Sermon - March 08, 2009 (LENT 2)
Bearing the Cross
Mark 8:31-38
I want to pose a situation for you. It is a situation that the esteemed writer Frederick Buechner had to confront. He writes about it in his book, The Sacred Journey. Ask yourself how you would have handled the same situation. Buechner had been looking forward to an evening with his mother. They didn’t get to see each other as much as they wanted, so when she invited him over for a nice meal, he gladly accepted.
As he and his mother sat down to eat, he received an urgent call. A colleague needed Buechner’s help. This colleague’s parents and pregnant sister had just suffered a serious car accident, and the doctors didn’t give them much hope. The colleague was waiting at the airport for a flight to take him to his family, and he desperately needed comfort at that moment. Would Buechner come and be with him while he waited for the plane?
Frederick Buechner’s first response was fear. His friend’s grief scared him, He didn’t know if he could be of any help. Although he knew what he should do, he told his friend that he had things he needed to do, and to call him in ten minutes to see if he could come. With a heavy heart, Frederick Buechner sat down to dinner. His mother complained that she didn’t want him to go, that his friend should be able to take care of himself. These were the same arguments filling Buechner’s head, but as he heard them from his mother, he realized how shallow and wrong they were. He knew that as soon as his friend called back, he would go immediately to comfort. But he never got that chance. When his friend called back, he said that he was feeling better, and that he’d be fine by himself. So Buechner and his mother got to spend the evening together, but he couldn’t fully enjoy himself.
As he reflected on this incident, he realized that his mother’s apartment was a kind of sanctuary from the hurried, cruel, desperate, needy world outside. His friend’s call for help was clearly a call to leave this refuge and return to the world. This is also what God had called Frederick Buechner to do, and he hadn’t heeded the call. He had been wrong. Later, he was able to write, “The shattering revelation of that moment was that true peace, the high and biding peace that passeth all understanding, is to be had not in retreat from the battle, but only in the thick of battle.” (1)
That was the situation. Now, how would you have reacted? Have you ever had a friend who had a deep need, but you chose to look the other way?
It’s tempting to spend one’s life in retreat, is it not? You and I have so much to do in our work, at home, looking after our family. It’s easy to retreat behind the wall of our own personal responsibilities, and ignore the needs of our friends, our community, our world. We only have so much time. Right?
Then we come to today’s text, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.”
“Take up his cross . . .” The members of the early church knew exactly what Jesus was saying here. They had seen his example. He literally took up a cross and bore it to Calvary. He had willingly chosen to suppress his will to the will of the Father. He did what he had to do, and he did it not for his own gain, but for others. For you and me.
No concept has been as corrupted in the common language as this one: bearing a cross. People say, “I have arthritis, but that’s just my cross to bear.” “I have a lazy husband, but that’s just my cross to bear.” You and I know such problems have nothing--absolutely zero--to do with Jesus’ words. When you bear Jesus’ cross, you are saying something entirely different. You are saying that you are willing to serve God, you are willing to serve others, you are willing to put aside selfish concerns and focus your attention on God’s Kingdom. If that costs you money, if you have to give up some of your precious time, if you have to get out of your comfort zone, then that is just what you will have to do. When you bear a cross, God’s will comes first in your life.
Is that where you are today? Does that accurately describe your life? There are a couple of things we ought to say about that. First of all, without the Gospel, it makes no sense to take up a cross. Let’s admit it. Why not eat, drink and be merry and ignore our responsibilities if there is no Gospel, no good news from God?
There are many people who live only for themselves and the people they love. They are not evil people. Some of them have perfect attendance in Sunday School and church. They’re not bad people, only selfish. Some of them are quite attractive. They live in beautiful homes. They drive nice cars. They are well educated. They’ve never knowingly broken a law. The only problem with them is that they haven’t a clue what Jesus meant when he said, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”
They are like Lucy in an old Peanuts comic strip. Lucy is swinging on the playground. Charlie Brown reads to her, “It says here that the world revolves around the sun once a year.” Lucy stops abruptly and responds, “The world revolves around the sun? Are you sure? I thought it revolved around me.” Few people are as forthright as Lucy, but, believe me, they make the same mistake. They really do believe the world revolves around them and their needs. Some of them can be quite aggressive. They are like that poster that reads,
If I like it, it’s mine. If I can take it away from you, it’s mine.
If I had it a while ago, it’s mine. If I say it is mine, it’s mine.
If it looks like mine, it’s mine. If I saw it first, it’s mine.
If you’re having fun with it, it’s definitely mine. If you lay it down, it’s mine.
If it’s broken, it’s yours. (2)
Unfortunately, that’s the philosophy that guides many people. Look out for number one. I got mine, now you get yours.
And that’s really not all that bad, I guess . . . unless you believe in Jesus Christ. If we are merely creatures of the dust--here today, gone tomorrow--what does it matter what we do with our lives? It matters little how we treat our neighbor, whether we are generous with our church, whether we seek justice for all people. Without the Gospel, it makes no sense to take up a cross.
If we believe the Gospel, however, there is no escape from taking up a cross. That’s what following Jesus is all about. It’s about living the Christ-life in the world. Heeding a friend’s call for help. Looking for ways to improve the community. Joining with others through our church to support mission ministries. Being sensitive to those with special needs. Inviting a friend to join you in Bible study. Doing all those things that take us out of our comfort zone, our preoccupation with ourselves and those we love, and focusing on the call of God to be in service to others.
