Lent
Focus Scripture: Mark 8:34-35 (NRSV)
He
called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want
to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their
cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose
it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of
the gospel, will save it.”
Sunday's
Scripture: Mark 2:1-12 (NRSV)
When
he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was
at home. So many gathered around that there was no longer room for
them, not even in front of the door; and he was speaking the word to
them. Then some people came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried
by four of them. And when they could not bring him to Jesus because
of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; and after having dug
through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay. When
Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins
are forgiven.” Now some of the scribes were sitting there,
questioning in their hearts, “Why does this fellow speak in this
way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” At once
Jesus perceived in his spirit that they were discussing these
questions among themselves; and he said to them, “Why do you raise
such questions in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the
paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and
take your mat and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of
Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” —he said to the
paralytic— “I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your
home.” And he stood up, and immediately took the mat and went out
before all of them; so that they were all amazed and glorified God,
saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”
Sermon:
Let
us pray:
Patient
teacher, we give you thanks for this season of Lent, a season set
aside for helping us turn back to you. This Lent, we will study in
particular how to take up our cross and follow you. So through the
words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts, speak truth
anew to us, and inspire us to follow you. Amen.
On
Wednesday, I had planned to put us all at ease by joking about how
uplifting the Gospel of Mark can be. And then today, our story is
actually pretty uplifting--- literally, right? But let's revisit that
passage from the eighth chapter of Mark. Here's Jesus, talking about
denying ourselves, about how only if we want to lose our life, we
will keep it. The passage from the eighth chapter of Mark is a hard
one, that illustrates that Jesus is not always interested in making
us feel better.
Instead, sometimes Jesus wants us to be
better. He insists: “If
any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up
their cross and follow me.”
Almost
everything I have read says that to take up your cross means to take
up suffering and death. Jesus himself explains that we have to deny
ourselves, and that taking up our crosses has to do with losing our
lives. Again, the Gospel of Mark doesn't really make my job easy, for
me. This Gospel message isn't exactly what I would call good. Except,
in the same way that Jesus is not concerned about making us
comfortable, he is not interested in promoting doormat
theology either.1
Doormat theology is when we think God wants us to be doormats, so
sweet that we just let people walk all over us, or a kind of robot
theology, where we think God wants to erase everything about us that
makes us unique and different and reprogram us to be mindless,
submissive robots. Taking up our crosses, denying ourselves, losing
ourselves is not about turning us into doormats or robots. Instead,
it is about love.
That's
why we are going back in the Gospel of Mark this morning, all the way
back to the second chapter, to this story of five friends. This story
is more uplifting that the passage about taking up our crosses. But
it is one of the passages that most embodies taking up our crosses, I
think. It is fairly literal after all. The four friends are taking up
the physical burden of their fifth friend. But it also links taking
up our crosses with love.
We
don't know much about these five friends. We don't know if they grew
up together, we don't know if the one friend has always been
paralyzed or if not how he became paralyzed. Later, when Jesus tells
him his sins are forgiven, we don't know what sins Jesus is talking
about. We just don't know. But we do know that at least four of the
five friends, the four who carried the fifth, have great faith.
That's what Jesus sees when the fifth man is lowered before him: four
friends, itching and dusty from digging through the thatched roof,
arms aching from carrying the fifth friend so far and then so high,
but four friends with faces full of expectant certainty. Jesus saw
faith in these faces. And I think we can also see in those four
friends the faces of those who have taken up their crosses.
You
see, “To deny yourself and take up your
cross invites us into what the cross can also
mean--- not just death and suffering, but God choosing human
relationships.” We see the cross, and we think blood for our sins.
But that's not all the cross means. “The cross represents God’s
commitment to humanity.” Through prophets for years, God tried to
reconcile God's people, tried to draw us close to God, show us the
right way to live. And over and over again, humanity ignored God, or
botched the message somehow. “The cross represents what we do when
we are not in relationship with the other and think only for
ourselves.” That is the death of the cross--- the cross is the
desolation of disconnection. But God followed us even there. And so,
for us to take up our crosses is not to take up needless suffering,
but to choose connection in spite of suffering. To choose
relationships--- with God and with one another.2
Those four friends entered into the suffering of the fifth, and chose
to love him, to be in relationship with him, and to seek healing with
him, just as Jesus did for all of us when he took up his cross.
