Good Little Monkeys

Baptism of our Lord, Year B
Texts: Acts 19.1-7; Mk 1.4-11

How many of you know Curious George? I hadn’t read the Curious George books since I was a kid, but now I’ve been sitting down to read them with Ada. In the little abridged board books we have, George doesn’t get up to much trouble, but in the original books, I remember as a kid being annoyed with George and all the trouble he got himself into. He does some very silly things that get him into lots of trouble. I remember thinking of him as quite a naughty little monkey.

But do you remember how Curious George is introduced at the beginning of every story? I do. I have it memorized by now! “This is George. He is a good little monkey, and always very curious.” Right there, in the first line of every book, it declares all we need to know: George is a good little monkey. When he gets up to trouble, it isn’t because he is naughty or malicious or stupid; it’s because he’s curious. These are the two things that define who George is: he is good, and he is curious. Everything George does in the story—including the mischief he causes—he does because he is good and also very curious.

Read more: Good Little Monkeys

I think about that today as we read this story from St. Mark’s gospel. Like Mr. and Mrs. Rey, who wrote the stories about Curious George, Mark wants us to know two things about Jesus right off the bat. The first is that he’s the Son of God. It’s right there in his opening sentence: “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, God’s Son.” The second is what we hear in Mark’s story today: not only is Jesus God’s Son, with all the power and authority that entails, he is God’s beloved Son, with whom God is well-pleased.

The stories we read for the next several weeks will all show how the people he preaches to, the scribes and Pharisees, and even his own disciples struggle to figure out who this Jesus character is, where he comes from, who gave him the authority to say and do the things he’s saying and doing. While they’re trying to figure that out, Mark wants us to know that everything Jesus says or does, he says or does because he is God’s Son and because God loves him and is pleased with him. Just like Curious George, this introduction tells us how to interpret what we read next.

That’s important information for us to know because when Jesus says and does these things as God’s beloved Son in whom God is well-pleased, it also means that these things he’s saying and doing teach us something about who God is. Jesus is the apple who doesn’t fall far from the tree, as they say. When Jesus responds with compassion, that’s because that’s how God responds. The things he says about the kingdom of God are things that God wants us to know. He’s not acting on his own; he’s coming with the express purpose to reveal God to us. Remember on the first Sunday in Advent when Isaiah prayed, “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down”? Well today, that’s exactly what Mark says happens: the heavens are torn open as Jesus is revealed as God come down to be among us.

And that means that, when he goes and asks John to baptize him in repentance for the forgiveness of sins—even though he is sinless—he’s showing us something about who God is. I wonder what that could be. Isn’t it interesting that God’s own Son asks to be baptized by John alongside all the other people from Jerusalem and the whole Judean countryside? Does he feel that he, too, needs forgiveness for something? Or maybe, since we share this baptism with Jesus, the story is telling us something about the baptism that we have in common with him.

But what I notice most in this story is that it is in receiving that baptism—whether he needed it or not—Jesus himself hears the voice of God declaring to him that he is God’s beloved Son, in whom God is well-pleased. In Mark’s version of the story, there’s no indication whether anyone besides him heard it; maybe they did, but we simply don’t know. What we do know is that this Voice is not speaking about Jesus, but rather to Jesus: “You are my beloved Son. In you I am well pleased.”

Remember, this is the beginning of Mark’s story. Unlike all the other gospel stories, there is no mention of Jesus’ birth, or of his preexistence as the Eternal Word of God. For Mark, this is where Jesus’ story starts: with his baptism and with this declaration. Mark wants us to read the rest of Jesus’ story in light of these two realities—Jesus’ relationship to God and his belovedness—but I also wonder if perhaps Mark might want us to notice that these two realities are the way God wants Jesus himself to understand the rest of his own story. I wonder if Jesus’ relationship to God—his sonship—and his belovedness are the two things that make him able to do everything he’s about to do. I wonder if those two realities are what invite him to do those things.

If that’s true for Jesus, I wonder if it could also be true for us. We often talk about our baptism as our entry or admittance into God’s family, but the reality is deeper than that, isn’t it? Aren’t we all created by God, regardless of our religion or beliefs, regardless of whether we’ve gotten our heads wet? Are we baptized for God’s benefit, so God can adopt us? Or are we baptized so that, alongside Jesus, we can hear the Voice speak those words and know that they are for us; so that we can hear those words and let them change us?

