Take Up Your Cross
Mark 8:27-38
Sunday, May 13, 2007

It’s Mother’s Day! I don’t generally tell Mother’s Day stories, my mother being very much alive and liable to check on my stories. But today I actually have a story that involves my Mom and taking up your cross.

No, really, I do!

My mother made a point to me about Jesus once when I was pretty young. For reasons not clear to me now, one Sunday when I was about eight years old, my family visited a Lutheran church in town. We had been attending the Congregational Church – perhaps my parents were unhappy with the pastor of the Congregational church – I don’t know – I can’t imagine that happening in my ministry, of course! Anyway, we got to the Lutheran church on Sunday morning and my brothers and I were duly sent off to Sunday school where, much to our surprise, as newcomers, we were presented each with a small gift box. When class was done, we were allowed to open the boxes and out of each one came – a glow-in-the-dark cross!

When you’re eight years old, how cool is a glow-in-the-dark cross! My brothers were pretty excited, too. Imagine all the things you can do with a 4”glow-in-the-dark cross! Sword fights after bed-time! You know – take that – my Jesus is better than your Jesus! All of this, of course, right after bed-time prayers. When you’re an eight year old boy, you don’t worry much about inconsistencies in your own theology.

Still, that Sunday there was Mom to be dealt with. My brothers and I had a vague sense that Mom was probably not going to be all right with this, so the cross boxes went in our jacket pockets. (Back in that day we wore jackets and ties and white shirts to church!) All was fine for a day or two until one of the little gift boxes appeared in the laundry. That very evening at dinner, the box appeared at the table in my Mother’s hand and the grand inquisition began.

What did I know? It turns out that families like ours do not keep glow-in-the-dark crosses around the house. We were Congregationalists. Congregationalists wear our Jesus on the inside, not on the outside. Congregationalists follow Jesus the man and not Jesus the jewelry.

I remember wanting to ask – So, what were we Congregationalists doing in a Lutheran church on Sunday? But clearly my part was to listen and learn, not to ask pesky questions.

Next day after school my brothers and I took up our crosses and were marched down to the Lutheran church office where we returned our gifts, box and all, setting them on the desk of the church secretary.

Well, forgive the pun about taking up your cross, but my point is that we all come to the name of Jesus with a certain amount of history. In my own case, my history was that I got pretty clear pretty young that I wasn’t supposed to wear Jesus on the outside. But that didn’t actually mean that I knew anything about him on the inside! So, over the years a lot of my own spiritual journey has been getting to know Jesus on his own terms – his love, his laughter, his anger, his incredible confidence in his Father God, his willingness to go where no one ought to have to go, his invitation to follow him, and, most importantly, his generous love.

Do you think there have been some surprises and some shocks along the way? You better believe it!

The main surprise has been to discover that I’m not entirely in charge of my own life! Hello! Once you let Jesus in on the inside (I found out), stuff happens in your life. Once you really hear Jesus say to you: I know what everybody else is saying about me, but Peter, who do you say that I am? That’s different. That’s when I began to open up to new possibilities.

For my part, getting to know Jesus has been like packing for a journey. Does anybody besides me ever pack way too much stuff? Extra socks and underwear? That book you’ve always thought you should read? So you end up either lugging stuff around with you – or you start tossing some of it as you go.

For me, it’s been like that with Jesus. I started with too much baggage, and then I got down to essentials. When I began the journey with Jesus, there was this whole world of stuff I thought I needed to know before I could follow him. I needed to check out the church and see if the church was really following Jesus. I needed to read good books that got fine reviews about the historical Jesus so I wouldn’t make any mistakes about him. I needed to find the right prayers to get Jesus to pay attention to the things I thought were important. All that was part of my journey!

But at some point, I stopped with all the “stuff.” I just stopped. I realized that all I really wanted was to ask Jesus to love me and to show me how to love as he does. I wanted him to love not just the good and admirable in me, the stuff I like to put on in the morning, but all the other stuff, too – the craziness, the wrong, the sad. If he could love all of me, you see, then perhaps I could learn to love that way, too.

