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| Taking up our crosses requires a leap. |
Jeremiah
20:7-13
Psalm 69:
8-11, (12-17), 18-20
Romans 6:1b-11
Matthew
10:24-39
©The Rev. Seth Olson 2023
Holy and undivided Trinity, One God, let my words be your words and when my words are not your words, let your people be wise enough to know the same. Amen.
What I am about to say may be the most unpopular and (dare I say) controversial thing that I have ever said from any pulpit. I think it is not just okay, but even sometimes good (meet and right) when sporting events end in a draw. Maybe this is because I grew up playing soccer and there were many times when a well-fought 1-1 or even nil-nil (that’s zero-zero) stalemate was the most fitting outcome. You who are shocked by such an un-American concept are not alone. The title character from the series Ted Lasso agrees with you, as he said, “If God would have wanted games to end in a tie, she wouldn’t have invented numbers.” Despite Ted’s protestation, I believe forced dichotomies—like winning or losing—can be antithetical to a God who is three-in-one and one-in-three. That’s why I try to see the world not through an either/or lens instead opting for a both/and view.
While I firmly believe that life is not typically an either/or choice, that life is not even like a multiple-choice test, that almost always more than one way exists to solve a challenge, it would seem that Jesus, in today’s Gospel account, is more in the Ted Lasso camp. Jesus has a completely different way for us to follow clearly articulating a dichotomous pathway of discipleship. Back in Jesus’ day, because of following him, family members were turning on each other. This was not seen as problematic, instead Jesus named it as inevitable—even going so far as to say that he had come to bring a sword instead of peace. The penultimate statement of this passage delineates a binary choice: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” Jesus’ words sound crystal clear: choose me or choose your family.
Now the last time I preached on this passage back in 2017, Kim and I were about a month and a half away from Teddy’s birth. Jesus’ either/or choice was a challenge then, but now that we have two children and have lived through a move to Birmingham, a global pandemic, and so many other transitions in life, I feel angry that these words appear in the Gospel according to Matthew. Jesus seems cruel here. Yes, I am sure we all have a family member or two—that creepy uncle or that annoying cousin—whom we would gladly leave behind for Jesus. And yet, Jesus’ way here of being exclusionary to our family runs counter to so much of the Good News. So, the question must be asked: is this what Jesus said?
When Matthew and his community came together to write down this Gospel account they did so in a very particular context. Soon after Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension, many believed the Way of Christ was simply an offshoot of Judaism. These ragtag followers of Jesus believed some outrageous things that many Jewish people struggled to comprehend. Namely, these disciples thought that the hope of the People of God had become incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth, that he fulfilled all the law and the prophets, and that even death had been destroyed through the power of the Cross and empty tomb! We’ve heard these claims so often that they might sound mundane to us 21st Century American Christians, but to First Century Mediterranean audiences, especially Jewish ones, these words were preposterous.
I can empathize with the people of Israel who would have not only given Christians an odd glance, but also would have thought there’s no way that God had fulfilled all the promises from Hebrew Holy Scripture in the person of Jesus. Things were still wrong. People were still suffering. The Romans were still occupying Israel. How could all things be fulfilled if this much brokenness was still present?
So many Israelites would have believed this way of Christ was way out of touch with reality. Thus, many members of the Early Church would have been standing up to their parents, or perhaps the other way around with parents converting as their children wanted to keep the way of the Torah. In this world then, an either/or choice seemingly existed: Family or Jesus.
Maybe Jesus said these exact words as presented here by Matthew. There are some scholars though that believe this is an example of the phenomenon known as transparency. When the words of Jesus were presented in such a way that they spoke more closely to the realities of Matthew’s community (forty years after Jesus’ Passion) than to the realities of Jesus’ earthly ministry (around the year 30) this is an example of transparency. Let this bit wash over you as we explore what Jesus said after this statement about family.
