What It Means to Take Up a Cross

Sermon preached Saturday, September 11, and Sunday, September 12, 2021, the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, at Grace Lutheran Church in Westminster, Maryland. 

Jesus asks Peter, “Who do you say that I am?”

If Jesus asked this question of you, what would you say? There are a lot of titles to choose from. Jesus is teacher. Jesus is healer. Jesus is advocate. Jesus is partner. Jesus is savior. Jesus is leader. Jesus is a justice-seeker.

Jesus asks Peter, and Peter says, “You are the Messiah.” Jesus is the Messiah, but Peter didn’t understand what that truly meant. When Peter calls Jesus the Messiah, the word is loaded with expectations Jesus has no intention to fulfill. Prior to Jesus, ideas of the Messiah had to do with judgement or military might or kingship or something different altogether. There was no consensus. Many of the first century Jews longing for their savior were looking for a commander of armies to drive the Romans out of Israel.

Jesus, on the other hand, does not speak of fighting wars and winning battles. Instead, he teaches his disciples that he must undergo suffering and die. Jesus is the Messiah, but he is unlike any Messiah the disciples have anticipated. Peter can’t handle it. Peter may know that Jesus is the Messiah, but he doesn’t want to hear a thing about the cross.

There are all sorts of ways we can refer to Jesus: Messiah, teacher, friend, activist, healer…but all of them are meaningless if we do not keep the cross at the center. The cross is what grounds every piece of our faith. It’s been said that, “Just as Jesus is our lens for seeing who God is, the cross is our lens for truly seeing Jesus.” (Erica Gibson-Even)

We cannot separate Jesus from the cross. It’s all around us. Martin Luther suggested one way of reminding ourselves of that fact. He recommended that every morning and every evening, we make the sign of the cross. Luther believed that our days should begin and end with the cross.

The cross all around us—in jewelry, architecture, knickknacks from the Hallmark Store. This weekend, as we commemorate twenty years since 9/11, I am reminded of the cross at ground zero, the remnants of broken steel beams that kept vigil over ground zero.

Crosses are all around—but it hasn’t always been that way. The earliest Christians and Jesus-followers avoided using the cross. After all, it was an instrument of torture, terror and execution. It would be like using an electric chair or gallows. It was offensive. It was scandalous. And it was a symbol of the oppressive government that had sentenced their Messiah to death. It took time for it to be representative of our faith, instead of just a weapon of choice for the Roman Empire.

And now, we are removed from the history of the cross and the legacy of scandal. Crucifixion is no longer the most popular means of death for people to be kept in their place. We are left, two thousand years later, trying to figure out what it means to take up our own metaphorical cross…and in our attempts to deal with this reality of the cross, we can fall into two traps: we can cry “persecution!” at every tiny slight, or at the opposite end, minimize all kinds injustice and suffering as par for the course.

One the one hand, it can be tempting to call every hardship we might face a cross. We could say that a long commute is a cross. We could point to the weeds that sprout up in our yard despite our best efforts a cross. We could call the never ending piles of laundry that reappear week after week, or the sign that tells us “no shirt, no shoes, no service,” a cross…but they are not. We are not oppressed by these things. These are minor inconveniences that we want to call “cross” so that we can play the martyr. It’s tempting, but none of these things have anything to do with us living as Christ has called us.

On the other hand, there are a lot of Christian clichés that seek to either glorify or minimize suffering. When someone loses a job or gets a bad diagnosis or faces any kind of difficult period in their life, we say things like, “This is your cross to bear,” or “God has given you this test.” I’m sure you’ve heard some of the platitudes people offer, often with good intentions, that do not take seriously the difficulties or systemic injustice people face.

So that leaves us trying to find a middle way…trying to discern where the cross is in our own lives. We all have a cross, or two, or three. The trick is parsing them out—and then taking them up.

As one preacher put it, “Taking up our cross and following [Jesus] means, most basically, acknowledging that we are powerless to save our own lives—powerless in the face of our own sin, in the face of the brokenness of the world, in the face of death. We don’t have to seek out a cross to bear—for most of us, this reality is always chipping at the foundations of our illusions and best efforts.” (Erica Gibson-Even)

What are you powerless against? What crosses are you carrying? Really think—because they’re there. I’m not saying that there are not resources in our world that might help us…but these crosses require more than a quick fix or an easy solution. They affect our entire beings.

