by Rev. Carole Horton-Howe
Please note that the following sermon text was provided prior to the audio recording. The two versions may differ substantially.
Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” But he turned and said to Peter, “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.”
Then 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. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?
“For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
—Matthew 16:21-28
This Gospel reading presents us with a significant shift in the story of Jesus’ ministry. From the hands-on, day to day work of teaching and healing, Jesus redirects our thinking to an understanding of discipleship. In a profound “teachable moment” he lets his disciples know what is at stake and what’s going to be required of them.
These are not easy words to hear. There are no easy tasks or pretty images here. The idea of the cross was terrifying in ways that we probably cannot imagine. No wonder that the devoted Peter cries out in defiance at the suggestion of losing his beloved teacher.
But did you notice that just a few short verses earlier, Jesus has blessed Peter and proclaimed that he is the rock on which the church will stand. What a contrast! What a demonstration of the challenges that we face – the conundrum of setting aside our personal claim on what is precious to us now and to choose the risk and reality of pain and loss for the sake of Christ’s love for the world.
There are some burdens that all of us we expect to carry. We know there will be changes - significant changes - in our lives in the natural course of things. We anticipate the loss of grandparents and parents and all that means to us. Some losses we hope to avoid take shape over time – loss of jobs, career plans that don’t go the way we hoped, marriages and relationships that don’t have fairy tale endings. These are weighty crosses to carry for sure.
Burdens that are unexpected though are somehow worse. Finding ourselves shouldering a task for which we are not prepared, that we did not want makes us feel angry and resentful. Understandably so. But whether anticipated or not, the struggles that show up in our lives do us a favor. Because they tend to show us what is real. They reveal our illusions about our lives. And in a way they make us tell ourselves the truth.
Our internal image of the cross and carrying the cross tends to be one of overwhelming, crushing pain. And solely that. I know for me, this is reinforced in the images of Jesus carrying the cross on which he is eventually executed, images I have from artwork and from films usually of the stations of the cross. The terror of the cross is made real. It’s so heavy and so rough that we can see only that it is hopeless life taking and soul stealing.
But I’d like to offer you another way of seeing carrying the cross and the burdens we carry, another layer of the meaning of the cross. That reality of pain is a valid one. But pain is only one aspect of the cross. The other is hope. Another aspect of the cross is hope. As something dies, resurrection and new life is about to be born. We carry within our crosses great hope. We carry within our crosses resurrection to new life.
Joan Chittister has written some interesting thoughts on this: Whether anticipated or not, the burdens we carry begin with shock, with loss. There’s a radical interruption of what was certain and sure and eternal. We think “It will never end. It couldn’t ever end.” “My reputation could not be damaged. My relationships will never end.” But they do. Things change. Change, she says, means movement and movement means friction. It’s movement we don’t want and friction we think we cannot endure.
When we are in a peaceful, acceptable place in our lives with a degree of equilibrium, we feel secure. But, she says, the compelling need to have our lives set in stone is a great obstacle to truth. In these secure places we cannot grow. Change happens at every stage of our lives for the purpose of carrying us in to the next stage of our lives. Changes are invitations to ask what will come to take its place. Changes are invitations to struggle towards renewal. Here’s something critical: Renewal is not about going back to that “set in stone” place we came from.
The spirituality of struggle begins with our decision to recognize the opportunity for change and either grow or to retreat -- to live a little more or to die a little bit. It’s an important decision we all have to make, Chittister says, to become new rather than simply to become older. There is a gift hidden in the burden of forced change. But first there is an invitation to struggle with our ideas about who God is, God’s role in our lives and about our call to be disciples of God’s son.
Peter can’t imagine why Jesus’ earthly ministry has to end. It’s going so well. Why can’t all the healing and teaching that is doing so much good for so many people in distress under Roman rule just go on and on? The Good News today is Jesus’ invitation to the struggle of renewal, redemption and resurrection.
A story about a woman named Elizabeth: Elizabeth had been battling cancer for several years in one part of her body and then another and then another – a terrible cross to carry that had come on suddenly and was unrelenting. A chaplain asked her if she thought that the experience of suffering from cancer over and over again had shaded or colored her outlook on her life. She thought about it awhile and said “yes, but I get to choose the color.”
They chatted for a while more and as he was leaving, the chaplain asked her “what color did you choose?” Elizabeth was a life-long Episcopalian so the chaplain assumed she would choose some seasonal liturgical color. But instead she said, “Sparkles! I choose sparkles – every color there is moving in the light and shining like stars. My life is like a sky full of stars. Cancer is one star. But it isn’t the biggest or the brightest or the most sparkly one.” She had no idea what was ahead for her but she was certain of new life. Elizabeth faced into her cross carrying both pain and hope. And when the time came, she was made new.
Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering Paul tells the Romans. And in that process make the decision to do the loving thing and also to personify the loving thing as a devout disciple of our Lord Jesus Christ.
I’ll leave you today with a blessing by William Sloane Coffin
“May God give you the grace never to sell yourself short;
Grace to risk something big for something good;
Grace to remember the world is now too dangerous for anything but the truth and too small for anything but love.”
Amen.