IEvery Saturday night a group of Christians serve a food line to the hungry and homeless of Washington, D.C. They serve folks who live in sight of the White House and the Capitol Building, but are so often overlooked. After all, the poor really are almost invisible in our society.
Before they open the doors, these Christian people gather around the food, hold hands, and are led in prayer by Mary Glover, a woman who herself stood in that food line a few years earlier. And this is what she prays: “Lord, we know you’ll be coming through this line tonight. So help us to treat you well. Amen.” (3)
Those good people understand what it is to bear a cross. There are other things they could be doing with their time, but they choose to be serving others in Christ’s name. Bearing a cross is about facing up to our responsibilities to others. That may take many forms.
In 2001, the CEO of Baxter International, a medical supply company, made a decision that cost his company $189 million. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that, like many crooked CEOs who have been in the news lately, Baxter’s CEO Harry Kraemer must have done something unethical. He must have cooked the books, or drained the company accounts in order to finance his own luxurious lifestyle. No, that’s not it at all. It was Kraemer’s honesty and high sense of ethics that caused him to make such a momentous decision.
Executives at Baxter International learned in 2001 that one of the products they manufactured, a filter for a kidney dialysis machine, may have been defective. Some dialysis patients using the Baxter International filter had died of unexplained causes. Rather than covering up the situation, Kraemer recalled all of the filters and instituted a rigorous investigation into the problem. This recall and investigation cost the company $189 million. Kraemer also recommended that his performance bonus for that year be cut, because this situation occurred under his leadership. And to top it all off, he informed all his competitors in the medical manufacturing business of the possible flaws in Baxter’s filters, so that they could benefit from the research his investigation turned up. (4)
Now I know nothing of Harry Kraemer’s religious affiliation. But I do know that is the sort of action that bearing a cross requires. When it is a matter of ethics, the follower of Christ is held to a higher standard than the world. That is why I say that, without the Gospel, it makes no sense to take up a cross. If we believe the Gospel, however, there is no escape from taking up a cross. You will be inconvenienced. It will cost you money. It may even cost you much more. It may cost you your life. As the controversial priest Daniel Berrigan has said, “If you want to follow Jesus, you had better look good on wood.”
This is to say that the call of Christ is a call to a decision. We were created for a purpose, our lives are not cosmic accidents. Do you believe that? Just how much do you believe it? I am not talking about earning our salvation. We are members of the body of Christ. We don’t have to worry about being accepted by God. Christ has taken care of that. But wouldn’t it be grand to stand before God some day and to be able to say, “Christ’s death wasn’t wasted on me. I did my part. I got out of my comfort zone. I gave up some of my precious time. I shared in the costs of the kingdom. I took my stand, I bore my cross, in serving my church, serving my community, serving my friends, serving my world.”
I want to close with a story, a parable if you will, shared by pastor Dan Mangler. There once was an elf, a wood elf, a very respectable wood elf, who spent his time running around with a little wheelbarrow gathering snails and weeds that were destroying the vegetation, and disposing of them. This elf had a prized possession that he kept in his hut, a green blanket, a soft green blanket. It had fallen from a fairy’s wagon as she went through the woods and he had never returned it to her.
At night he wrapped himself up in this soft green blanket. It was very cold there in the woods and he was warm in it and he slept soundly through the night. In fact, he slept so soundly that he had never had occasion to see the King of the World who was said to come early each morning to make all things fresh and new. But the elf was so wrapped up in his warm, snug, soft green blanket that he never was up and never had seen the King of the World.
One time a shepherd met this elf out in the woods and said, “Have you ever seen the King of the World?” And the elf said, “No, as a matter of fact I never have. I’ve never been able to quite manage it.” And the shepherd was shocked to hear this, living in the woods that way, and the shepherd came up very close to the elf, and he looked into his eyes and deeply into his soul. He said, “I seem to see something there that looks strangely like a blanket.” And the elf knew the shepherd had discovered his secret, and that his secret was that he would rather be wrapped in the warm green blanket than to get up early enough to see the King of the World who made all things fresh and new. (5)
There are many people, some of them in the church, who will never experience Christ in their lives, who will never meet him in a food line, never hear his words, “Well done thou good and faithful servant,” not because they are bad people, but because they prefer their warm green blanket. Bearing a cross makes no sense without the Good News of Jesus Christ. If you believe the Gospel, however, bearing a cross is what you and I must do. Therefore today’s text requires a decision. “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.”
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1. Gordon MacDonald, Forging a Real World Faith (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, Inc., Publishers, 1989), pp. 141-142.
2. Author unknown.
3. From Sojourners magazine, found in a sermon on the internet by Rev. Jeff Sartain titled “Visitors” (July 19, 1998).
4. John C. Maxwell with Stephen R. Graves and Thomas G. Addington, The Power of One Workbook (Nashville: Nelson Reference & Electronic, 2004), pp. 15-16.
5. Pastor Dan Mangler’s Sunday Sermon, “The Cross and Thanksgiving,” Luke 17: 11-19, October 10, 2004. http://www.smlc-elca.org/Sunday_sermons/october_10_2004_sermon.html.