I wonder if baptism can be like that introduction in the Curious George stories, inviting us to read our own stories and the stories of others as God reads them: always starting with the knowledge that all people are children of God with whom God is well-pleased from the beginning, just like our brother Jesus. What if, instead of looking at people as either “good” or “bad,” baptism is invitation to recognize the goodness and belovedness that God sees when God looks at us? What if our baptism allows us to look out and see a world filled with “good little monkeys” who sometimes get into trouble?

Those of us who have been baptized have the advantage of having heard this proclamation loud and clear from our Family in Christ. Our communities of faith are God’s Voice declaring to us that we are God’s beloved children in whom God is well pleased. At least, when we’re at our best, we are.

Because we forget that sometimes, don’t we. It’s easy to get so caught up in what we should be doing and how we want to be living that we can start to feel like we’re not enough, and like other people aren’t enough. It becomes very easy to judge others for their sins or their poor choices, and I can’t help but wonder if those judgments are rooted in our own fears of God judging us and declaring us unworthy.

I notice in the story from Acts that the disciples of Jesus that Paul finds in Ephesus were baptized with John’s baptism of repentance. In other words, like all the people who came to see John, they knew that they fell short of God’s vision for their lives and needed forgiveness, needed God’s help to point them in the right direction. But I wonder if what they were missing—and what Paul gave them—was the opportunity to hear the same words that Jesus heard: “You are my beloved children. In you I am well pleased.” I wonder if that good news might have been what gave them the experience of God’s Holy Spirit.

Maybe there are disciples of Jesus here today, right in this room, or watching this video, who have lost sight of that truth. Maybe you’ve become so focused on what you’ve done wrong in your life that you can’t see what is right: that you are God’s beloved child, well-pleasing in God’s sight, just as you are. No matter what you do or don’t do, what you believe or don’t believe, that never changes. God sees all of who you are—even the messy, ugly parts you try so hard to keep hidden, the parts you are afraid make you unlovable—and God loves all of it, all of you. When we talk about God’s judgment, it’s the judgment of whether what we do to ourselves and one another that is life-giving or not. God doesn’t judge our actions to determine whether God will love us, but because God loves us.

And because that love comes from God, it changes us. It recreates us. In the beginning, God’s love created everything that exists; and it is constantly at work on us now, recreating us. Because God loves us, God is making us into new people, giving us new life through our baptism and the profound truth that we are well-pleasing to God as we are.

Right after Ada was born, somewhere in those first few days, one of us started calling her “Sweet Pea.” But before long, I decided that she isn’t just any sweet pea: she is the Sweetest Pea! She is the Sweetest Pea, the best baby, because we love her. We don’t love her because she’s the best, she’s the best because we love her. And the same is true with God. God doesn’t love you because you are well-pleasing; you are well-pleasing because God loves you with everything God has. God’s love makes you pleasing to God. Nothing else matters. That is why you are good little monkeys and very curious: you are God’s sweetest peas.

This is my question to you: knowing this truth about yourself, does it change how you see yourself? Knowing this truth about the people around you—your neighbors, your friends, the people you don’t particularly care for, that politician you can’t stand—does it change how you see them? Because they are also God’s Sweetest Pea, just like you.

The Kingdom of God is for Losers

19th Sunday after Pentecost; Lectionary 27, Year A
Texts: Phil 3.4-14; Matt 21.33-46

What does Jesus’ parable make you feel when you hear it? It makes me feel sad. I feel sad for all the people who are beaten and killed. I feel sad for the landowner who, even if he gets the produce from his vineyard, will never have his son back. I even feel sad for the bad tenants. I wonder, what causes them to behave the way they do? They’ve this nice vineyard to live in and work, and a share of its produce to support themselves; but they want more. Why? Are they convinced that what they have is not enough? I wonder, will anything ever be enough for them?

Of course, the story is hypothetical, but the characters aren’t. The slaves Jesus’ speaks of are the prophets: ridiculed, beaten, and killed by the religious and political authorities who didn’t like what they had to say. Those leaders are the tenants, who aren’t being good stewards of the nation—the vineyard—with which they have been entrusted. So I wonder; do these leaders, with all their wealth and power and influence, think that what they have isn’t enough? Are they afraid?

