Reading: Matthew 16:21-28
Jesus had a hard time.
On one side, were the religious and civil authorities of the time – Pharisees, Sadducees, and scribes, along with King Herod and the Roman imperial government that felt threatened by the kind of communities and the kind of world he was creating under their noses.
On the other side, were his own disciples who either misunderstood what he was doing, or when they understood it, weren’t always sure it was what they wanted, either. But even as the powers of the day eventually hung him on a cross, he and his disciples hung in with one another, and we have the stories of their journey to help guide us in ours.
From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.
Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”
Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?
“For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done. Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
Reflection
“Whoever wants to be my disciple, must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
I wonder what this means in day-to-day, real-life living.
Recently I was accompanying a friend to a medical appointment on a DARTS bus. We were travelling through downtown Hamilton. We were the only passengers, sitting in the back of the bus – me in a seat, my friend in a wheelchair. The driver alone up front.
The bus was stopped at a red light on a side street just a block off Main Street, and the driver suddenly said out loud, “There he is! I’ll have to call my husband, and tell him he’s here.”
The driver was looking out to our right, at a man sitting on the sidewalk, in the midst of what looked like a small garbage heap. His hair and his beard were long and greasy. He was young and looked physically healthy. But he was clearly mentally unbalanced. He was sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk, sifting through a great pile of papers, rags, small boxes, and all kinds of broken stuff that seemed to have spilled – or been dumped, out of a few garbage bags. He was alone, absorbed and kind of at peace in his own little world, and the few people around seemed content to leave him like that.
As the light changed and the bus moved on, the story unfolded. Nine or ten years earlier the driver’s husband had encountered this man in distress on the street, somewhere in downtown Hamilton. He was dirty, alone, raggedy, probably hungry, and seemingly in mental distress. When the driver’s husband approached the man and asked if he would like a cup of coffee and something to eat, the man reacted with fear, with anger, seemed ready to fight.
The husband took a step back. Showed the man his empty hands. As calmly as he could said he meant no harm. Would not take any of the man’s few possessions. Just wanted to help. Was he hungry? Was he thirsty?
Eventually he won the man’s trust enough to go and bring back to him a coffee and a sandwich. And from that day on – for the past nine years, he has visited that man on the street on a regular basis. He looks for him on his way in or out of the city – sometimes daily, at least every 2nd or 3rd day, to be sure he’s okay and has the few basic things he needs to survive.
It’s not hard because the man doesn’t move very far. He has his place in the world – a few city blocks that are his world. And he has his stuff – his bags of what looks like garbage, that are the entire extent of his worldly possessions.
Over the years the driver’s husband has bought him food, bought him shoes when he is without, given him a jacket off his own back. He is one of very few people in the world that the man on the street trusts, and whom he lets help him survive.
Is it fair to say this is one way the driver’s husband has denied himself – his comfort, his isolation from others, his self-centredness, has taken up a cross along his way, and is following in the way of Jesus? Just as the DARTS driver herself is doing, in her job? In the way maybe I was in accompanying a friend to a medical appointment? In the way that friend did for others in her life, until she couldn’t anymore?
It’s amazing, isn’t it, how it’s the little picking up of crosses and the following of the way of Jesus that really makes the world go round, and opens up glimpses of the kingdom of God in the midst of life as it is.
This week a new book has been released about Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. It’s titled “King: A Life,” by Jonathan Eig. When asked why another book on King, and why now, Eig says the book is especially about King’s humanity. Not just his greatness and the things he stood for and accomplished that have made him an icon, a hero, a postage stamp, a statue, a saint. But his humanity – his human story, with its weakness, its brokenness, and its ambiguity. Because, Eig says, we need to know that we don’t need heroes and icons and statue-ready saints to lead us towards a better world; we need human beings who are willing to be led into things beyond themselves, and in spite of themselves, for the good and well-being of others.
One thing he documents in the book is the way Martin Luther King, Jr. saw himself mostly as a Gospel preacher, and never really wanted to be anything more than that. If he could have spent his whole life in the pulpit on Sunday mornings preaching the good news and the glory of the kingdom of God to a church congregation, and doing nothing more than sermon preparation and pastoral work through the week, he would have been happy.
But the time and place he lived in, the shape of society right around him, the suffering of the people he served, their need for advocates and leaders to help change things for the better, and the pressure from others to let his gifts as a preacher be used in bigger and bigger ways for the well-being of more and more people, led him into arenas, and onto stages, and into conflicts and ultimately life-ending risks that he never would have chosen for himself, just on his own.
Jesus says, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me – for my desire for the good and well-being of all, will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world – get everything they want, and want to be and see and have in the world, yet forfeit their soul – lose their living and loving connection with God and with others? What can ever be as important as that – as that living and loving eternal connection with God and with others?”
It's often not easy to live and work and pray and give yourself towards a world that’s safer, more compassionate, more egalitarian, and more inclusive than it is. It always costs something. Sometimes it can cost everything.
Jesus knew that – very well, even before the end came for him. His disciples learned it, even when they didn’t really want to. And for the earliest church – the church that told the Jesus stories, lived the Jesus life, and wrote the Jesus Gospels, this is a large part of what “following Jesus and taking up the cross” really meant.
It meant letting go of self-concern and the separation of their own good from the well-being of all – that makes the world the way it is, and finding the deeper meaning of their life instead in the giving of themselves for the well-being of others – that makes the world a place where the kingdom of God can be known, and helps the prayer for kingdom-come-on-Earth come true in the bits and pieces of what we give.
And the ways to do that, do appear. We don’t have to go looking for them. The world is full of opportunities to follow Jesus, and to live in his way.
From simply stopping one day to reach out to a man on the street, to letting yourself become the face, the voice, and the life of a movement for a better world for all, and everything in between, the only question really is what cross is ours to take up, if we would be disciples of Jesus.
We don’t have to go looking for them. We don’t have to make them up.
We just have to be open to see them, and ready to pick them up when they appear. In spite of, and often because of our own weakness, our brokenness, and our humanity.
Rainer Maria Rilke has a wonderful little prayer that’s included in a prayer book I like to use sometime: “I yearn to be held in the great hands of your heart – oh, let them take me now. Into them I place these fragments, my life, and you, God – spend them however you want.”
And then there’s this comment I received yesterday from Rev. William Ball, a colleague in ministry in Edmonton. “Spend them indeed. Long ago I came across a saying that the sacrificial Christian life is usually not one big blowout of everything that I have but a daily sacrifice, 25 cents at a time. It may not seem flashy or showy - perhaps even better if it isn't, then I'm not so tempted to make all of it ‘about me.’”
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