Good old Peter. Last week he was the "rock," the
one who confessed Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of the Living God,
expressing the solid foundation on which the Christian community is
based. Today he is literally the "scandal," "the stumbling block"
that is trying to trip Jesus up on his way to the cross in Jerusalem.
Why the change? Peter can't bear the thought of his Lord suffering
and dying. Yet this is the path that Jesus will be following.
And Jesus calls on his disciples to follow a similar
path. He says to them, "If any want to become my followers, let them
deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." These are
difficult words, and I'm sure they are challenging to us. As I hear
them, they suggest to me that the life of faith is burdensome and
that I will have to face difficulties as a Christian.
While this is true, my summer's experience at the
Ecumenical Study Center at Tantur showed me that the difficulty of
Jesus' words goes even deeper. Whether in biblical times or today,
Middle Eastern culture is an "honor and shame" society. That is, high
value is placed on bringing honor to one's family or community whether
by upholding community standards or by accomplishing something that
brings them praise. The worst thing that someone can do is to bring
shame on one's family or community - by doing something "disgraceful"
or by being "shameless" - openly doing something disgraceful but seeming
not to care about it.
What does this have to do with "taking up our cross"?
In Jesus' day, dying on a cross was shameful, the ultimate disgrace.
Not only was it a slow and painful way to die, but it was a humiliating
sign of defeat. In his call to his disciples to follow him by taking
up their cross, Jesus doesn't mean that everyone who follows him will
be crucified, but he is saying that following him will mean shamelessly
doing things that may seem disgraceful to one's family or community.
Another way of looking at this is to see that in Christ
God is turning this "honor-shame" society upside down. What is shameful
to the world is honorable in God's eyes. God raised Jesus from the
dead to demonstrate that the disgraceful death on the cross ultimately
earns God's highest honor. God accomplishes what is powerful and praiseworthy
from God's point of view through what is weak and disgraceful from
the world's point of view.
This may be difficult for us to understand fully,
for we don't live with this same sense of honor and shame. The closest
parallel that I can think of are the teenage years when youth would
rather die than embarrass themselves by dressing or acting differently
than their peers, or when they fear that their parents will do something
weird that will embarrass them in front of their friends. I don't
know how deep this fear of shame goes; I know someone who works with
Boy Scouts and tries to motivate them to act respectfully by saying
that to do otherwise would disgrace their family. I wonder how powerful
a motivating factor that is in our society.
In any case, Jesus calls on us to take up our cross
and follow him. Whether this is a matter of a heavy burden or social
disgrace, the truth is that following Jesus will lead us in ways that
on occasion go against the grain of our society.
Our society encourages us to pursue self-fulfillment,
but Jesus calls us to lose ourselves for his sake. I thought it was
interesting that both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama said in their
speeches last week, "It's not about me." Well, the way of Christian
love is "not about me"; Christian love calls on us to live with a
focus on what is best for others. Jesus adds a call to self-denial.
I don't believe that this means some unhealthy ignoring of our personal
needs; I believe it has to do with this focus of love on others. What
Christ's call to discipleship recognizes is that true self-fulfillment
comes, not from focusing on our selves, but from the richness of a
life spent in loving relations with others.
In our Second Lesson from Romans Paul expands on
what the way of the cross might mean. It's tempting for humans to
seek revenge, to get back at others who hurt us, to repay evil with
evil. No, says Paul, go against the grain of society: pray for those
who curse you, feed your enemies who are hungry, overcome evil with
good. Attempt to live at peace with others and leave vengeance to
God.
Let me tell you a story about our fictional friend
Rhonda. You may remember that her daughter Rhonita was expecting her
first grandchild in mid-May. I didn't get to tell you before I left
on sabbatical, but Rhonita had a baby boy the week after Mother's
Day. Everyone's in good health, but there is some family dissension
over plans for the baptism. Actually the dissension has to do with
the child's name. Rhonita and Curtis agreed to name the boy "Alan"
after Rhonita's favorite childhood cousin. The problem is that Alan
is the son of her Uncle Joe, her father Vince's younger brother, and
Joe and his family have not spoken with Rhonda and her family since
Vince's death. Joe was upset because he felt that Rhonda and her daughters
were not sympathetic enough with Vince as he struggled with his alcoholism;
Rhonda and her daughters were angry with Joe because they felt he
didn't recognize how awful it was to live with the abusiveness they
attributed to Vince's alcoholism. Rhonita feels that it's time to
overcome this family feud, but her sister Wanda still doesn't want
to have anything to do with Uncle Joe and his family. She's willing
to put up with the name - what can she do about that? - but Rhonita
wants to invite Joe and his family to the baptism and Wanda refuses
to come if they are present. Rhonda feels caught in the middle. She
still feels some lingering resentment and hurt that Joe didn't understand
what his brother put her through, but she also feels some joy and
pride that Rhonita has caught the spirit of Christian love. She's
not sure what to do, but she's been looking forward to the baptism
for weeks and doesn't want the family feud to spoil the deep joy of
the occasion. What she's planning to do is to swallow her pride, call
Joe up, invite him to dinner, and see if they can mend the family
rift. If that works, she hopes that Wanda will change her mind and
join in the baptism celebration.
Our Sunday School curriculum this year is a new one
called "akaloo." "Akaloo" comes from the Greek word for "follow,"
the same word used here when Jesus calls us to take up our cross and
follow him. The goal of the Sunday School curriculum is to help students
to grow in their understanding and practice of following Jesus in
their lives. Following Jesus is not easy. As Rhonda is experiencing,
it may mean making tough decisions and going against the grain of
our society's customs and expectations. But what Jesus promises us
is that following him, whatever the challenges and costs, will lead
us to life at its most rich and meaningful. Amen.
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