Read more: The Kingdom of God is for Losers

I notice that, at the end of the story, the chief priests and Pharisees want to arrest Jesus, and I wonder if that might be because they are afraid of him, afraid that what he’s saying will undermine their own power or authority, that people will listen to him instead of them. I also notice that they can’t arrest Jesus because they are afraid of the crowds. So much fear.

When we are afraid, our first instinct is to protect ourselves, isn’t it? I imagine the Pharisees and leaders in the gospel stories constructing these large edifices out of their good deeds and good qualities, castles to protect themselves against the judgments of others. But then, here’s Jesus, chipping away at the very stones with which they’ve built those castles.

Perhaps that’s why they want more: more power, more control, more authority. Maybe they’re afraid that what they have is not enough; but will they ever have enough? The more we have, the more we fear losing. It’s why we have locks and alarms and security cameras to make sure that nobody else takes what we have, why we all build these magnificent castles for ourselves out of our merits. But instead of monuments to our righteousness, are they really just testaments to our fear?

Reading from Paul’s letter today, I hear something different. Paul actually seems to be almost boasting about how much he’s lost. Well, lost isn’t the right word. Reading his letter, it sounds like he couldn’t get rid of all that stuff fast enough, like he realized that it was hurting him more than helping him. And what he’s talking about losing—his Jewish heritage, his religious zeal, his legal obedience—it’s all the same things that the Pharisees and chief priests are trying to protect by arresting Jesus. While they are building castles from theirs, Paul can’t flush his down the toilet fast enough. Why is Paul so happy to be rid of what they are so afraid of losing?

In a nutshell, Paul says it’s because as long as he was trusting those things, he wasn’t trusting God. That sounds about like what Jesus says, doesn’t it? The very people who are supposed to teach others to trust in God are teaching them to trust in something else; so, God will look elsewhere for teachers. All that has me wondering: do we ever do that? Do we ever end up trusting in ourselves more than in God? Do the things we value most ever actually keep us from seeing God?

Think about it this way: what makes someone a good Christian? Is it how often they go to church or pray, or how much they put in the offering plate? Is it how they treat people? Is it keeping from drinking or smoking or cussing or playing cards? It can’t be any of those things, can it? Because what makes someone—anyone—a Christian is following Jesus. All that stuff may come about as a result, but the moment we start using it to measure ourselves or one another, we’re trusting those things more than we’re trusting Jesus.

That’s why Paul says he figures everything is a loss, and his only goal, his only desire, is to forget everything that lies behind and strive for what’s ahead. He mean he’s not going to waste time boasting about how great he is or the wonderful things he’s done, nor is he going to waste time regretting his mistakes or missed opportunities. Each step he runs forward is a step closer to the finish line.

St. Francis, whom we remember today, decided that his wealth was actually coming between him and God, so he gave it all away. He owned nothing but the clothes on his back and the shoes on his feet, and whatever he did have he shared. He found that it made him feel free, for as he said, no one can steal what is given freely! That’s a bit extreme for most of us, but if you notice, it’s the same thing Paul was writing about Jesus last week. He had everything, he had equality with God, and instead of hoarding or using or abusing that power, he gave it away; he emptied himself. In that emptying, Paul said, he received the greatest glory imaginable. We might read that to mean that God rewarded for his perfect obedience, but I wonder if Paul might trying to suggest that the emptiness itself was its own reward.

Remember those Pharisees; with all they have, they are deathly afraid that it won’t be enough. Does that fear ever attack you? I have a friend who not long ago had a serious health scare. In the heat of the moment, when they thought that they might be dying, the question they asked over and over again was “Have I done enough with my life?” I wonder how many of us might harbor that same fear. Have I been a good enough person? Have I achieved enough with my life? Have I done enough for my family, my friends? Have I left enough for my spouse or my kids to survive on when I’m gone? Will God really accept me, with all that I’ve done?

As we build our castles and kingdoms from the stones of our merits, what do we do with the stones that are rejected, all our failures and moments of weakness, all our poor choices and our shameful character traits, all the dark, disgraceful, damaging things about ourselves that we would rather hide? Maybe we cast them down the hill, hoping nobody will notice. Maybe we pile them carefully inside, hoping to hide them. Maybe those are the stones we are most likely to throw at others. Who are we hoping to convince of our own righteousness, our own goodness? Everyone around us? God? Or are we trying to assure ourselves?