Do you remember how Jesus responds to the lawyer in Mark 12 who asks Jesus, what’s really essential for the journey, what do I need to bring with me to get to the kingdom of God? Jesus says, Love God, love your neighbor as you are loved. That’s it. Not fix or control the world. Not beat the world into shape, but do what Jesus does. Love the world where it touches you, and thereby transform it.

Anybody else have a hard time taking in a love so generous and then loving as generously? I can’t do it alone. Can you?

The good thing, the wonderful thing, is that I’m not alone in it. Jesus says to me: Take up your life and let me lead. I will show you how.

There was an odd story on the sports pages a couple weeks ago. It’s about knowing you can’t do it by your lonesome, no matter who you are or how gifted you may be. I don’t often quote the sports pages, but this story has stayed with me. Some of you noticed that the New England Patriots football team signed perenial star and bad-boy wide receiver Randy Moss. The Patriots are known for discipline; Randy Moss is reputed to dog it when the chips are down. The Patriots don’t boast; Randy Moss struts. So – not a good match, right?

Randy Moss held a news conference and said some interesting things. Some of what he said was defensive and sort of whiny, but some of it was really interesting. Here’s a big-time talent that knows he’s been wasting his time. Randy Moss would like to work with Patriots quaterback Tom Brady and Moss is willing to take a substantial pay cut – and loss of some independence -- to do it. That’s big. He may not be a philosopher, but there’s some sorting out going on in his noodle. Moss indicated that what’s essential to him is knowing his talent isn’t enough and he can’t do it alone. He not only needs Tom Brady’s passes – he needs Tom Brady’s focus, Tom Brady’s vision of the field, Tom Brady’s confidence in the game. To be a truly great wide receiver, he needs a great quarterback. To score, he needs to let Brady lead.

Are you with me? No matter how talented you are, you’re not going anywhere you truly want to go alone. Somebody’s got to lead you. The question is: Who?

Sports analogies don’t work for you? Try this one! It’s a story about letting Jesus lead. I remember some years ago I read a story about a woman who worked in a hospital washing floors. She washed floors in a nursery where there were babies in trouble – born crack-addictred some of them, others born with HIV AIDS. It hurt her heart to see these babies nobody really wanted just lying there. So late in the night when nobody was paying attention she would pick them up, one at a time, and walk around the nursery with them in her arms. Jesus told her to love the little children, she explained later.

She got in trouble, to be sure. She’s not a nurse, didn’t even have a high school degree. Imagine the liability! Jesus just told her to love the little children. She was going to lose her job until somebody noticed that some of the babies were unaccountably living longer!

Shocking news, yes!? Babies need to be touched, even if they aren’t just “right.” Eventually she got funded to run a day care center for infants in crisis. Just picking up and walking little kids up and down that nobody else seems to want to touch.

Did she do a great thing? For those kids she did. Can you imagine what a great thing of God it is to have somebody pick you up in a world that doesn’t know what to do with you? Pure grace, is all.

Here’s the thing. When Jesus says, Take up your cross and follow me, I believe he means, Pack what is essential and then let me lead! And what is more essential than loving as you are loved?

Let Jesus lead! Don’t know how to take in all that love? Let Jesus show you how. Don’t know how to be as generous with your love? Let Jesus show you how. Don’t know how to let go of past history? Let Jesus show you how. Don’t know where you are going with all this? You will. Follow him and he will show you what you are here for.

It’s not that hard. It’s not as hard as you think. It begins when you say out loud – loud enough so you yourself can hear! – Jesus, I want to love as much as you love me!

My mother was right, after all. It’s not the cross that ought to glow. It’s the Christian. When you know what you’re here for, you glow. Especially in the dark. In the end, what else would you rather do?

Thanks, Mom!