Matthew 16: 21-28
September 3, 2023
Take Up Your Cross
Dean Merrit
On Facebook I have an acquaintance from high school,
who is a very outspoken
Christian, always putting
things about prayer and Jesus
up on her page
And a while back, she put a
meme up,
a little image with words that said,
“Hurt my kids and I’ll bury you where they won’t find
the body”.
I’m sure this was kind of a
joke, but kind of not.
The most disturbing though, were the comments that
followed
in almost in some sort of
“Christian honor and zeal”
they were affirming her in
that, and trying to top it with
the more violent reaction
they would have
if someone “messed” with
their kids.
It was almost as if violence was the only honorable Christian reaction.
Anything less proved you didn’t love
your kids as much.
There is an innate human reaction to defend what is mine.
Whether its family or things.
It’s MINE.
Mine is the first word many children
use with regularity.
MINE. It’s so visceral and human .
I think we all understand that inclination.
We
don’t like people stealing from us, we certainly want to
preserve
our life and defend our family
and
we want to correct the wrongs in society.
But today, there seems to be a current in modern
American
Christianity that is focused on this zeal to
preserve
what is MINE and to do it violently if necessary.
I know that Christians are sometimes put in the unfortunate
position of
having to physically defend themselves
at times.
But
this now appears to one of the primary identifiers
of
American Christianity, and even a source of pride.
I
am a Christian, so I defend what is MINE, even with violence.
or my land, or my family, or
my country, or my heritage,
or my way of life, or my favorite
politician, or my view-points,
or my comfort level . . . There is a feeling -- almost an obligation
that Modern American Christianity seems to convey, that I need to
defend what is MINE and use with force against anyone who
tries to take it away or change it.
It’s disturbing really.
In the past few years, we’ve seen white supremacists
walk
through
the streets of American cities
with torches saying, “Jews
will not replace us”.
If you can get over the
outrageousness of that statement,
behind it, there’s a fear
that something is being taken
away and they must defend
themselves against it.
I think our country’s fascination with guns,
and
especially assault weapons is related
to this.
It comes under this banner
and current of “self-defense”.
There is an abstract “them”
who are always coming to get “us”.
They are a threat to what is
MINE and it must be defended.
It almost seems like an
obligation for American Christians
to defend what is ours at any
moment.
But where has this gotten us? We’re not safer, that’s
for sure.
Other countries have listed
the US on its travel advisories –
“Travel with caution” -
because of gun violence.
The big problem is this cycle
has no end.
Violence begets violence. People
see more guns, they
want to get their own guns. The
ones with the biggest weapons wins.
Until they come up with a new and bigger weapon and the cycle repeats itself.
Everyone defending what is
theirs and
we get stuck in a repetition
of violence.
We’ve seen it play out personally and internationally.
It starts out small, but
sometimes it grows
Where does it end?
Jesus tells us today
“This should end with you, my followers.”
Last week, we remember,
Peter confessed rightly that
Jesus was the Messiah.
They were all happy about
that for a while.
Jesus said that God gave
Peter that information
and he would build his church
on it.
Peter may have gotten that right,
but it’s pretty clear that
Peter was fundamentally mistaken
about how Jesus would
go about being the Messiah
and saving the people.
Jesus tells Peter and the disciples the rest of the
story,
he
tells them that he will go to Jerusalem and undergo
great
suffering and die and that he will rise again on the third day.
Jesus makes it clear that he will not be defending
his
rights or anyone’s rights with violence,
he would not claim a piece of land, or retaliate for the injustice of it all.
Jesus would not be taking back
what is his.
He wouldn’t even be defending
his own life.
Now his disciples knew Jesus most,
they knew he was innocent of
any crime.
And the suffering that Jesus
experienced would be unjust,
would be unfair, would be
wrong.
And yet Jesus didn’t say to them,
“disciples, I need you need
to get back at the authorities for this.”
“Claim your rights”, “Avenge
my unjust death.”
Take back what is rightfully
MINE.
Contrary to the loudest voices of Christianity today,
Jesus
said, “if any of you would be my follower, deny
yourself.”
Deny your ego, deny your own
rage, your need for revenge.
Deny that human inclination you have to add more violence to the world,
lay down your power and take up God’s power.
Take up your cross and follow
me.
It’s not a surprise that Peter didn’t like that idea
at all.
It’s not a surprise that he scolded Jesus and told him that
can’t happen the way that Jesus laid out.
I think Peter is reflecting our natural human
inclination to defend, to
fight, to keep.
To take back what is MINE.
It’s not a surprise that Peter was uncomfortable with
the prospect.
It
feels too vulnerable, too open for uncertainty.
And
different than anything any of the disciples
would
have been used to.
And it’s not a surprise
that Jesus rebuked him
and brought up Satan.
This is Satan’s temptation to
the whole world.
To take back what is MINE.
Satan wants us taking things back by force.
