Mark 8.31-38 February 24 & 25 Rev. Patricia Schutz Grace and peace from God our Creator and our Savior Jesus Christ. Tomorrow morning (This morning ) Kailyn Lee Jannusch will be baptized. She is the infant daughter of Kevin and Julia, sister to Alexis and Sierra, granddaughter of Dave and Marcie Jannusch, and the newest member of our faith community. Through birth, Kailyn belongs to her family; through baptism into the death and resurrection of Christ, she belongs to Christ, and to the church. Near the end of the rite I anoint Kailyn with oil and mark her forehead with the sign of cross and proclaim to her God s promise that she is sealed with the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever. When she gets older, she can trace the cross on her forehead over and over her whole life through to remind herself that God claims her as God s beloved child, forgiven and freed in Christ, and that God has given her the gift of community in Christ with all of us, and with all who she meets along her life s journey. She will learn, as we all do, that the abundant life God promises us in Christ is found through life together, life as the body of Christ in which each member has value, where burdens, sufferings, and joys are shared, and the Spirit of love binds us one to another. We too, can remind ourselves of our baptism, of our belonging to God, by marking our forehead with the sign of the cross, especially when we re around water. We can also make a larger cross on ourselves, a practice that at one time
2 was considered too Catholic for Protestants. Yet Martin Luther himself advocated for this practice in his instructions to families in the Small Catechism. It is a cross-shaped life we live together as the baptized people of God, people who follow Jesus. As Luther asks in the Catechism, what does this mean? Jesus tells his disciples and the crowd, If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. There are a number of ways to interpret Jesus words. We can hear the reality that in our broken world we will encounter suffering, and at times it will be forced upon us when we choose Christ s way of justice and love that opposes the empires of this world; to pick up one s cross is to be patient and faithful in the midst of these hardships. It can also mean, that even something as awful as the cross, which the Romans used as a means of intimidation and torture, can become, through God, the means for good, and so invites us to follow Jesus trusting that God is in control. It does not mean to deny our self-worth, the truth that we are beautifully made in God s image and that we matter to God. It does not mean to so deny our own need for care when serving others that we drain ourselves beyond replenishment. It is not a call to meekly accept suffering in our lives. This is a tool used by abusers. It is my cross to bear, is a phrase that implies God assigns suffering, and the cross that is meant to bring us close to God instead becomes a barrier between us and God. That s not good theology.
3 Kailyn s baptism and the practice of making the sign of the cross, and a reflection by pastor and theologian Karoline Lewis, got me thinking in another direction about Jesus words in this text. Lewis suggests that we take deny yourself literally. Think of Abraham and Sarah. They didn t deny their selves, their self-worth and value as God s people. In leaving their homeland, they denied, remaining by themselves for the sake of relationship with God and to become the blessing God promises they will be. Lewis writes, They deny a life that is autonomous, secured, enclosed, safe, and just the two of them, for a life that propels them into relationship -- with God and with a future realized by abounding relationship. To deny our self in this way means to reject our individualism, our self-sufficiency and independence anytime these parts of our self, get in the way of relationships, community, intimacy, whatever nurtures communal life together. Jesus does not want us to deny our true self. Rather, he invites us to imagine the ways our true selves are defined in relationship, how much we need the other in our lives. On the cross, God chose suffering and death in order to forever be bound up in human relationships. The cross is God s ultimate commitment to humanity. To pick up our cross is to say our life is not all about ourselves as individuals. We need each other. As Lewis says, We need each other, desperately. Intimately. Because this is what to be human is all about -- intimacy. Belonging.
4 Relationship. Attention.We can t be ourselves on our own. And when we do, it is a self-absorbed existence. Earlier I posited the question, what does it mean to live a cross shaped life. In part, it means to trust that right now, today, the Spirit invites us to turn away from (repent) sin and turn toward the cross, to turn away from self-preservation and towards self-giving love, to turn away from privilege and turn toward humility and mutuality in relationship with others. To deny ourselves in Lent can mean to give up something in order to feel more acutely the deep hunger that God puts in our hearts for God alone. It can also mean, I think, to take up a more intentional focus on the state of our relationships with others, people we know and with those God calls us to serve whether we know them or not. In a cross-shaped life, Christ reassures us it is ok to ask for help when we need it, rather than cling to pride and independence. In a cross-shaped life, the Spirit leads us out of ourselves, our self-absorption and turns us to see and serve the ones seeking our help. The Spirit empowers us to speak out for the powerless, those who are told they are worthless, to add our voices to those pleading for more love and peace in our country and the world. The Spirit gives us courage to be a listening presence for the disenfranchised without need to offer advice or assume a position of superiority, but in order to hear their stories, let them know they matter,
5 to God and to the world, and hear the ways we are complicit in their suffering. Our life is not a possession to be defended but a gift to be shared. Through Christ s death on the cross and the resurrection, God unites us with God and with all of humanity for all time; forevermore God walks with us to the cross, and beyond. God turns us to the world, gives us over and again to one another through the power and promise of Christ-centered relationships, and makes us a source of living water, living bread, for all who are thirsty and hungry for love, lights of hope and promise for those who are lonely or lost in themselves. God in God s self is a relationship of love Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God delights to pour out this overflowing and self-giving love on the whole creation, on us and every person on the planet simply because God has always, from the beginning of creation, desired to be in relationship with the creation and creatures that God made out of the love that is God s very essence. God fill us beyond our capacity to understand with this divine, cross-shaped love and some days it s all we can do to simply say, thank you. Amen. Let it be so. And make the sign of the cross on ourselves, not because it s the right thing to do, but because through the cross, God has forever and forevermore, made us right with God.