Mark 8:31-38
Lent 2 / Year B
A police officer notices a
car weaving in and out of traffic. The
driver appears to be highly agitated, screaming at other cars and making crude
gestures with her hands and fingers. The
office turns on his lights and pulls over the car. Asking for title and registration he asks,
“Do you know why I stopped you?” “I have
no idea,” the driver replies. “Well,”
says the officer,” I noticed your bumper sticker says ‘Jesus is my Co-Pilot’
and based on your actions and behavior, I was worried the car is stolen.”
When people learn we
profess faith in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior they will have certain
expectations about who we are and how you behave. Sometimes they say more about the other person
than they do about us. If, for example,
they know a lot of judgmental and hypocritical Christians, they might just
assume you are the same. If they know Christians
who are kind, loving, and trustworthy, they will be stunned if you go around
gossiping behind the backs of other people.
I can’t tell you how many
times, upon learning what I do in life, a person, caught off guard, has said,
“You’re a priest!?!” I suppose there are
a myriad of ways I don’t conform to some folk’s preconceived ideas of what an
ordained person looks like and does. At
the church I served in Iowa, someone once said to me, “You aren’t like Father
Greg (my predecessor).” “How so,” I asked. “Well, he used to mow the lawn wearing his
clergy collar.”
This morning’s reading from
the Gospel of Mark draws our attention to Jesus’ identity and to our
expectations of him, or at least it used to.
For reasons unknown, the assigned lectionary passage has been shorted by
a few verses. Gone are the days when we
heard Jesus ask his followers, “Who do people say I am?” and “Who do you say I
am?” These are questions about identity. Peter, this time at least, aces the test:
“You are the Messiah.”
Jesus then goes on to teach
the Messiah must go to Jerusalem to suffer, be rejected, and killed only to
rise again on the third day. This, in no
way, conforms to Peter’s expectations.
He, and the other disciples, seem to believe the Messiah will deliver Israel
from Roman occupation and then reign from the throne of King David. They suppose they will be given positions of
power and even argue about who among them will sit at his right and left hand. This is their expectation for the Messiah,
the Son of God.
We expect rock stars to
trash hotel rooms, politicians to speak out of both sides of their mouth, Hollywood
actors to be self-absorbed, clergy not to smoke a cigar (ask T.D. Mottley for
the backstory on why I was dubbed ‘the Godman’), and we expect the Messiah to
triumph over every obstacle and evil.
That this is a very tempting option for Jesus to choose is made clear in
his response to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan.”
It is always tempting (a
good Lenten word) to live into what other people expect of you, rather than to
be who God calls you to be and to do what God calls you to do. Now, I am not suggesting you show up to a
wedding wearing pajamas because people expect you to be in a suit and tie. I am saying you are to strive for God’s
expectations of you.
Listen again to how Jesus
describes it:
If any want to
become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and
follow me. For those who want to save
their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the
sake of the gospel, will save it. For
what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?
“Take up your cross and follow
me.” Most often we associate this phrase
with some kind of sickness, sadness, or suffering we must endure cheerfully and
bravely. And, to be sure, each of us faces
challenges like this and how we engage them can be a powerful witness to our
faith and faithfulness. But I think
Jesus is getting at something different here when he instructs us to take up
our cross and follow.
The word cross comes to us from the Latin root crux. From this root we get
such words as crucifix, crucifixion, crusade, and excruciate. It also gives us the word crucial, the crux of the
matter. To pick up your crux and follow
is to determine what is the most crucial thing you need to be about. In its root usage, the word crux describes
two things that cross, like a crossroads or the vertical and horizontal pieces
of wood which make up a cross. I think
to take up your cross means to merge your God-given identity with God’s
expectation of what you are to do given who you are.
Some people fast from eating meat on
Fridays in Lent, and this is well and good, but is it crux? Is it critical? Absolutely not. Now, it may be a helpful devotional aid as
you ponder what is crux, but (like so many rituals and practices) it is a
spiritual launching point and never an end unto itself. Jesus’ call to pick up your cross and follow
is an invitation to discern what is critical in your life and to pray over how you
are to put it into the service of the work of the gospel.
What is your crux? Honestly, I don’t expect you to have a
coherent answer for this question. I am
not sure I do either. However, I invite all
of us to come before our Lord, Savior, and Guide seeking an answer. The alternative, Jesus says, is to gain perhaps
the whole world, but in the process forfeit your life… to live for something
less… much less… than the crux.
