A Sermon Preached by the Rev. Deana Frances Dudley

at Holy Fellowship Metropolitan Community Church, London, Ontario

and Christos Metropolitan Community Church, Toronto, Ontario

16 March 2003 - Lent II (Year B)

I like this bit of Psalm 22. It’s hopeful. It’s uplifting. It’s positive. It speaks of a God who is faithful and present. A God who saves. But it’s not the whole story. Anybody who’s ever suffered knows that’s not the whole story. Heck, anybody who’s HUMAN, knows that’s not the whole story.

See, the lectionary portion of the Psalm that we read is just that – a portion. It’s part of a much longer Psalm, and it starts out with some words that may be more familiar to you, which are not nearly so hopeful and uplifting and positive. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

Does that line sound familiar? Matthew and Mark report that it’s what Jesus said just before he died on the cross. [One of the things that a couple of folks noted after watching the first installment of our Lenten Film Fest, Jesus of Nazareth, is that the people of Jesus’ time seemed especially well-versed in scripture. Zefirelli portrayed that pretty accurately in the film... and] Jesus, being a good Jewish boy, was well-versed in Jewish scripture, and I’m guessing he most likely knew Psalm 22 by heart.

Anyhow, the Psalm starts out with "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" And it goes on in a similar vein... "O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest." And further: "I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; my mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death. For dogs are all around me; a company of evildoers encircles me. My hands and feet have shriveled; I can count all my bones. They stare and gloat over me; they divide my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots."

Again, this sounds familiar doesn’t it? Also sounds pretty depressing. Pretty painful. Sounds like suffering, to me! And we’ll hear about it again on Good Friday, [and we’ll see it Holy Week during our Film Fest,] because that’s what happens to Jesus on the cross. In fact, some folks have suggested that it was Jesus looking down from the cross and seeing the Roman guards casting lots for his clothing that brought Psalm 22 to his mind, and caused him to cry out in such human extremity, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Because he knew that Psalm very well.

I think, though, that he also knew the part we read today. The part that speaks of a God who is there, a God who doesn’t abandon us. A God who’s in it for the long haul. A God who suffers with us when we suffer.

God IS with us when we suffer.

Which is a good thing, because the suggestion in the Gospel lesson that we read (Mark 8:31-38, where Jesus teaches the disciples to "take up your cross and follow me") is that we ARE going to suffer. One way or another, we’re going to suffer. I’ve heard it said that "Suffering is inevitable. Misery is optional." And I think, to some extent, that’s true. How we deal with the suffering that we encounter is going to determine whether or not we’re going to be miserable about it. But the suffering part really IS inevitable. Being human pretty much guarantees it.

And, what Jesus is saying to Peter and the other disciples is that he’s going to be, not a conquering hero, a Messiah to overthrow Rome with arms, but a suffering Messiah, one who draws all the suffering of the world into himself. And if we’re going to be followers of Jesus Christ, that has implications for all who would be called his disciples. "If you want to follow after me," he told them, "you’re going to have to forget yourself, carry your cross, and just follow. ‘Cause if you try to save your own life, you’re going to lose it,.... but if you lose your life for me and for the gospel, paradoxically, you’ll save it."

When I was, oh I guess in high school, a new modern translation of the New Testament was published. I guess the whole Bible is out now. It was called, at the time "Good News for Modern Man." Now I think they just call it the "Good News Bible." And it had some line drawings by a woman named Annie Valloton that are just beautiful in their simplicity. And she illustrated this passage with a line drawing of a whole crowd of followers are carrying literal crosses.

Some are large, some are small. Some look very heavy indeed. They all look kind of alike, but if you look closely, they’re all just a little bit different. Everybody has their own unique cross. And all these people carrying crosses are following in the footsteps of one who seems to have gone on ahead. I like that.

For us a cross is a beautiful ornament. We need to remember that for those first hearers it was an instrument of death. To deny oneself and follow Jesus isn't like giving up eating ice-cream during Lent. "Deny" is the same word used to describe Peter's denial of Christ. Remember, when Jesus was arrested, Peter said "I never knew the man. I’m not with him. I’m not risking anything for him." So denying ourselves might mean something like, "I DO know the man. I’m with him. I’m risking everything to follow him."

And THAT’s the hard work of discipleship. And while for some people, as history has demonstrated, discipleship has meant, and will continue to mean physical suffering and even death, that is not what discipleship is all about. That is not the purpose of discipleship. That is NOT what is meant by picking up our cross and following Jesus.

One commentator has put it that "Jesus’ submission to God’s will is the proper response to God’s claims over the claims of self. For him it meant death on the cross. Those who follow him must take up their cross – not HIS cross – whatever comes to them in God’s will as a follower of Jesus."