Jesus quotes Psalm 118: “The stone that the builders rejected as worthless has become the most important stone of all. This is the Lord’s doing, and what a wonderful sight it is!” What we reject as broken, shameful, unclean, and scandalous—as we rejected Jesus—God takes and makes the foundations of God’s love for us. Those are the stones with which God paves our way to heaven.

It’s only when we realize how little we really have that we can see how much God loves us. As long as we are able to point to the “good” things about ourselves, we can believe that we are worthy of God’s love. We can trust those good things instead of God. But when we run out of good things, when all we have left are the wretched, the broken, the empty things in our lives, then we can see that God still loves us—not because we deserve it, but because love is what God is, what God does. God’s love for us is what makes us worthy of love, not our piety or good behavior, not our faith or our belief, not our character. All of our best merits are imperfect, but God’s love is perfect. God’s love makes the wretched, broken, empty people who we already are perfect, whole, alive.

That is what grace means. I think that is why Paul couldn’t get rid of his credentials quickly enough; because once he understood God’s love, everything else was just in the way. It was still his, but he didn’t need it anymore. I wonder if it’s possible for us to get to that point, too: to the point where all our good works and good qualities and the like can still be ours, but we don’t need them to feel powerful or important or loved; the point where we can see ourselves and others around us as God sees us. I wonder if that’s what the kingdom of God is, what salvation means.

If it is—if that place of being able to see with God’s eyes is the vineyard in Jesus’ parable—then maybe it’s worth pondering whether we are already there. Maybe we’re already the tenants of this vineyard, already at home in God, if only we have the eyes to see it. What kind of tenants are we? Do we constantly fear losing access to this vineyard, to being cast into the outer darkness if we fail to pay the rent or at the slightest provocation toward the landlord? Or are we the kind of tenants that joyfully share the produce of the vineyard at the harvest time? What kind of tenants do we want to be?

The Best Seat in the House

12th Sunday after Pentecost (Lectionary 22), Year C
Texts: Prov 25.6-7, Heb 13.1-8, 15-16; Lk 14.1-14

Last week we heard a story remarkably like the one that begins the gospel reading this week. Jesus healed a woman on the Sabbath, something that some Pharisees, at least, believed to be in violation of the Sabbath work restriction. In that story, Jesus shamed his opponents; in this one, he appears to have none. When he asks them about the legality of his action, nobody responds. Surely, they had opinions—powerful people always have opinions on things—but nobody says a word. I wonder why not?

Chasing the Wind

8th Sunday after Pentecost (Lectionary 18), Year C
Texts: Eccl 1.2, 12-14, 2.18-23; Col 3.1-18; Lk 12.13-21

What does it mean to be “rich?” The answer to that question is pretty subjective. We would probably all agree that Bill Gates and Elon Musk are rich, and that the person panhandling on the corner is not, but just where between those two extremes the tipping point lies is up for debate. Still, I bet we could probably all agree that the answer is “someone with more money than me.” Heck, I’ll bet even Bill Gates might say, “I’m not rich, but Elon Musk? HE’S rich!”

Whatever it might mean, we know from the outset of Jesus’ parable that the man in the story is, without a doubt, rich. And yet, as rich as he is, it is not until after this windfall harvest he experiences that he finally feels that he can rest. Interesting, isn’t it? We might think that someone who’s rich wouldn’t ever have to worry about having enough, but it appears that this man does. I wonder why that is?

Unpacking the Beatitudes

Audio Recording of “Unpacking the Beatitudes” recorded in worship (14:21)
4th Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A
Texts: Mic 6.1-8; 1 Cor 1.18-31; Matt 5.1-12

Jesus begins his Sermon on the Mount with this series of statements we call the Beatitudes, or literally, the “blesseds.” What quickly becomes apparent is that Jesus idea of what is a “blessing” is very different from ours. Few if any of the beatitudes listed here are what any of us would consider “blessed.”