We are powerless against…what, exactly? We are powerless against a life-altering diagnosis. A relationship we have no clue how to repair. A lost job. A dead loved one. A mental illness. A natural disaster, like the ones that don’t seem to stop coming lately. This global pandemic we’re still not out of. We can take steps, we can seek help, we can attempt to do our part, but too much is out of our control.

No, if there’s one thing the world has plenty of, it’s crosses. But the good news is that we need not fear death from any of them. Through his own death and resurrection, Christ conquered death. Through baptism, we have been joined to Christ in death and been raised to new life. These crosses we carry should be instruments of our own execution, but instead, they become a reminder of our unity with Jesus and his resurrection. Our crosses are transformed and taken up by God so that we are equipped to carry them forward.

The traditional Good Friday liturgy involves a procession with a cross. The cross is carried in and pauses three times on its way up to the altar. At each stopping point, the crucifer proclaims, “Behold, the life-giving cross, on which was hung the salvation of the whole world.” The assembly responds, “O come, let us worship him.” Even on Good Friday when the cross should be seen through the most sinister and terrifying lens, we announce that it is in fact life-giving.

We are joined to Christ and that life-giving cross—joined through the waters of baptism. In that baptism, God claims us and names us as beloved children and starts us on a journey to where God is calling us and where God already is. As Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, commented, “If being baptized is being led to where Jesus is, then being baptized is being led towards the chaos and the neediness of a humanity that has forgotten its own destiny.” (Being Christian, 5) I’ll read that again. [Repeat]

We are being called to the crosses of humanity. We are being called to carry our crosses into the world so that we might help other people shoulder theirs as well. Doing God’s work, with our hands. Our crosses are not eliminated, but we are given the strength to do what God is calling us to, despite the weight. We engage with others and they engage with us and all of our burdens are lighter.

Week after week, we come and gather in this space, our shoulders a little slumped, our backs aching from the heavy load…but here we are washed in the font. Here we are fed at the table. Here we are supported by our siblings. Here we are reminded who shares our burden: our teacher, leader, prophet, priest, advocate, healer…and messiah, Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Built on Who?!

Sermon preached Sunday, August 23, 2020, the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Littlestown, PA.

This morning’s Gospel reading centers on one of the key questions of our faith. Who is Jesus? When Jesus poses the questions to his disciples, they prevaricate a little: “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” (Matthew 16:14) Jesus pushes them a bit: “But who do you say I am?”

Peter is the one to step up and make the bold statement of faith, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.” (v.16) It is this move that leads Jesus to say, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.” (v.17-18)

Peter is the rock on which Christ will build the church. Now, you may have heard before that this is a bit of a play on words. The word for “rock” in Greek is petra, which means that Peter’s name is literally rock. This pun isn’t the point, though, there is something about Peter that Jesus thinks can be foundational to the church. …to which my response is, “Really?! This guy?”

Peter is not exactly a stellar example of devotion, faith, or, frankly, even intelligence throughout most of the Gospels. What stories about Peter to you remember?

• Transfiguration
• Feeding of the multitudes
• Walking (or sinking) on water
• Last Supper (Don’t just wash my feet, but my head also!)
• Garden of Gethsemane
• Denying 3 times

So Peter makes some mistakes. He makes some bad calls. He can be impulsive and rash. Even still, he is able to be a powerful witness and evangelist. In truth, this is what makes Peter such a compelling figure for us. He is no superhero. He is fully human and extremely fallible. It’s not that Peter is an example to be emulated, so much as he is evidence that God can do great things through all kinds of people.

The only standards we need to meet are God’s…and God has set up no requirements for us. The world around us tells us we need to be smarter, or thinner, or stronger, or wealthier, or in a better career or driving a better car or living in a bigger house… These are the messages we hear over and over again. But there is more for us.

The apostle Paul, writing to the church in Rome says this: “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. ²Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:1-2)

We are not to be conformed to this world, meaning we need not strive to live up to those messages we are given. God does not care about our job title or house size or bank account or appearance. God cares that we are whole and healthy and that we seek to help others find wholeness and health as well. We, as children of God, as disciples of Jesus, are called to be a “living sacrifice.”

“Living sacrifice” is kind of an oxymoron. A sacrifice, at least in the time Paul was writing, was something offered on an altar to a deity. If it was an animal, it was killed. Sometimes other things would be offered, but these offerings were not expected to have much of a life after they were given. You offered them up and they were gone; they were no longer yours.

