28 August 2011
Matthew 16:21-28
"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 will find it.”
Anyone who has attempted to make themselves understood in a second, acquired language knows the difficulty, and the importance of culture and context in making oneself understood. How many American exchange students in Germany have blundered, in an effort to communicate to their host family that their room is too warm, said: “I am hot—Ich bin heiss,” only to later realize that what they actually said was “I am enflamed with passion.” That would explain the Teutonic laughter.
When we read scripture what we are actually reading is a translation of a transcript, which was itself translated and transmitted orally, so it is always possible that we have lost something in translation.
“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” The idea of “taking up the cross,” and the phrase “my cross to bear,” have become commonplace in our language. So much so that we hardly give the phrase a thought. We think we know what it means: to endure something unpleasant, because God apparently requires suffering.
As in, yes, my husband beats me, but that’s just my cross to bear.”
Yes, I have an addiction, but that’s just my cross to bear.”
As if there is something singularly redemptive in enduring suffering, and something selfish and sinful in standing up and casting it off.
Well, I think that’s just messed up.
The actual Greek phrase could mean take up your cross, and considering the death that Jesus died, in hindsight that translation seemed to make sense. But literally, it says “take up your stick,” or “pull up your stake” as in, “strike camp.” Pull up stakes, get ready to go, don’t get comfortable here. Get moving!
Considering Israel’s history as a migrant people, following flocks and herds across the land, and considering that Jesus frequently used pastoral images, this interpretation seems just as likely as the traditional. And, even more so, considering how the Hebrew Scriptures emphasize the preservation of life. God moves to preserve life. When Joseph was reunited with his brothers in Egypt, he reflected how God was at work in his story, to preserve not only his life, but his brother’s lives, to save their lives and preserve their future. Throughout the arc of scripture, God intervenes to save life. But often saving life requires letting go of everything else, even, in Joseph’s case, freedom.
I think “taking up your cross,” or pulling up stakes, is more about preserving life than losing it. Or rather, more about preserving life that is real life, casting off a half-life or a living death. It’s about being ready to give up certitude for truth, and comfortable slavery for untested freedom.
What it looks like, in practice, is cutting the ties that bind us to abusive relationships, and stepping up and out into a new life. Abuse is no one’s cross to bear.
What it might look like, in practice, for the one who suffers from addiction is confronting that addiction, which is not an essential part of who you are, but a demon to be vanquished or a parasite to be purged from your system. Addiction is no one’s cross to bear.
What “pulling up stakes” looks like for each of us, we have to work out for ourselves, by asking, “What is it that holds me down? What is it that holds me back from life that is really life?” Ask not “What am I willing to die for,” but ask “What am I willing to live for until I die?”
So let us contemplate what the Spirit is telling the church, about how to live. Amen.
