September 17, 2006 - Mark 8:31-38 Proper 19B - Stephanie E. Parker


The Rev. Daniel Berrigan once said, "If you are going to follow Jesus, you'd better look good on wood." Historically speaking, we all know that Christians who genuinely conform their lives to that of Jesus Christ don't fare too well. [1] Centuries of Christian martyrs testify to that. And today Jesus is very clear with his disciples that to follow him means that they put themselves at great risk. But he is also very clear that unless those who would follow him take this risk, they have no place with him or his mission.



But, here is a challenge that those of us sitting here in these pews today must confront·the chances are that we will not called to sacrifice our lives for our belief that Jesus is the Christ. So, if this is true, how is it that we might "take up our cross and follow Jesus?" 



I think one of our greatest challenges is put away the "wisdom" of current popular culture. Everyday we are bombarded with messages that tell us that to feel anything but "good" is to have somehow failed in life. These messages tell us that we can buy and drink, and prestige our way out of any chance that life might bring us pain. This twisted wisdom tells us that feeling sorrow over failed relationships, experiencing pain over losing a loved one, or to risk ourselves on something, which has no personal payoff, is foolish and unnecessary. 



The messages are pervasive, how do we hold on to the truth that this type of wisdom is simply a lie? How are we, sitting in safety and comfort, called to take up our cross? 



First we must realize what taking up our cross really means. Sadly, this powerful pronouncement has become a throw away phrase for putting up with things that we aren't really happy about. Jesus is not calling us to bear some small or even great burden without complaint. The cross of Christ is not about the amount of burdens we have in life. The cross of Christ is about great love. This cross is about unflinching obedience to God's call to be reconcilers in the world.  



So taking up our cross means to love others as Jesus loves us and to show compassion for others as Jesus shows compassion. We all know that he didn't have to go looking for the cross. Jesus only had to share the love of God with others and the cross found him.[2]



But, I think, as I said at the beginning, our modern culture rails at this kind of thinking. We are more conditioned to think of self-protection. We have been sold the lie that we can avoid pain and suffering in our lives if we just isolate and insulate ourselves enough. But we all know because experience has taught us, that life cannot be lived without pain. In fact, a life lived fully and with great love will be full of pain and suffering.    



In this regard I am reminded of a sermon by John Claypool, a man whose life knew much sorrow as well as great joy. He once reflected on the song "I Am a Rock" by Simon and Garfunkel and mused that what at first seemed like good sense, was in the end a prescription for something far worse than the pain we have when we risk ourselves for one another and lose something of ourselves in the process.



Do you remember these words:  " Don't talk to me of love; Well, I've heard the word before, It is sleeping in my memory. It won't disturb this slumber Of feelings that have died. If I had never loved, I never would have cried. I am a rock, I am an island. I have my books and poetry to protect me I am sheltered in my armor, Hiding in my room, safe within my womb. I touch no one, and no one touches me. I am a rock, I am an island, And a rock feels no pain. And an island never cries."



On first hearing, these words do have a kind of dark wisdom, for who of us has not experienced the pain of loss and decided to react in this way? You open yourself up to love and then you suffer its loss and it feels like the tenderest part of your being is slashed to shreds. 



This pain visits us in a variety of ways. We feel it when someone we love dies. We feel it when we are betrayed in a relationship. We feel it when we look at starving children and hurricane ravaged homes.



The capacity to feel great love and compassion means we are vulnerable to deep pain and anguish. This overwhelms us and we react by saying: "All right! If this is what comes of loving and trying to care for other people, never again! I'll make myself invulnerable to this sort of wounding. I'll go it alone, build a barricade around myself, become a rock, an island, and then I will not have to suffer."



This is a very common reaction to one of life's most basic experiences, which is undoubtedly why the record became so popular. But, let's face it; if we do not open ourselves to the pain of loss and the possibility of being pierced by compassion, we will never know the joy of deep love. 



There are implications here of tremendous importance. Pain is an inevitable part of life; no matter how we try to live it or which way we attempt to go. Therefore, it is futile to try to escape pain altogether. There is no desire embedded any deeper in our make-up than the desire not to suffer: yet this becomes a tragic illusion if we elevate it into a life goal.[3]



There is pain involved no matter which way we turn; so the quicker we disabuse ourselves of the fantasy that we can somehow evade suffering, the better. Because the irony is that if we refuse to put this illusion away, we will only bring greater and greater suffering into our lives, for our very attempts to avoid suffering simply puts us on a collision course with new forms of it.



We see this truth played out graphically this morning when Jesus openly acknowledges to the disciples that his way of declaring God's love for all has gotten him into trouble with the powers that be. He tells them plainly that he is going to suffer many things at the hands of those who oppose him.



But, Jesus firmly believes that something better will come out of this agony, that it will not all be in vain. Peter, however, promptly takes Jesus aside and contests his assertion. While we are not told explicitly, I am guessing that Peter argued this point that suffering should be necessary. "There ought to be a way," Peter probably said, "to get the job done without pain. Surely someone like you should not have to undergo such an ordeal!" Jesus' response to these words is almost shockingly vehement. In the original Greek there is something like an element of horror in his reaction.



Jesus sensed in Peter's words the deceptive power and temptation of Satan himself. He realized that there is nothing more dangerous or more self-destructive than to suppose that there is a way to live without pain. The person who harbors this illusion will finally come to disillusionment at never having found such a way. And worse still, he will involve himself in even greater suffering by his attempts to evade it.[4] 



No matter how we live, we can expect to encounter some pain. The choice becomes: what kind of pain will it be? Will it be the form of suffering that goes with loving and making ourselves vulnerable to others? Or will it be the form of suffering that comes from not loving÷that special kind of agony that grows out of isolation and aloneness and being "cut-off?"



To be sure "a rock feels no pain," and "an island never cries." but what a price is paid for such protection from pain! You see, if we wall ourselves away from pain, we also wall ourselves away from love·Jesus knows this and so he calls us to risk ourselves for the sake of others. It is only in risking ourselves for the sake of others that our lives actually have any "life" at all.



Maybe this is what Jesus is trying to tell us this morning when He says: For those who want to save their life will lose it, but those who lose their life for my sake will find it?" The attempt to avoid suffering and therefore save one's self by not loving is the surest way to lose what gives us real life.



At the same time, the willingness to risk, daring to lose one's self in the act of giving to others÷herein lies the secret of a life worth living. You see, there is no better Way, no better Truth, and no better Life than to take up our cross and follow Jesus·Amen.


[1] Frank Logue
[2] Ibid.
[3] John Claypool
[4] John Claypool