Sunday, September 03, 2017

Jesus bears the cross no matter what: 13th post-pentecost a


The holy gospel according to Matthew (16:24-28)

24Then Jesus told his disciples,
      “If any want to become my followers,
            let them deny themselves
            and take up their cross and follow me.
                  25For those who want to save their life will lose it,
                  and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.
                        26For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world
                              but forfeit their life?
                         Or what will they give in return for their life?

      27“For the Son of Humanity is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father,
            and then he will repay everyone for what has been done.
      28Truly I tell you,
            there are some standing here who will not taste death
                  before they see the Son of Humanity coming in his dominion.”

El Evangelio del Señor.

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The cross has become such an important symbol in Christianity that we have crosses in our places of worship, we wear them as necklaces, earrings, and religious wear, we tattoo them on our bodies and place them on our walls. 

But this comfort with the cross can make it unclear for us when Jesus says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”  Sometimes we think the cross Jesus is talking about is an illness or an inconvenience we’re dealing with or an abusive relationship or injustice.  The cross proliferates in our country and culture and yet in the Early Church—the first few centuries during which Christianity began to take shape, the idea of wearing a cross would have been appalling.

One main symbol for Christianity at the time was an anchor, representing the hope and peace found in Christ.  In the midst of persecution, the anchor was a reminder of the anchoring people had in their faith in Christ. 

The ichthus was another important symbol for Christianity.  The word ichthus, meaning “fish,” has come to stand for “ησος Χριστς Θεο Υἱὸς Σωτήρ", meaning, Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour.” The ichthus was used particularly in the Early Church to identify fellow Christians.  If you encountered somebody and wanted to know if they were Christian, you could draw a curved line in the sand with your foot.  It wouldn’t stand out on its own, but if the other person was also a Christian, they would draw a curved line from their perspective and together they would make an ichthus.  Then you would both know each other and the evidence could be quickly erased.

This was key because the Early Church, the initial followers of the Way, before Emperor Constantine’s conversion, were persecuted.  Their lives were literally at stake.  The cross was a weapon—the ultimate weapon—of the Roman Empire.  If anyone tried to rebel—even just a rumor of revolt was enough for Roman soldiers to arrest and crucify the people of first century Palestine. 

The way crosses work is that people who were crucified, would be unable to breathe if they couldn’t hold up their body weight.  So, in order to breathe, they would have to push up with their legs and pull up with their almost certainly dislocated shoulders, causing excruciating pain, to gulp a breath of air before slumping back down.  In this way, the life of a crucified person could drag out for days.  The crosses themselves would be lined up along the road as a visceral visual reminder of the cost of rebelling against the Roman Empire. 

This didn’t stop with the resurrection, and the early followers of the Way frequently found themselves victims of this state-sanctioned violence, so it would have been unthinkable to use this instrument of torture and death as a symbol for our faith.  It would be the equivalent of the noose from a lynch mob in the twentieth century.

In fact, Black liberation theologian, Rev. Dr. James Cone puts it this way, “The cross and the lynching tree interpret each other.  Both were public spectacles, shameful events, instruments of punishment reserved for the most despised people in society.”[1]

So when Jesus says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me,” he’s not talking about the regular burdens of life.  He’s talking about real and horrific instruments of violence and injustice.  This is the theology of the cross—that God in Jesus is understood most clearly as the one who takes on the sufferings and injustices of the whole world.

So when Jesus says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me,” honestly, I hesitate. 

I want to say no.  Maybe like last week’s Peter I want to say, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to…”…me.  I don’t actually want to take up my cross.  I don’t want to be crucified.

Yet there are so many in this world upon whom the cross is unjustly forced.  Those who do not choose persecution, do not choose suffering and injustice for a larger purpose, and yet are forced to experience it anyway.

Victims of domestic and sexual abuse, communities plagued with violence, families who have to teach their children how not to get shot by police, people forced into sweatshop work throughout the world, people who experience first-hand the devastation of global climate change, people forced into the shadows and silence because of documentation status, people with no shelter under which to lay their head, people living in situations of poverty.

These life circumstances are not God’s will.  This is not what it means to bear your cross.

When you are crucified, you do not choose to take up your cross and follow Jesus, the cross is unjustly forced upon you.  So this choice and invitation that Jesus extends is an invitation to solidarity with those who are being crucified.  An invitation to digging deep into relationships of solidarity and accompaniment with those who have little or no choice about the crosses forced upon them.

And if I’m being honest, a lot of the time I don’t want to take up that cross.  I don’t want that suffering and even when I do take up the cross, I drop it a lot.  I get compassion fatigue, feeling overwhelmed and exhausted just hearing the news and learning about the suffering of the world, to say nothing of trying to figure out what to do to work against the evil plaguing us.  I get distracted.  I get lost in the bubble of our corner of the world.  I get caught up in my own life struggles.

I struggle a lot with the cross.

And that’s ok.  Because Jesus doesn’t ask us to do it perfectly.  Jesus just invites us to join him.  Not because it’s required and not because it is dependent on us, but because, as Aboriginal activist, Lila Watson states, “If you have come here to help me you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is tied up with mine, then let us work together.”  Our liberation is tied up together.  When one person is oppressed, none of us are free.  And so Jesus’ call to take up the cross is a call to struggle with each other, to struggle against the evil in the world, to join the side of those who are oppressed.

And sometimes we even get it right—struggling through the mire of deportation proceedings with someone, holding those in power accountable for death and illness from losing health care—fighting to save health care, getting in the way of violence against others, giving up comfort for the sake of a more sustainable environment. 

We can, however imperfectly, risk taking up the cross to follow Jesus. 

Because no matter what, Jesus will always be there as the Anchor of faith, with the crucified, working for liberation for every single one.  Whether we show up or not.  Whether we are the crucified, in solidarity with the crucified, crucifying them, or just not doing anything to stop it.  Jesus still shows up. 

Jesus always shows up.  Jesus carries the cross to the end and through the end.  Never leaving us behind, but instead journeying through the pain, literally to hell and back for the liberation of all people and all of creation.

Thanks be to God.

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