Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

Title: "I Hate It When He Says That …"

Text: Mark 8:31-38

I don’t think I’d go so far as to say

we are ashamed of Christ’s words in our generation,

but we’re certainly made uncomfortable by them.

We can think of all the things he said

that certain other people we can think of

ought to listen to,

but then there are passages like this one

that we know are speaking right to us.

Anyone who wants to come after Jesus

must deny himself,

take up his cross, and follow.

Anyone who tries to save her own life will lose it,

and whoever loses her life for Christ’s sake

will find it.

We hate it when Jesus says things like that.

They hit us too close,

challenge us too hard.

Now of course, we’re in good company …

even Peter wasn’t all that crazy about

what Jesus taught them here.

But, what he didn’t

and what we don’t like

are rather different.

You see, Peter would have been

more-or-less comfortable with the thought

that he might have to give up his own life.

The Jews of that day were so ready

to run the Romans off

and overthrow their oppressive leadership

that many of them were ready

to sacrifice their lives if necessary,

and in fact many of them did.

So Peter knew this was a possibility.

What came as a surprise to him

was the idea that Jesus –

their Messiah, their leader –

was also going to have to suffer and die.

That’s where Peter loses his focus,

and slips off the side of God

onto the side of human beings,

and has to be brought back.

We have just the opposite problem …

We are pretty much comfortable with the thought

that Jesus will suffer and die …

that’s the central story of our faith!

Every year during Lent,

we retell the story,

and try to re-live those last days of his life.

So while we may not be happy with

the idea that Christ died;

we understand it; we accept it.

Where we get into trouble

is this notion of taking up our own cross to follow Jesus,

and losing our lives in order to save them.

This is where we lose our focus,

and slip away onto the side of humans and not of God,

and have to be pulled back.

We hate it when Jesus says these things,

because we’re not sure

we’re ready to meet the demands he makes.

Even though most of us

will not ever be called literally to give up our lives,

we are called upon

to give up our claim over our own life,

and in some ways that’s even harder.

And we don’t like this saying of Jesus,

because we know it doesn’t just apply

to that person sitting in the pew in front of us,

or to those people who don’t come to church

as often as we think they should,

but also to each and every one of us:

young and old, men and women, clergy and laypeople.

Each of us must lay down our life,

and take up our cross,

and follow our Lord.

Now I want to talk for just a minute

about this business of "taking up our cross."

Somewhere at the back of my mind

I think I’ve touched on this before,

but it’s important, so stay with me.

A lot of times when we use the phrase

"that’s just a cross I’ll have to bear,"

we hear it used incorrectly.

(Or we ourselves use it incorrectly!)

For example, some of you have heard me from time to time

complain about my aching knees,

which are pretty good at predicting changes in the weather,

but that’s about the only thing "good" about them.

You may even have heard me say

that I’m going to see about getting them a room

at Grace Presbyterian Village,

because it’s clear that these knees belong to an 80-year-old!

I learned several years ago after giving in and seeing an orthopedic surgeon

that it’s no wonder that I have trouble with them;

my kneecaps aren’t on straight!

Well, that’s just a cross I’ll have to bear …

No, it’s not.

It’s a burden that I must bear

just as many of you bear the burdens

of limited sight or limited mobility,

or problems with allergies and asthma,

or the burdens of grief and loss,

or pain over family problems.

But these are not crosses;

a cross has to be something we choose.

A cross must be available for us

to pick up and carry along,

but we also have to have the option of

saying no, and leaving it where it is.

One of my friends in San Angelo was a Roman Catholic sister

whose job it was to visit the Catholic patients

in two of San Angelo’s three hospitals.

She was probably in her late sixties or early seventies when I knew her.

Sister José was bothered by arthritis most days,

especially first thing in the morning,

but as she would often say,

"that’s not the cross I bear.

The cross is to consciously decide

to get out of bed in the morning and go about my ministry

even when I’d rather not."

And that’s the choice for all of us,

whether we will pick up and carry

the ministry of Jesus Christ into the world.

Some of us will carry a big cross;

others will at least start out with a small one.

That’s okay;

crosses come in all sizes.

Now here’s a problem that many of us have.

Often we try to pick up the cross

without laying something down first.

If you’ve ever tried to carry too many things at once,

you know what that’s like,

sort of a juggling act.

Now if you’ve only picked up a small cross so far,

you may make this work for a long time.

But many of us,

in our struggle to be faithful,

keep trying to pick up bigger and bigger crosses,

which is great,

except that we forget to take the time

to lay down our life.

And so we get caught up in

trying to carry on our own life

and carry the cross,

and it’s no wonder that many of us

suffer from "burnout" more than occasionally.

Unless we give up our life to God,

we will never do a good job of taking up the cross.

But that’s a thought that’s truly scary to most of us …

probably all of us!

We’re trained to think in terms of survival,

of being in control of our own life and destiny.

We don’t quite trust God to take care of our lives

as we want them taken care of.

So we insist on maintaining our own sovereignty.

I get discouraged sometimes by the "Church"

at the level of the presbytery, or the denomination,

because if you listen real closely to the talk about

declining membership and "market share" and all that,

it’s clear that the real issue under discussion

is how we are going to insure our survival,

not whether we are bearing the cross.

We don’t ask the question of

whether we are being faithful to the gospel

and to Jesus Christ, regardless of the consequences.

We ask what clever new things we can to

to get people to come in the door.

We look for a new "spin" on things,

a dynamite new workshop to get us stirred up,

a simple "10 keys" or "12 steps" or whatever.

Every year this presbytery offers some new gimmick,

and looks askance at those of us

who don’t jump at every chance to hear about the "latest thing."

Some of it may, in fact, be quite good,

but the whole premise behind it is wrong.

I don’t mean that things should never change,

and that doing things "in the old way"

is necessarily more faithful.

It is always possible

that projector screens and PowerPoint sermon presentations

might be a cross that we ought to bear

in order to reach a different group of people with the gospel.

So far, that’s been a cross I am not willing to bear;

but it may be that I am wrong.

I hope – for example – that if I were to see real live evidence that

we really could reach more people with a praise band

than with organ and choir,

and that it would be for the sake of the gospel

and for the benefit of their own lives and souls,

that I would take up that cross

and lay down my own preferences for the sake of the greater good.

I’ve not yet been persuaded,

but in part that’s because the only argument being made

is that we need to get numbers up in order to "survive."

Survival is not the issue.

It never has been.

Of course, the church is made up of people,

and it struggles with the same fear of change

and of the unknown and of death

as individuals do …

because the individuals in it are fearful.

Maybe we don’t hate it when Jesus invites us

to take up our cross …

but certainly, we fear it.

Maybe it’s not even the cross itself that we fear, so much,

as the thought of what we will have to give up

in order to pick up the cross and carry it.

My prayer is that we as individuals

and we as a congregation

will nevertheless find a way beyond our fears.

That we will learn somehow

to trust our lives to God,

and to let God handle all those things we are so fearful of.

My prayer is that we will make the choice …

that we will find the cross we are to carry,

and take up the largest one we can manage,

and follow our Lord wherever he leads.

This is where our hope lies.

This is where the hope of the world lies.

Amen.

© 2006 Julie Adkins (e-mail: DrJAdkins@trinitypresdallas.org)