Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost

I knew this week was going to be difficult. We started with the horrible shooting in Kenosha, WI, near my hometown of Milwaukee, where Jacob Blake was shot in the back seven times and is now paralyzed. Early in the week we knew that too major storms were going to hit the gulf coast.  Tropical Storm Marco was not so bad but hurricane Laura caused massive damage in Lake Charles and across Louisiana, and southeastern Texas.   The fires in California continue to rage.  Back in Kenosha there appeared on the street a seventeen year old with a rifle who killed two people in the streets.   And then there was the Hollywood extravansa called the Republican National Convention with total disregard for social distancing at the rally and speeches on Thursday night. While over 7,000 people in America died of COVID this past week.  There were other news items also many of them again not so good.  I closed our prayer meeting on Tuesday night saying that I hoped we would hear good news this week.  I’m sure there was some.  I was just not aware of it. 

This week in light of, well, everything, I find myself drawn to the verses we read today from Matthew.  When Jesus told his disciples, “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 will find it” (16:24-25).

These verses can often elicit two distinct reactions. Some folks embrace Jesus’ words, feeling themselves both called and capable to make decisions that reflect their Christian commitment, even to the point of sacrifice. For them, these words are an invitation. Other Christians, however, struggle to find joy in these words. Some may be aware of their own limitations and so doubt their ability to embrace the cross, while others experience this as a request to denigrate themselves and can point to too many examples in culture where specific persons or groups have been told by their oppressors to “bear their cross.”  How many times have minorities and people of color been told to bear there cross?   Not all struggles and suffering  is sacrificial or beneficial, and so some are understandably leery of any blanket statements that legitimate unholy oppression. For both these latter groups, Jesus’ words are a burden, whether imposed on them by Jesus or by others.

There may, however, be a third way to interpret these words, which is simply to recognize , that suffering happens and, whether you choose it, embrace it, or resist it, Christ is present with you in it. I think that sometimes we are so keenly aware of Jesus’ words of his impending suffering and death that we assume it was all part of some plan (presumably God’s plan). But what if, instead, God’s plan was to send Jesus to bear a word of redemption and grace and love and the cross happened as a result? I saw a post this week on Facebook with a picture of Jesus on the Cross and the caption read “If Jesus just has listen to the police none of this would have happened.”  Jesus death on the cross was not the only way by which God could have redeemed humanity.  But truth be told God in Jesus came amongst us bearing a vital message of love and acceptance even though Jesus knew that humanity’s likely response would be to reject the message and kill the messenger. In this sense, the cross was not Jesus’ goal, but rather the outcome of Jesus’ faithfulness in the face of unfaithful people. He didn’t choose the cross but rather trusted God to work for the sake of the world God loves so much.

Similarly, the cross isn’t something we choose, but rather it is something that finds us. Sometimes what is redemptive in our suffering is obvious – the sacrifices we make for our family members and friends, foregoing individual “rights” like wearing a mask, or avoiding crowds during a pandemic for the sake of community health – and sometimes it’s hard to tell if there is anything good at all, let alone redemptive, in the suffering we see and experience. And yet Christ identifies with all of our suffering, took it all on himself in his suffering, and promises to meet us in ours.

What does “take up your cross and deny yourself” look like in this case? Perhaps it’s following Jesus’ lead and, to the best of our ability, to make decisions and act in a way that reflects God’s love for us and all people. “Deny yourself” is not the same, I think, as “forget all about yourself” and certainly is not “debase yourself.” By linking “and all people” to “us,” we realize God is in it for everyone, not just us and that is, I think, what denying yourself looks like – seeing that you and I are part of something larger, in recognizing that there is, in fact, no meaningful “you” or “I” apart from “us.”  Pastor Phil talked about that last week in his sermon we he spoke about us as being part of the greater community. 

Suffering doesn’t need to be – and, quite honestly, should be not be – spiritualized. And it should not be justified. But it should regularly be resisted, particularly as we are moved to resist the actions and systems that we undertake or in which we are involved that increase the suffering of others.  Like systemic Racism.  That kind for suffering must be stopped. 

This week if you haven’t already find a time where you can name where you are suffering. Where are you tired or hurting or fearful or insecure or anxious or in pain or distressed. To name these things honestly, in the sense of biblical lament.  And then hear again God’s promise that Christ is in it with us.  In our hardships is a kindred experience to Christ’s cross, and to count more fully on Christ’s presence and power to see us through. I’m going to say the obvious and you all know it’s true but often we forget. We literally cannot save our own lives, and our attempts to do so often take a toll on ourselves and others. But as we surrender that impulse and hear and trust God’s promise, we discover that those things which seek to take our lives are no match for the crucified and resurrected Christ and we discover new life even in the midst of suffering.

There is so much suffering going on now.  Whether related to COVID, racial injustice, economic hardship, emotional despair, or more. In all these things, not just Christ’s cross is present, but Christ himself – holding us, lamenting with us, encouraging us, and promising us the strength to endure and, having endured, to flourish and, flourishing, to help others do the same. 

For the past two months I have been taking a virtual online course at the Virginia Theological Seminary on Race called Sacred Grounds. Sacred grounds is a video dialogue series on the stories of our life here in American, the stories of race, the joys and sorrows.  By listening to these stories and then telling our own stories together including our faith stories there is hope for a new day.  In Exodus 3 Moses climbs up Mount Sinai trying to decide if he should go back to Egypt to help free the Hebrew slaves.  On this mount Moses encounters God through a burning bush. Moses, Moses, God says,  take off your shoes because the ground on which you stand is holy ground.  Sacred Ground.  The voice from the bush says “I am the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”  Episcopal Bishop Michael Curry says that a friend of his in a sermon once preached that God told Moses to take off the shoes from his feet because the ground on which he was standing was holy ground.  Not because the dirt was holy but because God was about to tell his story.  Whenever someone tells their story you are standing on holy ground.  Now, during this time, if there ever was a time, it is now. To hear the stories of the past with regard to race, to hear our stories of our past and then to write a new story, for a new future.  Where there is plenty of room for all of God’s children.  Amen