None of these virtues are not the typical kinds of things that we aspire to, that will help us get ahead in life. It is the bold, the strong, the clever, the quick-witted who succeed. All too often, it is also the deceitful, the arrogant, the callous, and the brazen. The meek, the mournful, the pure-hearted, the peacemakers… these are the ones who are used, abused, walked over and discarded by the ambitious on their way to the top.

If these beatitudes are not about being successful, then perhaps they are about being saved; perhaps Jesus is telling us what we must be and do in order to enter the kingdom of heaven. It would certainly fit with Matthew’s theme; the first part of his gospel tells the story of his own call and the call of his disciples before he gathers them on this mountain to teach them about what it means to be disciples. Matthew sees Jesus as the New Moses—a child rescued from the murderous intentions of a frightened king, a Jew who came out of Egypt. In this scene Jesus, too, delivers the law from the top of a mountain.

That’s how many of us have been taught to read this text: not as beatitudes, declarations of blessing, but as “be-attitudes:” attitudes that we must be. With a text this familiar, it is hard to hear it any way but the way we’ve always heard it. We listen to Jesus naming off blessings, and we try to compare ourselves to his list: “Am I meek? Am I pure in heart? Am I a peacemaker?”

How to Lay Down a Life

Delivered at Our Redeemer’s Lutheran Church in Benson, MN. Easter 4B – “Good Shepherd” Sunday
Texts: Ac 4.5-12; Ps 23; 1 Jn 3.16-24; Jn 10.11-18

I once heard a story of a father and his two children who were hiking in the mountains late one autumn. They were caught in a sudden storm and were forced to seek shelter in a small cave. With no way to make a fire and the temperature falling rapidly outside, the man knew they would all freeze to death if he could not find a way to keep his children warm.

The wind was howling and the mouth of the cave, though small, was letting out precious heat. So, the man curled himself up in the opening to block the wind and the rain. The two children slept through the night, and in the morning, the family was discovered by a search and rescue team, but during the night, the father had frozen to death protecting his children from the fury of the storm outside.

As Christians, we are accustomed to talk of sacrifice. We are very familiar with the idea of giving one’s life for the benefit of another out of love. This is the primary narrative that we use to understand Jesus’ action on the cross: Jesus took the punishment that should have been ours for our sinfulness and died so that we might live. Just like the story of the father and his children caught in the storm, this story stirs in us the image of a God who will stop at nothing to love us and save us, even to the point of dying for us.

What’s really interesting is that this is not in our reading today. Nowhere in John’s gospel does Jesus talk of being punished on our behalf or of dying so that we might live. What he does say is that “God so loved the world that God sent the Son so that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3.16) and “The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”

I think it is important that we ask ourselves just what it does mean to lay down one’s life. Jesus talks about laying down his life four times in this short section of John we read today, and our reading from the first letter of John mentions it again. We hear that Jesus lays down his life for us, and that this is why God loves him. Jesus says later that there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends (John 15.13), and we hear that we, too, ought to follow his example and lay down our lives for one another.

Clearly, I cannot forgive anybody’s sins or grant everlasting life if I die for somebody else, and yet the authors of John’s gospel and letters writes that we ought to lay down our lives just out of love as he did. Our actions imitate Christ’s.

The community that wrote, collected and recorded John’s gospel and letters did not regard Jesus’ death as what saves us. Jesus himself refers to his crucifixion as his glorification, not our salvation. In John, it is Jesus’ life that saves us, not his death. Did you hear what Jesus just said? “I lay down my life in order to take it up again.” Jesus died so that he could come back from the grave, and in so doing, prove that even death is no match for God’s saving love and power. Easter morning is God’s definitive answer to our question, “Where is God?” God is right here next to us, breathing on us, eating with us, being mistaken for the gardener or the store clerk or the window washer. God is alive, and because God lives, so is our hope, and so are we.

This is the power of Easter. This is the extent of God’s love. The amazing thing is not that Jesus died for us, but that he lives for us. This is why we celebrate Easter! Instead of dying for our sins and leaving it at that, Jesus came back for us. He broke the lock and smashed the door of death, leaving it hanging askew on its hinges waiting for us to follow him through.

So, in light of Jesus’ resurrection, just what does it mean then for Jesus to lay down his life for us, and for us to lay down our lives to one another? Normally, we have taken these words to mean that our lives should be lives of sacrifice, lives lived for the good of others, even when it means suffering for ourselves. Certainly, this is true, at least to a point. Christ himself endured shame, suffering, and death on the cross to rise for us. But this idea has justified wars and violence as we strive to assert our will over others “for their own good,” has been used to condone abuse and shame as we believe that our suffering is how we “take up our cross and follow.”