So what does it mean to be a living sacrifice? What does that look like?

I think it means to live our lives sacrificially for the sake of the Gospel. It means to be generous with our wealth because we recognize that it is not ours to begin with anyway. It means to be willing to put our lives on the line for God’s justice. It means doing what we can so that everyone can experience safety, peace, and the dignity which should be afforded to every human life. It means that we live in such a way that our every action is a testimony to God’s abundant love and grace.

Peter, for all his mistakes and foibles, embodies being a living sacrifice. Although he doesn’t always do the right thing at the right time, he is devoted to God. He leaves his life behind to follow Jesus. Even though he denies it, people on Good Friday recognize him as one who was with Jesus. After the resurrection, he goes out to proclaim the good news he experienced firsthand. He preaches about God’s love. He helps to organize the blossoming church to help widows and others on the margins. He lives his faith in every aspect of his life.

We, too, can seek to be living sacrifices: people who put our faith in God first. For some people, this might call to mind simply making sure that courthouses don’t remove the ten commandments or arguing that prayer in schools is necessary, but it is so much more than that. Living out our faith every day means finding time to pray, whether it’s in a group, in a quiet corner of your house, or at a stoplight driving home from work because you just have something you need to share with God. It means seeing everyone you encounter, from the jerk who cut you off to the person asking for money outside the grocery store, as a beloved child of God, and acting accordingly. It means taking the stories of other people seriously when they share about struggles in their life and not just being grateful that it hasn’t happened to you. It means taking the call to love our neighbors as ourselves seriously, not just while we’re at church on a Sunday morning.

We’ll mess up. We’ll do or say the wrong thing. We’ll be selfish or scared or thoughtless. That’s simply what sin does. But it doesn’t mean we can’t also do the work God has called us do.

Throughout the Bible, God calls and equips people who are full of flaws. Moses was scared and couldn’t speak articulately. Jacob tricked his brother into giving away his inheritance, ran away from the consequences, and wrestled with God. Esther was a young woman, wholly unprepared to be Queen, who had to stand up for her people. David committed adultery and behaved rashly on more than one occasion. Paul had spent his time violently persecuting the church before Jesus came to him in a vision. Peter denied that he was ever even with Jesus.

And yet, Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt and brought down the Ten Commandments. Jacob was given the name Israel and God promised that many generations would come from him. Esther risked her live and saved her people from slaughter. David, for all his errors, solidified and established the Israelite nation and set the stage for the temple to be built. Paul became a prolific missionary and evangelist for the early Christian movement. Peter was called the rock on which the church would be built.

If God can work through even these people, if the stories of our faith lift up these individuals, as imperfect as they are, God can surely work through us, as well. Let us be living sacrifices, rocks on whom the church can stand. Amen.

Doubt or Distraction?

Sermon preached Sunday, August 9, 2020, the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost, at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Littlestown, PA.

I’ve been thinking a lot this week about distractions.

I think many of us have had a new appreciation for how difficult it can be to work with distractions in the past five months.

Trying to work from home, trying to help kids learn from home, trying to care for younger kids and keep them entertained while getting things done, having pets, especially overeager cats or dogs climb onto your lap or desk…it was easy to take for granted having a designated environment for getting things done.

Even now, when Owen is at daycare on Tuesdays and Thursdays, keeping focused has sometimes been tricky as I try to make the most out of those days. I sometimes even turn off the internet on my computer when I don’t need it and look away from the window so that the occasional blowing leaf or visiting bird doesn’t catch my eye.

So… I’ve been fighting distractions.

And when I first read this week’s gospel, I was immersed in this distraction-fighting mindset.

I read again this text that I’ve heard so many times over the years. I read the story about how there was a great storm and Jesus began walking to the disciples upon the water. I read about Peter taking steps to get to Jesus. And I read about Peter’s doubt causing him to sink.

And most of us take for granted the fact that Peter sinks because he doubts—he sinks because his faith isn’t strong enough. He sinks because he doesn’t believe enough. Clearly this passage is about faith and doubt—but what if there’s something more?

Reading this text in light of the past few weeks, something else strikes me.

What if this passage is more about distraction than unbelief?

Peter is out on the water on this fishing boat. All night, the boat has been tossed and turned by the storm. It isn’t until the early morning that Peter sees something coming across the water.

