Burdens

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

February 25, 2018

2 Lent B

          My grandmother’s kitchen table was a large booth built right into the end of her equally large kitchen.  One long side of the table had chairs, but the two short ends and the other long side were booth seating.  Altogether, the table would easily seat 10-12 people, but unless you were lucky enough to score one of the chairs on the open side of the table, once you were seated there was only one way out without everyone having to move.  That way out was to scoot under the table.  As children, my sister and I were always at the very back of the booth, and while, theoretically, we could have asked to be excused when we finished eating and crawled out from under the table, we never did.  There was way too much fascinating conversation to hear.  All the gossip that was fit to speak in the small, sleepy town of Headland, Alabama was shared around that table, and we had no intention of missing one word.  Stories of death, divorce, errant children, run-ins with the law, and difficult spouses were just too good to miss.  And, because we were in the south, all of the stories ended basically the same way.  “Bless her heart.  She has such a cross to bear.” 

Over the past week and a half, the news has been filled with stories about people with crosses to bear that are infinitely more tragic than anything I heard around my grandmother’s table.  We have heard stories of families burying their loved ones in Parkland, Florida, survivors trying to make sense and make a difference, and the kidnapping of school girls in Nigeria.  Add those stories and so many more to the stories of our own loved ones who struggle with loss, or illness, or heartbreak, and Jesus’ words to his disciples this morning are not very comforting.  “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”  Do we really have to hoist our burdens and those of the world onto our shoulders to be followers of Jesus?  I want to follow the Jesus who said “Come to me all who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will refresh you.”

          Jesus has just told the disciples that he must undergo great suffering, be rejected and killed, and on the third day, rise again.   Peter, understanding only the part about suffering, rejection, and death, rebukes Jesus for even thinking such thoughts. Jesus replies “Get behind me Satan!  For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”  Peter had set his mind only the bad news about suffering and death.  Peter has not heard God’s outrageous promise that after three days, Jesus will rise again.    

Only after Jesus has predicted his suffering, death, AND resurrection does Jesus say to the disciples “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” Jesus explains what that means by saying “For those who want to save their life will lose it and those who lose their life for my sake and the sake of the gospel will save it.”  Jesus wants his followers to take up Jesus’ own cross, not the sum total of the world’s burdens.  On Ash Wednesday, we were marked with a cross that is the symbol of our own mortality and dependence on God.  That cross imitates the cross made on our foreheads in baptism where we were sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever.  In baptism, the cross of Christ becomes our cross.  Jesus is telling us that to be his follower requires something of us.  What is required is to deny ourselves, pick up the cross of Christ, and go where Jesus leads.

          In the reading from Genesis, we hear another outrageous promise.  God promise is that Abraham, who is 99 years old and has no children, will be the ancestor of many nations.  How, exactly, is God going to create abundant new life from Abraham and his elderly wife Sarah when they have not been able to have children?  God’s outrageous promise is God’s promise to keep, but the promise requires a great deal of Abraham and Sarah.  The book of Genesis tells us that God’s promise will test their faith and their relationships many times over the remainder of their lives as they partner with God to bring about this multitude of nations and follow where God leads.

          When we focus on human things, as Peter did this morning and as Abraham and Sarah do at various points in their story, we see only the impossibility of God’s promise, if we are able to hear God’s promise at all. Peter could not hear Jesus say “and on the third day rise again,” and there are points in Abraham and Sarah’s story when they cannot believe God’s promise of descendants.   When we focus on human things, all we see is death and destruction and we fail to see where we are called to pick up the cross of Christ and follow Jesus.  But when we focus on divine things, on the outrageous promise to create life where all evidence points to death, we can be part of God’s outrageous promise.  

           In baptism, we allow ourselves to be claimed by God’s outrageous promise of life.  Just as God’s outrageous promise required something of Abraham and Sarah, and Peter and the disciples, God’s outrageous promise requires something of us.  That something is to live like people who believe God has transformed death into life.  The specifics will vary for each of us, but in the words of our Baptismal Covenant, our response to God’s promise is to seek and serve Christ in all people, to proclaim the gospel with our words and actions, to work for justice and peace, and to respect the dignity of every human being.  In a world where death too often seems to have the final say, we are called to pick up the cross of Christ, follow Jesus, and do something to be part of God’s outrageous promise that the final word belongs to life.                                                                                                   

                                                                                             Amen.