August 30, 2020
/Proper 17
Jeremiah 15:15-21; Psalm 26:1-8; Matthew 16:21-28
The Rev. James M. L. Grace
God, please help us to set aside everything we think we know about ourselves, our challenges, our faith, and especially You; so we would have an open mind and a new experience of all these things. Please let us see your truth. AMEN.
Years ago, when I was in seminary I worked as a chaplain at Johns Hopkins hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. I was part of a group of other seminary students from across the country who gathered there to learn about ministry in a clinical setting. Each student was assigned a different part of the hospital to work in – one of my assignments was the level one trauma emergency room. As a hospital located centrally in urban Baltimore, I saw a lot of activity in the ER at Johns Hopkins. Gunshot wounds, knife stabbings, traumatic amputations, heroin overdoses. As a chaplain, my role was to enter these crisis situations and attempt to provide some amount of pastoral comfort, some assurance of God’s presence during chaos.
There was nothing I read in seminary that prepared me for this. There was no class that outlined for me how I was to minister to people in trauma. But I did it, anyway. Not perfectly, but as best as I could. The was the point of the chaplain residency – to learn to minister on your feet – to throw you into the deep end to see if you could swim. It was hard. Day after day of trauma, death, pain, suffering, took its toll on me. For the first time, as a hospital chaplain, I began to understand the gravity of my future vocation.
Two thousand years ago somewhere in the desert outside Caesarea Philippi, another group of people found themselves in a similar predicament. They were the disciples, that inside group of Jesus’ followers who knew him well and saw him do extraordinary things. But like me in the hospital, the disciples did not recognize the weight of their calling until Jesus shares with them what it means. Jesus says to them that his fate would lead him to Jerusalem where he suffers before the political and religious authorities before facing execution.
Let us just say that the disciples were not excited to hear this news. One of them, Peter, found this news very disappointing. He was expecting Jesus to be person who would lead Israel to rise against the Roman Empire, who claimed Israel at the time. Israel wanted independence, freedom from Rome, and Peter thought Jesus was the person who would lead Israel down this path. Imagine Peter’s disappointment when he hears Jesus say that he is to undergo great suffering and to be executed. Peter speaks out saying “God forbid this, Lord! This must never happen to you!”
Peter spoke out as he did because he probably loved Jesus and did not want something terrible to happen to him. But Jesus condemns Peter’s words, saying “Get behind me Satan, you are a stumbling block to me for you are setting your mind not on divine things, but on human things.” These words are Jesus’ way of saying to the disciples that if they are serious about following him – if they are ready to grow up – then they need to understand three things: they must deny themselves, they must take up their cross, and they must follow. It is at this moment, I believe, when Peter and the disciples start to feel the weight of their calling. Before this moment, they were still in the classroom, now things get real. The stakes are high. And those three things: deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow are instructions for us today.
But what did Jesus mean when he said that we are to deny ourselves? What was he talking about? What are we supposed to deny ourselves of – things? Possessions? Just giving up things will not make us Christian; it just means that we have fewer things. To deny yourself, I believe, means that we quiet ourselves, quiet our ego, quiet the part of our mind that is saying “More this! More that! Better job! A more attractive spouse! A faster car! A bigger house!” To deny ourselves means we turn the volume down on that voice so that we can hear God’s voice, the true voice.
When Jesus says that we are to take up our cross, I believe he means that the spiritual life involves work. It is not easy or comfortable. But spiritual wakefulness does not come from doing things that are easy or comfortable. Spiritual wakefulness comes from pushing ourselves. Think about when you must have physical therapy after a surgery or injury. You are not going to get better unless you push yourself in a way that often hurts. The pain you endure in physical therapy is the price you pay for healing.
The same is true with our spiritual lives. The spiritual life involves sacrifice, but not sacrifice as we might think – like giving something up. The word sacrifice literally means “to make something sacred.” So, when we take up our cross, we are taking up a new kind of life, a life that is sacred. Seen this way, “our cross to bear,” whatever it may be, is no longer burdensome, our cross to bear is a gift, a holy gift.
When Jesus told his disciples to follow him, he wanted them to understand that following him would have a cost. And the cost was not one that could be explained in advance. The only way to understand the cost of discipleship was for the disciples to follow Jesus unto the end. It is just as true for us. Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow. A journey of a lifetime begins with one step. Take yours today. AMEN.