I’ve had some unusual and unique experiences as a Minister but one of the most jarring requests I have received came from a woman I had met many years before when I presided at her wedding. The marriage did not work out and from there things went from bad to worse. I had met her for coffee to discuss her challenges but nothing seemed to be improving, more heartache followed more heartache. Then one day she asked if I would preside at her funeral. I was worried, was she considering suicide? Had she received a troubling diagnosis? She quickly put that concern to rest, “No silly, I have too much to live for and I am perfectly healthy, at least as far as I know. I have come to believe that who I was needs to die so that I can make room for a new me to come to life. I am not starting over, I am dying to who I was so I can be born to whom I am becoming.”
We met to discuss the liturgy, the rituals that we might access to help her piece this experience together. She was a Christian, though she was quick to say that aboriginal spirituality and Buddhist practices were equally part of her spiritual inventory. We would gather in her kitchen, with all of her friends and together we would say goodbye to her old persona and welcome her new identity to the world.
She asked me if I would preach a short sermon, and so I did. In front of 20 people in a small kitchen I read the Christian texts:
I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God…Galatians 2:20
Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Romans 6
He (Christ) must increase, but I must decrease. John 3:30
The New Testament is rich in language about death to self and being born to new life in Christ. It was not hard to find prayers, readings, even songs, about this woman’s intention. In my sermon time I did caution this woman and her friends that life is a gift, that while it is good to celebrate new life and renewal and profound change that what has come before remains with us. Try as we might to escape our old selves there is part of us that stays intact. I shared that while there are parts of me I am pleased to leave behind there are other parts of me that have been constant from birth. Even those parts we have purposely left behind are not to be totally disparaged, they too were once a gift. I can look back and roll my eyes at my former self but know there was a lot of good that came from part of me.
I knew this woman wanted to move on, she wanted to leave her unhappy former self behind and live into this new adventure. I did not want to discourage her or dampen her sense of renewal and change. But I worried she was dismissing too easily parts of her that were good and worthy of praise, parts she might reconsider at a later date. I did not want her to lose that, to degrade that to pass it over too quickly.
Our text this morning is yet another in a long line of reminders that God makes changes in our lives. If we can open to it faith can and will deepen our experience of mission. Mark Skinner, New Testament Professor at Luther Seminary in St. Paul Minnesota, gets right to the point: Jesus announces just what he wants from his followers; self-denial and cross-bearing. Now we see where this road of discipleship will lead: in losing one's life, and ironically thus to save it. Self-denial is not primarily about squashing our desires or delaying gratification. Jesus calls us to separate ourselves from what defines us. A person in Jesus' culture was defined by those to whom he belonged -- usually household or kin. Jesus calls people to embrace new understandings of identity. Disciples join a community defined by association with Jesus; they enter a new family comprising of Jesus' followers. Self-denial is not self-annihilation, but complete redefinition. Self-denial does not mean seeking or embracing abuse for its own sake, as if suffering itself is redemptive or a mark of virtue. Jesus has spent over seven chapters alleviating needless suffering or oppression whenever he encounters it; how could he be endorsing these things here? Do not allow this text to perpetuate or excuse victimization. The kind of suffering Jesus acknowledges as a reality in this passage (verse 35) is a particular kind: persecution resulting from following him.
I think Skinner gets to the heart of Jesus’ call for self-denial, sacrifice and discipleship, to “take up our cross and follow”. The call is less about self-flagellation, beating one’s self up morbidly, repeatedly, as if our life-giving God, our Jesus of abundant life, our Spirit of the living God wants all Creation to harm itself. What nonsense, what heresy, what destructive and sinful talk! Rather what Jesus calls for is a redefinition of family, of kin, of who is us and who is them, of creating space and connections to those previously dismissed as other. Turn away from previous arrangements that tore you away from your kin and toward your own narrow selfish interest and toward a new and deeper relationship with others, your new family.
Skinner’s point is this, such a redefinition will cause you hurt, pain, it will cost. Moving away from selfish and narrow definitions of whom we can or should love toward those whom previously were outside the accepted boundaries of love always comes with a price. My friends in prison ministry, who offer love to people with criminal records, are often looked at with suspicion. Try standing up at a community meeting to voice support for a halfway house. Your neighbours will not necessarily be cheering your name. Try advocating for support for people from other countries, you’ll hear a lot of “charity begins at home” and “we should take care of our own.” House a refugee the government deems to have no cause to be here and you could see the police at your door.
When I finished the evening service in the kitchen with a woman sitting at her table as 20 friends looking on in support, I asked everyone to join hands. I explained that whatever had just happened the end result was a new identity, that for that new self to take root our friend would need support, community and new family members. I offered a prayer of thanksgiving for family, God’s family of sisters and brothers, caring and supportive of new life. Something new had truly come to life. Families always have room for more. Amen.