It is a ghost? Peter and the other disciples can’t tell at first…and then Jesus speaks to them: “Take heart, do not be afraid.”

In that moment Peter forgets about the storm. The wind and the rocking boat fade away and all Peter sees is Jesus. He’s focused on Christ, focused on how much faith he has in this man. And he is so focused that the words come out of his mouth—maybe before he even knew what he was saying:

“Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”

And Jesus says, “Come” and Peter begins to walk. He does it! His feet don’t sink, his skin stays dry. He believes that this is something he can do.

…but it doesn’t last. He feels his hair ruffled by the wind and remembers: remembers the wind, the storm, the waves, his friends frightened on the boat behind him. He remembers, he’s distracted from his goal, distracted from Jesus…and he begins to sink.

Luckily, Jesus reaches out through the wind and waves and pulls Peter to safety.

Peter is all of us. We all struggle to keep our eyes on God and the work God is calling us to do in the face of all the distractions our world offers.

We care more about our social lives than the social welfare of the people around us. We worry more about the food in our homes than the people who worked to provide that food. If something doesn’t affect us directly, it’s hard to pay attention long enough to actually do something of value or importance to make a difference.

This isn’t to say that we never do things for our neighbors or the larger world. It’s not to say that we are wholly selfish or narcissistic individuals—but it does point to the larger issue that we’re fine with distractions. Some of us may even prefer them.

We’re able to concentrate for five minutes, thirty minutes, maybe even an hour…but eventually the distractions come and worm their way into whatever our minds are thinking of.

I heard about this study—maybe you have, too—where participants were asked to sit alone in a room for six to fifteen minutes with nothing but their own thoughts. No cell phones, no books, nothing to write with, no music—nothing. The only thing they could do was choose to shock themselves.

It might not seem like such a big undertaking: ten minutes, give or take, of “me time”—of people just sitting with their own being, feelings and inner self.

It might not seem like a big undertaking, but the results speak for themselves: out of all the participants, 67 percent of the men and 25 percent of the women opted for the shock. I don’t know about you, but those statistics surprised me: two-thirds of the men and a quarter of the women! (I won’t speculate on what that says about the difference between men and women!)

The report even said that one participant somehow managed to shock himself 190 times in just 15 minutes.

We can look at this study and start to make excuses. Maybe the shock was somehow pleasurable. It wasn’t that bad. Maybe people were just curious! There has to be more to the story.

But the fact of the matter is that this study supports the idea that we are always seeking distraction. And what’s more, even if the distraction is painful, it’s better than being faced with our true selves.

We can turn that to our own faith and recognize that although distractions can keep us from God or keep us from hearing God’s voice, it’s better than facing the mirror of our own sinfulness.

We would rather focus on things that don’t matter so much—our social calendar or our material wealth—than hear God’s voice and realize that we are a broken people.

When we are paying attention to what God desires for our lives, that’s when we realize how short we fall, again and again. We are never able to live up to the ideal set out in creation. We will be selfish, we will be hurtful, we will find little ways to deny God.

We may even begin to believe that we can never be good enough for God.

But if we hear all of what God is saying, if we listen past how we have fallen short, we hear God saying something else—something more. We hear God saying that we are perfect, precious and loved. We are forgiven, healed and restored. We are still able to do God’s good work just as we are.

So when Jesus asks Peter, “Why did you doubt?” I wonder if Jesus isn’t asking Peter about his faith in God, but about his faith in himself.

Not “Why did you doubt your God?” but “Why did you doubt your own ability?” Maybe Jesus wanted Peter to realize that he is capable of doing incredible things.

Because Peter will. He will stumble and make mistakes. He will fall asleep in the garden of Gethsemane, he will deny Jesus—but he will also be an apostle and preach a sermon that leads to three thousand baptisms!

Yes, he is occasionally distracted—by fear, or conflicts with others, but when he is his truest self, when he is focused on the great commission Jesus gave him to, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them and teaching them,” then he does the most incredible things.

So whatever it is that distracts us, whether it’s our own fears, insecurities, or selfishness—God can work with that, too. God will come to us from across the water. God will reach out through the whirling wind and waves of our doubts. God will pull us to safety and focus.

Distractions will happen. They’re inevitable. But God is always finding ways to pull our focus back: back to our creator, back to forgiveness and grace, back to the life we have been called to live.

Amen.