And
just as you have done for me and Aaron this week. They often say that
you aren't supposed to be open about miscarriages and fertility
issues because it makes people uncomfortable. They don't know what to
say. Well, we don't know what to say to someone with cancer, either.
So I burdened all of you with the suffering Aaron and I endured this
week, and still with which we still struggle. I don't think that our loss is a cross
we have to bear though. The cross that I have seen people take up
this week with our struggle is the cross that those four friends took
up for their paralytic friend. I have seen people enter into our
suffering, as uncomfortable as it is, to be ears to listen to me
recount what happened, or to bring cake for Aaron's birthday, or to
sing Adele songs really loud and off-key to make us laugh, or to lift
us up in prayer daily and wrap us in hugs. Many of you have called to
check on me, or offered to pick up something I was supposed to pick up, or meet with someone I was supposed to meet just to ensure I could stay at home and rest. You have
lifted us up, pointed us to God's love in a situation where we are
more likely to feel only absence. Though we have felt strangely
hopeful and at peace, you and our family and friends have been
digging through the roof with us to help get us to Jesus' healing
presence.
Something
similar is happening throughout the county in the wake of the
horrible tragedy just next door in Abingdon. People are reaching out
to one another, as those friends reached out to the one in need of
healing--- just as the Officer Daily reached out to the shooter
before he was murdered. Not only to the families of those suffering
such horrible losses. But there was a story posted to the Harford
County Emergency Facebook page that goes like this:
I wanted to share something beautiful that happened to
the husband of one of our coworkers here at the 911 Center.
Her husband and his friend (who are both officers from a
local Maryland law enforcement agency) went into a local business
yesterday.
They were approached by a young boy and his mom who
shook their hands and said how grateful they are for what they do.
They also presented them with this gift card.3
There
was a picture of the gift card to Dunkin Donuts lying on top of a
beautiful handmade card that said, “Thank you for all that you do.”
Here a young boy and his mother reached out to a complete stranger,
adding a little love in the world. He was doing his part to get us a
little closer to Jesus' healing presence.
Let
us not forget that the instruction is not just to take up our
crosses, but to take up our cross and follow Jesus, to follow the
Messiah. This is the center of the Gospel of Mark, perhaps the
declaration and response on which the whole Gospel turns. If Jesus is
the Messiah, then we must follow him. The five friends know this, and
their faith directs them, guides them. Lent is the time of year that
we too return to this journey.
I
am passing out crosses today, a physical reminder of the direction
Jesus has given us. But this Lent, I ask that you don't sit at home
alone, holding the cross in your hands and praying. Yes, prayer is
integral to our Lentan journey. But so is relationship. I want this
cross to be a physical reminder for you to take up your cross. I want
you to pray, certainly, but I want you--- I want us--- to take up our
crosses by reaching out to one another in our need.
Who are you being called to be a friend to, to take up your cross
for? Who has taken up their cross for you? In what ways can our
church take up our cross for the community? I invite us now to
reflect on these questions in a time of prayer.
1David
Lose writes: “Here I should be clear. I’m not taking about –
and I’m quite confident Jesus isn’t talking about – a kind of
doormat theology where we are to ignore our genuine human needs
altogether or see ourselves as not deserving of love, dignity, and
respect. And so there is no justification here for enduring abusive
relationships or tolerating injustice. Rather, I’m talking about
giving of ourselves in love – which is of course quite different
than having others take from us. And that giving in love almost
always includes sacrifice, denying ourselves and our immediate
gratification so as to meet another’s needs.”
http://www.davidlose.net/2015/02/lent-2-b/
2The
quotes in this paragraph are from Karoline Lewis, “A Different
Kind of Denial,” Dear Working Preacher, 22 February 2015, Working
Preacher, accessed 10 February 2016,
http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=3542.
3Posted
on the Harford Emergency Management Services Facebook page 12
February 2016, accessed 13 February 2016,
https://www.facebook.com/HarfordCoEM/photos/a.426143164142866.1073741825.346613205429196/964900593600451/?type=3&theater
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