened and God’s voice is heard, claiming Jesus as God’s beloved Son

-                           the cleansing of the Leper, the healing of the Paralytic, the raising of Jairus’ daughter – all demonstrate his ability to heal disease, his authority over the unclean spirits, and even his authority over death itself

-                           the stilling of the storm show us that Jesus even has authority over the forces of nature

-                           the feeding of the five thousand demonstrates how Jesus is the good shepherd who leads us into green pastures, nourishes us with the bread of life, and restores our soul

For eight chapters, Mark has been teaching us about Jesus; for eight chapters Jesus’ true identity has been “showing forth.”  And now, eight chapters into the gospel, Jesus asks the big question:

“Who do people say that I am?”

It’s been a while now since we’ve been assailed by presidential candidates on tour (thanks be to God) but, this is a little bit like those kinds of question.  “Who do people say that I am?”  “What are your views on health care reform?”  This is the moment when it really matters, and Peter’s answer begins to smell of equivocation: 

‘Well, some people say that you’re John the Baptist.  And others say Elijah.  And others say that you’re one of the prophets.”  But Jesus isn’t willing to let Peter get away with this kind of vague response.

“But who do you say that I am?”

Pressed for an answer, Peter rightly responds:

“You are the Messiah.”

Peter got that answer right -- and on the strength of his understanding, Jesus began to teach the disciples what that meant.  They understand who He was; now it was time to teach them what that meant for Him and for them.  And that’s when the “dark part” kicks in.

“Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man 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.”

But Peter wasn’t ready to hear this.  He wasn’t ready to hear how Jesus was going to undergo great suffering.  So Peter took Jesus aside and rebuked him. 

Now the last time we heard the word rebuke, Jesus was rebuking the storm-tossed sea – which is to say, you don’t take Jesus aside and “rebuke” him.  You don’t take the Son of God aside like a child and correct him.  And if you do, you’d better expect to be rebuked right back.  And that’s just what happened:

“Get behind me, Satan! 
For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

It’s one of the great fights between good friends ever documented in the scriptures.

Peter had gotten it so wrong it must have been unsettling for Jesus.  So unsettling, in fact, that he decided he’d better check again to see whether these fools following him really understood what they were getting themselves into.  “The invitation to follow [which was] first extended to Peter and three others beside a sunny sea (1:16-20), is now redefined in the shadow of a cross.  Peter and all the others must be asked again if they really want to follow Jesus.”[1]  And that is how we come to the core of our text for the day – a text about the nature of discipleship:

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves
and take up their cross and follow me.”

They understood who he was.  Now it was time to understand what that meant. 

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.  For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?

From this point onward, the action of the gospel leans towards Jerusalem where Jesus will suffer and die on the cross.

Our Confirmation Class is in the middle of a project.  I have asked each one of them – adults included – to respond to the question: “What does it mean to take up your cross and follow Jesus?” 

In the early days of the Christian church, taking up your cross could very well be a literal act.  For there were early Christians, Peter included, who were crucified for their faith in Jesus as Lord.  For some, taking up your cross meant facing lions and chains and the flames of martyrdom.  For us, today, the dangers of faithfulness are different and often not as dramatic.  But we live in a world that daily denies the power of faith, and we live in a culture where the values of material wealth permeates the atmosphere we breathe.  It is, in no way, an easy time to follow Jesus.  The times for decision for or against Jesus are with us always.

Matthew promises: “Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy ladened and I will give you rest.”  Mark’s promise is a bit different:

“If any want to become my followers,
let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

Peter and the other disciples mistakenly believed that following Jesus would lead to worldly power.  They were hoping that he was the one who was going to come and make everything right.  He’s right the wrongs of society.  He’d correct the injustices.  He’d redistribute the balance of power – which meant that the disciples would be in charge.  So they were mighty surprised when Jesus told them that discipleship required that they lay down their self-absorbed lives and pick up, instead, a disciplines of faithfulness to the way of Jesus.