Satan wants the endless cycle of violence and contempt.
Satan would love nothing more
than us holed up in
concrete bunkers defending
what is MINE.
Satan says “The best defense
is a good offense.”
But
Jesus is says, “the best defense, is actually no defense.”
Jesus says, with his words and his cross,
When faced with violence, step out of the cycle of defense and violence.
Put the world’s senseless violence on display.
Trick the devil at his own
game. In other words,
“Take up your cross and
follow me.”
This is not just Jesus is
not telling us to display a cross on us,
or proudly tell everyone that
we’re Christians,
it’s not even just taking our
suffering in stride
or being martyrs for the
faith.
It’s about putting down our
defensiveness
and leaving ourselves open
and vulnerable.
It’s about living our life
in the same,
self- sacrificial way that
Jesus lived his.
We have been reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans
for
the past 13 weeks in addition to our Gospel.
Romans
is the longest of Paul’s letters
and
some would say his best that we have.
Most scholars agree that the apostle Paul
never heard any of Jesus’
parables or sayings.
The gospels were written down
and shared after his death.
And he never uses Jesus words
in his letters,
even when it would serve his
purpose well.
From Paul’s writings, it is apparent that
Paul only knows Jesus from
his own encounters with Jesus
Spirit,
from Jesus death and
resurrection,
and from the fellow believers
who traveled with him.
But still, Paul picks up on this primary tenet of
Christianity
without the benefit of knowing
Jesus sayings,
Paul, tells the
Romans in his letter:
“Do not repay anyone evil for evil”
He quotes this often forgotten section
from Proverbs
in the Hebrew scriptures saying:
“if your enemies are hungry, feed them;
if they are thirsty, give them something
to drink;
for by doing this you will heap burning
coals on their heads.”
And he says,
“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome
evil with good.”
What a
vulnerable posture to take.
With Paul, there is no MINE.
Everything
about us - our whole lives - belong to God.
So then, even
our revenge and anger aren’t ours.
And even the
wrongs we suffer, we don’t own them either.
We don’t hold
onto them.
They are not
ours to keep. They belong to God too.
Paul says, turn
them over, let God take care of it.
If any want to be my followers deny
themselves
and take up
their own cross. Do not be overcome by evil.
Overcome evil
with good. In other words,
Deny yourself,
take up your cross and follow Jesus.
This is the main identifier of
our faith.
This is what should set us apart as
Christians.
Not Christian
pride and honor and zeal, and violence for God’s sake.
Not “Burying
bodies where no one can find them.”
It’s putting
our self aside for others. Even our enemies.
It might sound overwhelming, like it did to Peter.
But we can do it in small ways too.
Someone
at my previous church told me this story
about
himself. About forty years ago, this man told me he was
constantly
fighting with his neighbor.
It started out with a tree dropping stuff in someone else’s driveway.
One neighbor demanded a solution
and the other didn’t like it, someone didn’t like the tone of the others voice.
The argument escalated, then it was arguments about garbage,
then the dog, then the
lawn, then the lights.
You’ve
seen this kind of thing before maybe you’ve been a
part
of it, shouts, nasty looks, threats, small claims court,
police
called on occasion.
It
could have escalated or gone on forever until
one
of them moved or died.
But one day, the mailman brought a package
meant for the parishioner to the neighbor’s house by
mistake.
He
would never have known about it,
but
the neighbor came over and rang the bell.
The neighbor said, “I’ve been sitting with this package for three hours.
I thought
about burning it, stabbing it,
running
over it with my car, but I decided,
just to bring it to you.”
And
he gave him the package.
The parishioner
said when he took that package,
and
closed the door, all kinds of guilt came over him.
Everything
that he had ever done or said to this man
washed
over him and he felt sorry for it
and
the anger he felt melted.
He
had a change of heart. A heart transplant.
They
worked on being neighbors after that and,
even
though they weren’t friends,
they
lived peacefully next to each other for the next thirty years.
Bringing
that package over took courage.
And
it was power even though to some,
it
might have seemed like weakness.
Those
who want to be my followers,
Deny
yourself, your rights, your pride, your ego,
your
complete legal justification to defend what is yours
and
your moral justification to retaliate.
Deny
yourself and your power,
and take up God’s power.
Be the
first to forgive, the first to say I’m sorry,
be
the first to make the call, send the e-mail,
return
the package unharmed.
We
take up that cross and follow in our actions,
in
the words that we choose, in the way we treat our neighbors,
in
what we write or say when faced with a hypothetical threat.
Those
kinds of small things inform us,
when
big things happen to us.
It’s a very vulnerable place to be,
it
may not go your way,
it
doesn’t always work it doesn’t always end in reconciliation.
There’s
no guarantee that everyone will be good neighbors.
But
it is always very powerful.
Absolute
vulnerability and absolute power.
That
is the cross.
That
is the gift that Jesus has given us.
That
is God’s power.
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