There is so much more to the idea of laying down one’s life than simply dying. When we are encouraged to lay down our lives for one another, we are being asked not to die for one another, but to live for on another, just as Christ did. Sometimes, this means following in Christ’s path, suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune for the sake of proclaiming the gospel, being willing to die for what is good and right.

But sometimes, it means recognizing when God is calling us to stand up  and refuse to be somebody else’s doormat. Sometimes love requires us to deny others instead of enabling them. Sometimes, we are called to care for ourselves because nobody else will.
You see, we all have moments when we need to put our own desires aside and help those in need, times when we need to empty ourselves to fill somebody else. In those moments, we embrace hardship to promote peace and fullness. But there are also moments when we are the empty ones, when others take away our power and our dignity either willingly or unconsciously for their own benefit. There are times when we are victims, when we are the lost sheep.

It is in these moments of powerlessness when the gospel of Christ and the joy of Easter are a message of empowerment. With Jesus, we proclaim that nobody else has the right to take our lives from us. When we suffer from a loved one’s addiction, when we bear the brunt of an abusive relationship, Christ bids us not to come and die, but to drink and live.

“I came that they might have life,” Jesus says, “and have it abundantly.” (John 10.10) The love Jesus commands us to have for one another—God’s love—always seeks this abundant life, and always strives to change us for the better. Sometimes that love calls us to endure pain and suffering in order to bear out that love to another, but sometimes that love calls us to rise up and take power for our lives back from those who have taken it from us. Jesus, our Good Shepherd, has done both of these. He has proven the extent of his love for us in his resurrection, not his death; he has laid down his life in service to us, not in suffering.

So how are we to know when “laying down our lives” means suffering and when it means refusing to suffer? Listen for the voice of the Good Shepherd, seek after Jesus’ example. When love brings abundant life and changes us and others for the better, that love is worth dying for; more than that, it is worth living for! But love that offers no abundant life but only pain and shame instead is no substitute for the love of God. To those who know this kind of destructive love, Jesus himself opens for us a way back to God’s love that is not blocked even by death itself.

Jesus is the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep. In calling us to lay down our lives for one another, he asks no more than he himself has done, which is to abide in the love of the Father. “I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly,” Jesus says, “I am the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep. I lay it down—nobody takes it from me—and I take it up again.”

The Cross is Obedience, Not Suffering

Delivered at Trinity Lutheran Church, Pottsville, PA. Lent 2, Year B.
Texts: Gen 17.1-7, 15-16; Rom 4.13-25; Mk 8.31-38

Over the years, Christians have devised many various and imaginative ways to hurt themselves. There’s the cat-o’-nine-tails, of course, a whip with nine ends, usually with knots or barbs on the end, for whipping oneself while in prayer. Then there’s the cilice, a belt of metal barbs to be worn around the arm or thigh to induce pain. Some have even gone so far as to nail themselves to crosses for periods of time. I could go on, but you get the picture.

I mention this because it is the verse we hear today about taking up our cross and following Jesus that we use to justify and even encourage practices like these. We feel that there is some redemptive aspect to suffering, some purifying and cleansing way in which suffering makes us worthy of God’s grace or helps us to atone for our own sinfulness.

However, though some might find some purifying aspect of pain, this idea that our own suffering can be redemptive is not only false, it is blasphemy and heresy. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews writes, “It is by God’s will that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. (Heb 10.10)” Christ suffered and died on the cross for sins not his own so that we would not have to pay for those sins. To suggest that we, as ordinary people, can purify ourselves or make ourselves worthy by suffering when Christ, the Son of God, could not, is only blasphemy and idolatry of ourselves.

And yet, verses like this one are used to justify everything from spiritually punishing our bodies, to staying in an abusive relationship. For years priests and pastors have counseled battered spouses to stay with their abusers, and to “suffer with Christ,” that the abuse is their “cross to bear.” In order to see why this is wrong, let us examine what Jesus means by these words.