This kind of living has never been easy.  It’s never come naturally to human beings.  That’s why it’s a discipline; that’s why we’re called “disciples” – those who follow a discipline.

There are modern-day examples of people who take up their cross in dramatic ways.  Some of them live quite close to us.  Shane Claiborne is a young man living in Philadelphia who is one of the founding members of a community in inner city Philadelphia called The Simple Way.  Their mission statement reads like this: 

“To Love God.  To Love people.  To Follow Jesus.” 
We’re giving that our best shot.

            The young people of The Simple Way live in the Philadelphia neighborhood called Kensington.  They believe with all their heart that they are called to minister in “the abandoned places” in the United States.  So they live as Christian community in extremely poor neighborhoods like Kensington and there is another house across the river in Camden.  They model their life and ministry on what they call, “lovers of Christ such as Mother Teresa, St. Francis, and Dorothy Day.”  Their website says this:

Any member in the house might be involved in any different type of work toward seeking justice and/or care for the needy, addicted, orphaned, widowed, or just depressed—recognizing that often we do not always bring the gospel to the poor in our service, but they bring it to us in "Jesus' distressing disguise."[2]

I don’t know much about Shane Claiborne except that he considers himself a “red letter Christian.”  That is to say, he’s a Christian who pays attention to the red letters in his bible, focusing upon what Jesus said.  That means that if Jesus didn’t have much to say about it, Shane really doesn’t have much to say about it either.  So, if you want to know what Shane believes about homosexuality, he goes to the red letters in the Scriptures and finds that Jesus didn’t say anything about homosexuality.  But if you want to know what Shane thinks about the poor and the downtrodden.  Well then, there’s a lot to talk about -- because that was Jesus’ favorite subject.  For a red-letter Christian, there’s plenty to do in the world – and most of it involves service.

Laying down our self-absorbed tendencies and taking up a life with Christ isn’t easy.  It often involves service in the world – but not always.  Because I think we’ve all met people who are dedicated to service, but can’t seem to get out of their own way when they are about it.  And if there is anything that Jesus asks us to do, it’s get out of the way.  We are not called to reject ourselves.  Self –hatred is not the way of Jesus.  But we are called to deny our grasping selves in order to liberate the greater one within.

Baptism is the church’s ritual for bringing people into the Body of Christ.  But it is also through the act of baptism that we remember God’s claim upon our lives, we are freed from sin’s claim upon us, and we are consecrated for ministry.  The word, “consecrate” means “set aside for holy purposes; sacred.”  By our baptisms we were set aside for holy purposes.  Our ordinary life stopped and our new life in Christ began.

I wonder how our lives might look different if we think about our consecrated ministry as baptized Christians when we make our daily decisions.  How might your life change when you take seriously the fact that you are consecrated for ministry and service in the name of Jesus Christ?

This week, Pastor Amelie and I participated in two days of training in “conflict transformation” led by the Mennonites.  One of the stories that the leaders told us made me shudder.  It was a Lutheran congregation that had become so divided over music in worship that they had split right down the middle.  The Bishop solved the problem by intervening in the conflict and deciding that half the congregation could use the building for one block of time, and the other congregation could use it for the other.  The congregation had become so divided they could no longer worship in the same space.

Getting out of our own way, laying down our lives for our friends and taking up the cross of Jesus means that sometimes I get to sing the songs I like and sometimes you get to sing the songs you like.  It also means that, even though I may not like the songs you like, I’m going to sing them because you like them.  The song itself may not bring me nearer to Jesus, but singing it for you surely will.

Jesus calls us to follow him by emptying ourselves.  He calls us to put down the burdens that we carry, the prejudices that we bear, the addictions that claim us, the self-absorbed fears and neediness that paralyze us – he calls us to put these things down so that our hands will be empty enough to pick up the cross and follow him.

May our Lenten discipline this Season invite us to get out of our own way.  May it invite us to empty ourselves of the things that prevent our fully following our Lord.  And may our ability to pick up the cross become a means to a life of deeper service – both in the world, and right here at home.  May it be so.  Amen.