He added on, concluding this passage with an enigmatic declaration, “Whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” Buried in this statement about taking up the cross, following Jesus, and losing one’s life for Christ’s sake—buried in this statement a mysterious kernel hides that pushes us to see the choice of family or Jesus differently. The way of Jesus is always the way of the Cross. As much as I yearn to see the beauty and benefits of this way—taking up one’s cross still stands out as deeply painful, profoundly difficult, and requiring one’s entire life. And, I believe that when we give up everything, we receive in return an overabundance of God’s bounteous grace!
This is the crux of Our Faith. We are called to be like Jesus, the Christ, who completely emptied himself. Leaping off that ledge of certainty, we are called to offer everything such that God might take, bless, break, and give our lives back to us anew, transformed, and fulfilled. This is the path of Christ.
And this way of the Cross pushes us beyond a worldview of either/or. If we are cynical though, we might jump to the conclusion that Jesus himself only had a couple of choices in taking up the cross: On one path, Jesus could have become a victim in the moment—taking on the suffering of the cross to an unhealthy point identifying only as powerless and persecuted. On another course, Jesus could have become a victimizer in the Resurrection—avenging his death by paying back those who betrayed, tortured, and killed him, but there is no Bible Part Two: Jesus’ Revenge.
God took neither of these roads, instead walking a third way not victim nor victimizer, but instead redeeming the world through self-emptying love. When Jesus asks us to pick up our crosses and follow him, we are not being asked to make an either/or choice. No, instead we must do something much harder.
The way of Jesus requires us to give up our usual way of seeing the world and living in it. We must take up the sword that Jesus speaks of not to cut others out unnecessarily and certainly not to inflict physical harm. Instead, God calls us to discern how we might more closely follow Christ by cutting away material items, unhealthy relationships, selfish tendencies, and all that serves only our false selves. We must practice a type of living martyrdom in which we give up how we would otherwise be living, so that we might take up our crosses and follow Christ. Does this mean we abandon our families, our friends, or our communities? By no means!
Two chapters after this passage, Jesus went on to say, “A house divided [against itself] cannot stand.” On the surface, today’s passage makes it seem like Jesus wanted to bifurcate families; however, the larger scope of the Good News of Christ Jesus points toward a third way. Think about this: when Jesus synthesized all of Hebrew Scripture he said, “Love the Lord, your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind and love your neighbor as yourself.” Here he was answering a question about the greatest commandment. He did not give the greatest commandment, instead he offered three simultaneous commands. My interpretation of it is that we love God by loving our neighbor. We love our neighbor by holding up a true image of God who is both self-differentiated and self-giving, who loves us freely and fully, who is as immediate as our very breath and as transcendent as multiverses light years away. We love our neighbor as ourselves—implying we love ourselves by being a part of the life of God in community.
Much of the culture around us wants us to believe that everything is either/or: black or white, male or female, rich or poor, old or young, weak or strong, gay or straight, cis or trans, Christian or not, Protestant or Catholic, typical or atypical, Alabama or Auburn, us or them. This is even how some people make their living. By scaring others into believing that if you are going to be a part of us you must buy this, buy into that, or cut them out. This is not the way of the Cross—this is not the way of Christ.
As one scholar put it, “This entire [passage] is finally about the radical choices that constitute the life of discipleship [that is following and learning from Jesus]. To forsake lesser loyalties is to risk social death in hope of a new kind of life. The image most adequate to this wager is the cross and the life it promises beyond, NOT INSTEAD OF, such dying.”[1] To live life in Christ you have to risk the death of your current life, but there is life beyond—here and now—and it is eternal life.
God will always find a way to break down the barriers of either/or that our world clings to so forcefully. The question is are we in this church going to help God break down those walls to co-create a both/and existence in this life? May we take up our crosses giving our lives to God, so that God might take, bless, break, and give our lives back to us anew, transformed, and fulfilled. Amen!
[1] Lance Pape “Commentary on Year A Proper 7 Matthew 10:24-39” in Feasting on the Word: Year A, Volume 3. Eds. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor. (Louisville KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 169.
