Lent is a curious time. In nostalgic terms, it is still known for what we give up, usually very personal and lifestyle things, like chocolate, sweets, alcohol, etc… I confess, when I started to take my Christian faith more seriously, in my late teens and early twenties, I found the questions, “what are you giving up for Lent” strange. I had taken this course, at Dalhousie, with renowned thinker, George Grant. At the end of his teaching career, and in very poor health, he had assigned our large class the assignment “read one of the four Gospels and write a 20 page essay on what you discovered, what ideas and challenges pressed upon you?” The course was cross-listed in the Political Science-Philosophy-Religion faculties. The content reflected this.
I was struck then, and now, by the demands Jesus placed on his followers, not pious ones like giving up treats, but rather this notion of “taking up your cross and following him”. The cross had and has a very specific meaning to Christians, it speaks of Jesus’ death, the punishment only the Roman Empire could visit on those who were a serious threat to the Empire. Thus, to “take up your cross” had a very seditious feeling to it. In the western culture, it is safe, even conventional, to have Christian faith as our formation. No one in our culture goes to jail for being a Christian, much less for witnessing to its merits. And when we do push back at our government for policies that challenge our faith, like my pacifist Christian friends who refuse to pay taxes to support a military, the penalty is less physical threat and more a public shaming for being disloyal.
There are some more hardcore Christian conservatives who argue their opposition to gay and lesbian rights is a form of “taking up their cross” but their commitment to paying some price for this witness tends to wane when the details of their opposition is revealed. For instance, those who claim scripture as their guide are surprised to know Jesus does not speak of such matters, though he is not a fan of divorce and remarriage. The latter revelation tends to undercut those opposed to gay and lesbian rights when they themselves are divorced and remarried, or their kin are.
When we stand up, to be counted, there will be a cost. For me, “taking up the cross” means being prepared to speak up for those being demonized in polite society. I have numerous conversations, with a wide range of people. In those dialogues there is bound to be times when I misspeak, when others say things that are hurtful to those who are not present. When we speak up, we put ourselves in the crosshairs, we become one “of them”, and suffer some of the consequences, isolation, rage, slurs, even threats. In some cases, if those who are angry have leverage, the institutions we work with or for are at risk. The temptation for silence is great. To “go along” is often the safer pathway. But Jesus would have none of that. He carried his cross to the end.
Lent cannot be just about ourselves. We have defined our identity as that which is connected to Christ and to a community of believers. We don’t do Lent alone. Lent is this radical communal experience in many ways. People willing to wear crosses on their foreheads when buying groceries. People willing to talk about their Lenten disciplines — out loud, even to strangers. Why? Because we realize it’s not just about our own selves. Lent is a denial of the self in the best way, the self that refuses community. The self that thinks it can survive on its own. The self that rejects the deep need of humanity — belonging.
Jesus’ charge is not a demand to deny your true self. It’s an invitation to imagine that your self needs the other. Desperately. Intimately. Because this is what to be human is all about — intimacy. Belonging. Relationship. Attention. To what extent we barely know ourselves without all of the above in our lives, without others in our lives acknowledging, regarding who we are. We can’t be ourselves on our own. And when we do, it is a self-absorbed existence. It is to be become narcissistic in its truest form, where those around you are only pawns to placate your self-perceived power and importance. The denial of self? It’s embracing the truth that you can’t live in this world, you can’t live your life, without your self being in relationship. A different kind of denial indeed.
This is good news. But it is not the kind of good news that most people seem to be seeking–at least not initially. It’s not the kind of good news and instruction that’s going to stand out in the self-help section of your local bookstore. You won’t find it trending on Facebook. You won’t read about it on magazine covers in grocery store checkout lanes. It has nothing to do with losing weight, finding a mate, filling your plate. And it sure isn’t about self-actualization, get-rich quick schemes, or career advancement. But it is good news. It’s about life abundant.
And frankly, fellow followers of Jesus, I don’t think we should be shocked to find it surprisingly difficult to share this life-changing, mind-blowing, radical way of living and being. We do a pretty good job of “doing” church, even as what it means to “be” church in this world invites our contemplation and reassessment. We have lovely buildings, good worship, myriad programs, even though most of us aren’t packing folks in like the good old days. This is how we do things, right? Well, yes, but perhaps the obvious is right under our noses this week.
This dilemma is nothing new, and perhaps that can give us hope (or at least assure us that we’re not alone in our shortcomings and failures). Even Jesus’ first and closest followers had some pretty strong ideas about how things ought to be and how the Messiah should behave, and they were more focused on the glory road and the halls of worldly and religious power than on losing it all. Sound familiar?
The good news Jesus is sharing in this week’s gospel sure doesn’t sit well with Peter, and it probably doesn’t really sit very well with most of us if we’re honest about it. This is good news that doesn’t sound very good. It’s flat out tough and designed for the downwardly mobile. Forget the ideal career trajectory or keeping up with the Joneses. The follower of Jesus is called to put his or her own self-interests aside and focus on the cross of Christ. This notion runs completely counter to the way the world works; hence Jesus’ harsh response to Peter and to the rest of the gathered crowd, and indirectly to us today.
The way of the world will never ultimately satisfy because there will never be enough: power, money, fame, stuff, social media followers, whatever. The way of the cross is not about self-flagellation, destructive behaviors, or irresponsible actions. It’s not even about pie-in-the-sky eschatology or the threat of being left behind. (Oh, no!) Following Jesus and denying self is about something much more demanding. It’s about being “all in.” It’s about a 100 percent commitment to use your gifts, skills, talents, and resources to share the gospel and live into God’s reign right now. Following Jesus is about publicly proclaiming with your life’s witness that Jesus matters–more than anything else–and in him is the source and wellspring of abundant life. Life with Jesus at the center is full of the things that money, power and prestige never provide. With Jesus comes real love, limitless hope, deep relationship, radical generosity, and true power in the upside-down, inside-out vision of God’s ultimate design for this world.
All-in discipleship is a choice to yoked to Christ in, with, and among a body of fellow believers that is imperfect, sinful, redeemed, dying and rising daily to new life, and wholly committed to being the hands and feet and heart of our Lord right now in a particular place. It’s the beloved community that together loses individuality to take up this new way of being more than we could ever hope to be alone.
Here’s the deal: I think many Christians have the “deny yourself” thing all wrong. AND, I think they are missing the rest of the formula, because we never talk about it. First of all, the Greek word translated “deny” is the same one used to describe what Peter does with Jesus around that campfire. Remember? When asked, Peter said he didn’t know Jesus, had no connection with him. In fact, these are the only two uses of the word in the entire New Testament: Peter denying Jesus, and Jesus saying we must deny ourselves. What does this mean? Well, first of all, I think it is clear that Jesus is NOT saying that we have to give up this or that, or try to forget our normal human needs, or live some ascetic life. (We can choose to do those things, for various reasons, but that’s a topic for another day.) “Deny yourself” is not about self-abnegation. In fact, it’s harder than that.
The key is the verse before. To deny yourself like Peter denied Jesus is to set aside your own interests in order to ascertain God’s interests. It is to state that, in effect, you do not know You, and since you don’t know You, you also have no idea what that You person would want. Thus, you are ready to do what God wants. BUT — and this is critical — the verse doesn’t stop there. “And follow me.”
And…when we follow, we find. When we “take up our cross” and follow we discover we are not alone, others are on this journey with us, we are being set free from that which divides us, separates us, from the love of our Creation, the ground of our being (as Paul Tillich famously said). This challenge sets us free, opens us up to the presence of God’s love in the other, even in us as we become whom we were meant to be. Join us on this rocky road to freedom and new life. Amen.