The Way of the Cross Is the Way of Wisdom
Reflections on Mark 8.27-38
RCL Proper 24B
16 September 2018
Holy Trinity Cathedral
New Westminster BC
Mark 8.27-38
8.27Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” 28And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” 29He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” 30And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.
31Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
34He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. 36For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? 37Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? 38Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”
Early in my career at Vancouver School of Theology I decided that I would cheerfully make myself available to the media. Some of my colleagues kept their distance, but I realized that certain Christian voices dominated the media and I felt strongly that other voices needed to be heard. So, it was in that spirit that I responded to a telephone call from a reporter with the Globe and Mail.
He was writing an article on the use of the Bible in contemporary English and what it meant that fewer and fewer people were encountering the Bible as literature in secondary and post-secondary education. In the main I agreed with him and said that I wished more people encountered all the scriptures of the major religious traditions, even if only in small installments. But what really bothered me, I said, was the misuse of the Bible in contemporary English. Let me give you a few examples.
Have you ever heard someone say, ‘Money is the root of all evil’? It’s a saying taken from 1 Timothy. What the text actually says is this: ‘For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.’[1] As important as money is in our lives, it is a means by which we achieve particular purposes. So money, in and of itself, is not the ‘root of all evil’. But when it becomes something that we love, something to which we give our very selves, body and soul, then it becomes a source of ‘many pains’. By failing to quote the biblical text accurately, we lose the opportunity to explore our attitudes toward money and, in the exploring, learn how we might use our financial resources well as faithful disciples of Jesus.
Have you ever heard someone say, ‘Do not grieve’? I have heard people say this before and after funerals. I have actually heard someone say that grieving is not something Christians do. Once again, this misunderstanding comes from failing to hear the whole text from 1 Thessalonians: ‘But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.’ [2] It is truly Christian to grieve the death of a loved one, but we do not grieve ‘as others do who have no hope’. Our grief is tempered by our hope that death is not God’s last word. God’s last word is life. Our faith leads us to believe that, as painful as death is, as wrenching a separation from our loved ones death is, it is life, life eternal, that awaits us. When we do not hear the whole text, we do not have the opportunity to look closely at what we believe and how that faith shapes our lives in the here and now as well as in the world to come.
All this leads me to one of the more misunderstood texts in the New Testament. It is a text that has been used to encourage people to endure oppression and injustice in silence. It is a text that has been used to exhort women to remain in abusive relationships. It is a text that has been warped out of its context: ‘[Jesus] called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.’ [3] I am sure that you have all been told, at one time or another, that someone or something is ‘the cross you have to bear’. It’s often what someone says to us when we are in an unsatisfactory situation, perhaps even one that seems unbearable.
Friends, we have to look at this text closely and understand both what the ‘way of the cross’ is and what it is not. Suffering injustice or abuse or harassment or discrimination without resistance is not a Christian virtue. The way of the cross is a way of sacrifice and sacrifice is not about loss but about the choice to be Christ-like, even it means taking risks. The word ‘sacrifice’, after all, does not mean ‘giving something up’; it means ‘making something holy by offering it to God’. The way of the cross may mean self-denial, but it is self-denial for a purpose. That purpose is making Christ present in the midst of suffering as well as joy, in the midst of failure as well as success, in the midst of criticism as well as praise. It is a way made known to us both by the crucifixion and by Jesus’ righteous anger when he chastises those who have turned God’s temple into the first-century equivalent of a shabby shopping mall.
When we take up the cross of Christ in our baptism and when we renew our commitment to this way of life each time we celebrate a baptism and each time we receive communion, we choose to make this present moment holy by offering it to God. To be sure we often go through our daily lives unmindful of the opportunities to use our time, our talent and our treasure wisely, so that God’s new creation can be experienced by others. This is why we gather Sunday after Sunday to renew ourselves.
For me the gathering of the Christian people can be compared to an old-fashioned charcoal barbeque. If you start a charcoal fire and then scatter the coals, the fire burns cooler and burns out faster than if you keep the coals close together. It’s counterintuitive, but the hotter and closely-packed charcoal becomes a powerful tool of transformation. Each Sunday we gather and together we are ‘strangely warmed’ by Word and Sacrament. We are empowered to become more self-giving in our relationships, our work, our daily lives in the wider community.
Taking up the cross is what we do as Christians. We take up the cross in our choices to act justly. We take up the cross in our choices to love our neighbours as God has loved us. We take up the cross in our choices to choose the humility of stewardship rather than the arrogance of thoughtless and meaningless consumption. And in taking up the cross we make holy the present and participate in God’s work of renewing the creation and restoring right relationships.
The way of the cross is the way of wisdom. It cries out in the streets and public squares of our time just as surely as it cried out in the time of Jesus. Its demands are rebuffed by those trapped by their love of acquiring more and more things. The knowledge it offers seems obscure to those who do not live as we live in the hope of a world restored and liberated by the good news of God in Jesus. To those who choose this way and who listen to its wisdom it the way of the cross offers the freedom of perfect service and the fullness of life, not just in the future, but in the here and now.
Even as we celebrate this eucharist the wisdom of God reveals itself in the voice of Wisdom in the streets, in the words of Jesus to his disciples and in James’ plea for self-control and careful speech. This wisdom invites us all ‘ . . . by the mercies of God, to present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is our spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds, so that we may discern what is the will of God — what is good and acceptable and perfect.’ [4] So let us hear what the Spirit is saying to us, the disciples of Christ, the followers of the Way, so that this moment and each moment to come may be made holy -- for our sakes and for the sake of all creation.
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