Confronted with this passage, which suggests that suffering WILL happen, most of us react just like Peter. But we need to know that the reality of suffering is not simply a pious desire to imitate Jesus; much of what is truly worthwhile can be accomplished only by those who are willing to trust Jesus’ word that suffering belongs to God’s plan. In a "pain-killer" culture, a balanced understanding of suffering is difficult to achieve. Yet Jesus sets out the challenge for us to think as God does, not as human beings normally do. Jesus’ healing miracles and his compassion for the crowds at the feeding miracles make it clear that God does not delight in human suffering.

Sometimes, I think we think that if we pray enough God will remove all trials from our lives. A family with an alcoholic member might be pressured to "pray harder and they’ll come around," rather than supported in caring for the person and finding the right treatment. We’ve all read stories of parents who refuse to get medical treatment for a child with a life-threatening disease, convinced that if they pray the kid will get well. And the kid getting worse doesn’t seem to convince them that perhaps God is trying to tell them something else. That’s grasping the concept of Jesus as a worker of miracles, and failing to grasp the concept of the cross. Prayer is important in healing, but prayer is an opening up of ourselves to what God wills, not an exercise in forcing God to do our will. And discipleship means following God’s will.

This doesn’t necessarily mean suffering as Jesus did or being crucified as he was. Nor does it mean stoically bearing life’s troubles. Rather, it is obedience to God's will, accepting the consequences without reservations for Christ’s sake and the sake of the gospel.

All our crosses are different. We don’t get to play "comparative crosses" with one another. Her cross is bigger than mine. He doesn’t have to carry NEARLY as much as I do. Because suffering isn’t the point. God never intends pain and suffering without a purpose. Indeed, I have a strong suspicion, that God never intended pain and suffering at all, but that’s a topic for a whole ‘nother sermon.

I believe that God’s response to pain and suffering is the suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ. Jesus doesn’t just identify with our suffering from the distance of heaven but actually experiences our plight, and he does so out of obedience to God. The famous German theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, claimed that "only a suffering God can help us." Meaning that only a God who suffers with us can understand us enough to reach us. I think that’s true, but I would caution one thing about that, though.

We need to understand that God’s real love is mutual regard, and not simply self sacrifice. Some Christians have taken the ever-so-noble ideal of "self-sacrifice," and consciously or unconsciously allowed it to be misused by the powerful against the not-so-powerful. It’s one thing to say, I’m offering up this suffering. It’s quite another to tell someone else to offer up theirs. I think in those circumstances, they can justifiable tell us to stuff it.

We only have something to say to those who are suffering, those who are oppressed, those who have heavy crosses to bear, when we proclaim the life, and teachings, and suffering, and death, AND resurrection of Jesus Christ in solidarity with them and with their suffering. Telling someone who is oppressed and suffering that self-sacrifice is the ideal to strive for is just not an appropriate way to communicate God’s love. Because, in the end, the Cross is a very paradoxical symbol. It’s not like a guillotine or a gallows. It’s not JUST a symbol of suffering. It’s also a symbol of wholeness and life and it probably could only survive as a central symbol of Christian faith because of that simultaneous dual meaning.

Because through his suffering, Christ’s ultimate solidarity on the cross proved that there is no place God cannot go for us, no place outside the reach of God’s love. In other words, Jesus died to reach into our suffering and through our suffering, to become completely vulnerable to touch us where we are most vulnerable, to reach us in our suffering, suffering the pain and rejection of crucifixion in order to come to us, to enter into atonement – "at-one-ment" – with us. That’s the sense in which I believe Christ died for us – not instead of us, but FOR us, joining in supreme solidarity with us and with our suffering as human creatures.

What should be our response to the suffering, death and resurrection of Christ? The church and the Christian life should be patterned after the cross. Just as the way of Christ was through a cross, Christ's followers must also experience the shadow and suffering of the cross. Carrying our own crosses.

When I think about that, it’s a little scary. I don’t really want a cross of my very own. But then I have to remember, I’m not Jesus. My cross may not be the same as his. Carrying our crosses and following him doesn’t necessarily mean suffering as Jesus did or being crucified as he was. Nor does it mean just stoically bearing life’s troubles. That’s not discipleship. Following after Jesus Christ means doing God’s will without reservation, proclaiming God’s message without counting the cost.

God's loving vulnerability in Jesus Christ thus provides us with a realistic model for Christian living in this world. Being vulnerable necessarily involves risk, pain, and loss. But I believe God never intends pain and loss without purpose. As in the Psalm that moves from "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" into a proclamation that God has transformed the Psalmist’s suffering into praise, God intends for our pain and loss to be transformed (as they have been, in the cross), to transform us, and thus, through us, to transform the world.

Most holy God, source of joy, soul of love, help us to hear Jesus out when he tells us about carrying a cross in your name. Please give us the desire to to seek to do the right thing even when it costs us dearly, and keep us, always, following the life and teachings of Christ. Amen!

Home   

Prayer_Requests   What's Happening     Who_We_Are     Where_We_Are     Why_We_Are   How to Contact Us