Immediately before telling his followers to take up their crosses and follow, Jesus tells them that they must first deny themselves. We think of denying ourselves in terms of giving up things or avoiding pleasure, but this is not what Jesus says. He says we are to deny our SELVES, and he says this in response to Peter’s reaction to Jesus’ prediction of his passion and death.

Jesus knew that he would suffer and die for bringing God’s message to humanity. He knew that there could be no other outcome because our broken, sinful world, this adulterous and sinful generation, is hostile to God and to the gospel, which is God’s message of love to us. To avoid death, Jesus would have had to either hide or recant the gospel, neither of which would have served God’s purpose in sending him. Even though Peter was speaking out of love for his teacher, out of fear for his safety and well-being, Peter’s mind was set on human things: preservation of life, saving Jesus’ honor, victory over their opponents. Jesus rebukes him because he does not have God’s bigger picture in mind.

When Jesus asks his followers to deny themselves, he asks us to put God’s will ahead of our own goals, our own ambitions, our own plans. Peter’s human way of thinking told him that in order to win, Jesus had to survive and continue to preach. God’s plan had Jesus being true to his message and bold to the end, being completely obedient to God and faithful to the gospel no matter what, in the end proving that human authorities, this world, even death have no power over God and God’s children.

To deny ourselves, then, we must put aside our own concepts of right and wrong, of victory and defeat, of good and bad and trust completely in God’s will and in God’s ways. We must throw these perceptions and attitudes away like the dung they are, for they are constructions of this adulterous and sinful generation, habits and practices and ideas that we have learned from living in a broken world. It is only then that we can truly follow Jesus.

When we deny ourselves, when we allow our actions and our attitudes to be governed not by our own wants and desires and appetites, but instead by God and the gospel of love, we will find that in order to follow God’s way, we are often forced take up a cross, just like Jesus did. The cross does not refer to any and all suffering, but the hardship and opposition and shame we face for not being complacent in this world, for not simply following the herd, for marching to the beat of a different drummer, one pounding out a heavenly cadence.

God does not want us to suffer, either at our own hand or at the hands of others; any such suffering grieves the heart of God. Nor did Jesus did die on the cross because God wanted him to die. Jesus died on the cross because the powers and the systems of this world, because humanity, demanded it; because we could not bear the message of Christ’s gospel: that God loves the world and everyone in it so much that God sent the only Son to be present with God’s people in this adulterous and sinful generation and to proclaim to those broken people that they are the Beloved of God.

You see, when Jesus warns us about being ashamed of him and his gospel, he is not warning us about the consequences of not “witnessing” to everyone we meet, he is warning us about not realizing that even at our dirtiest, wickedest, and evilest, we humans are the Beloved of God, that though we deny and nullify our worth to one another through our sins and our evil ways, God has deemed each of us worthy enough to send Jesus to take us by the hand and teach us the way of God, even when that meant that God would have to endure the death of God’s only begotten Son.

In verse 37, Jesus asks, “Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?” What is there that is worth our individual lives? What is each one of us worth? Even as the Son of God asks this question, God the Father answers, and that answer is Jesus himself. Jesus died on the cross by our hands for sins that were our own, and in that very act, God, instead of seeking retribution and justice upon us, forgave us our sins.

So, you see that taking up our cross is not about suffering in solidarity with Christ or even about gladly bearing any and all pain in this world. Denying ourselves, taking up our crosses and following Jesus is about living out our lives as a response to what our Creator has done for us in sending the Son to give us the gospel, God’s love letter to humanity, signed in the blood of the Lamb. As we live our lives in response to God’s love letter, we can do nothing but acknowledge our own worth and the worth of everyone around us in the eyes of God. By submitting to cruelty and injustice, by allowing others to abuse us and shame us or anyone else for no reason, we are dishonoring the Beloved of God, we are cursing the creation, and by extension, the Creator.

Because Jesus has shown us the extent of God’s love for us, we will stand up boldly and declare for all to hear the all-surpassing value that God has assigned to all people, and we will gladly suffer any shame or derision or pain which comes upon us for bringing that message to the world. God wants all humanity to know that we are loved, and that God wants our love in return, and not even death will keep that message from being told. Even if we must endure the shame, the suffering, and the humiliation of the cross, we will follow Jesus and proclaim this message to the world: God loves you this much <stretch out arms as on a cross>.