September 3: "How Many Crosses?"

THE WORD IN THE GOSPEL:  Matthew 16:21-28

From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he had to go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders, chief priests, and legal experts, and that he had to be killed and raised on the third day. Then Peter took hold of Jesus and, scolding him, began to correct him: “God forbid, Lord! This won’t happen to you.” But he turned to Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan. You are a stone that could make me stumble, for you are not thinking God’s thoughts but human thoughts.”

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “All who want to come after me must say no to themselves, take up their cross, and follow me. All who want to save their lives will lose them. But all who lose their lives because of me will find them. Why would people gain the whole world but lose their lives? What will people give in exchange for their lives? For the Human One is about to come with the majesty of his Father with his angels. And then he will repay each one for what that person has done. I assure you that some standing here won’t die before they see the Human One coming in his kingdom.”

THE MESSAGE:  “How Many Crosses?”

We see them everywhere:

They mark some of the graves in cemeteries.

They stand alongside the highway where someone has died in an accident.

They hang from people’s necks and ears.

They are tattooed on people’s arms and other body parts.

They sit on top of many steeples.

In Effingham, Illinois, at the junction of Interstates 70 and 57, there is a giant one that is 198 feet tall.

They are made from many different materials: everything from olive wood from the Holy Land to fine gold and silver.

And they mean different things to different people:

To some people, they are simply ornamentation, a piece of jewelry or a household decoration.

To some people, they are the most important symbol of their faith.

To some people, they are symbols of oppression and injustice, calling to mind the sometimes horrific history of the Christian Church through the centuries.

To some people, they are symbols of an outdated, obsolete, and woefully inadequate answer to the deepest questions and concerns of human beings.

To some people, they are a sign of the ultimate victory.

But to many people, they are a sign of unimaginable suffering.

What am I talking about? Crosses, of course.

There’s no denying that the cross is the primary symbol of the Christian church. The cross is in our UM logo, as it is in the logos of many Christian denominations. It sits on many altar tables and it’s in many stained-glass windows.

But just because Christians around the world share this symbol of faith doesn’t mean that the cross means the same thing to all Christians.

In fact, I would venture to guess that the majority of Christians see the cross first and foremost as a symbol of suffering and death. In fact, many of our Christian brothers and sisters prefer the kind of cross that displays Jesus’ dying body. And many Christians hold fast to that image of Jesus hanging on the cross as a reminder of God’s great love and Jesus’ great sacrifice.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with remembering Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. But to think about the cross ONLY or even primarily as a symbol of suffering leads to all kinds of problems.

For instance, in today’s gospel reading, Jesus tells his disciples, “If you want to be my follower, you have to take up your cross and follow me.” That idea – taking up your cross – has come to mean something very different from what I believe Jesus originally meant.

According to the dictionary, if someone has a cross to bear, it means they have a heavy burden of responsibility or some kind of problem that they alone must cope with.

For instance, people might see a person with a disability and say, “your blindness (or deafness or inability to walk) is your cross to bear.”

Or people might hear of someone who has suffered some kind of great misfortune and say, “I’m afraid that’s your cross to bear.”

Or people might speak of someone with cancer, saying, “I guess that’s her cross to bear.”

Or people might see someone who is socially or economically oppressed and say, “that’s your cross to bear.”

Or a man might say it’s his “cross to bear” when referring to his mother-in-law.

You get the idea.

Billy Joel even wrote a song called “Cross to Bear,” which includes the words:

We all have our cross to bear

We all walk in darkness sometimes

Oh, everybody gets his share,

'cause we all have our cross to bear

“Take up your cross” has become a catch-phrase for any kind of injustice, pain, or suffering we face, and it has become a call to quietly and patiently endure that injustice, pain, or suffering in the name of being followers of Christ. But I don’t think that’s what Jesus meant when he told his disciples, “Take up your cross”!

The cross that Jesus calls his followers to pick up is not a disability, it’s not a debilitating illness, it’s not the loss of your job or your house or your economic security, and it’s certainly not your difficult relative or neighbor!

The cross that we are called to pick up is the cross of Jesus himself – a cross that represents Jesus’ absolute and unwavering faithfulness to God. It represents Jesus’ total belief that God’s way of love and justice is the way – the only way by which all people can experience the fullness of life that God intends.

When Jesus calls his followers to pick up their cross, he wants them to demonstrate this same faithfulness to God’s way. He doesn’t expect us to embrace, or quietly endure, or condone suffering! God’s way – the way that Jesus demonstrated in his life and ministry – is a way that seeks to end suffering, not cause more of it!

At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus declared that his God-given mission was to “bring good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4) That doesn’t sound like Jesus wanted anyone to suffer!

Of course, Jesus also knew that because God’s way was so radically different from the way of the world, things wouldn’t be easy for those who choose to follow God’s way. Jesus knew that he – and his followers – would probably suffer in some ways as a result of being completely faithful to God’s way. But this kind of suffering is incidental to being a disciple of Jesus Christ. That is, suffering may well be a result of our faithfulness, but God does not require us to suffer in order to demonstrate our faith or to grow in our faith.

It all comes down to grace. You see, God’s gifts of love and mercy are freely available to us, and we can freely choose to accept them. We don’t have to do anything to “earn” them or prove ourselves worth of them.

But, we live in a world that believes you must earn everything and you must prove yourself worthy. So, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that if we willingly embrace our suffering or our hardships, we will somehow prove worthy of God’s love.

Or, worse yet, we use suffering and injustice as a way for other people to prove their “worthiness” as disciples. Because the moment we see people who are suffering and think, “I guess that’s just their cross to bear,” then we’re excusing ourselves from doing what Jesus commanded his disciples to do: if at all possible, to relieve the suffering of other people.

I believe it’s time to reclaim the cross as a symbol not of suffering, but of utter faithfulness to God’s way of love and justice and mercy. To reclaim the cross as a sign that we freely and willingly choose to follow God’s way – even, if necessary, to the point of death. And to reclaim the cross as a sign that we believe without a doubt that God’s love will always have the last word against suffering, pain, and death.

Jesus said, “If you want to be my follower, take up your cross.” Jesus offers us the choice to take up our cross and to follow him.

But there is only one cross – and that’s the cross of Jesus. After all, Jesus didn’t die on the cross to create individual, customized crosses for each of his followers to suffer on. Jesus died on the cross so that there wouldn’t have to be any more crosses, period. And Jesus believed this was possible – he believed that suffering and pain and injustice would someday come to an end – and so must we.

So let us take up the one and only cross – Jesus’ cross – which is the cross of complete faithfulness to God; the cross of willingness to share God’s love with all people regardless of the cost; and the cross of absolute belief that God’s love can and will prevail. Amen.