September 17, 2000

Pastor David G. Mullen

Mark 8:27-38

Disappointment and struggle and sorrow are part of the human condition. We learn that early, which may account for the popularity over the years, for example, of Judith Viorst's children's book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (New York: Atheneum, 1972). Alexander wakes in the morning and says: "I went to sleep with gum in my mouth and now there's gum in my hair and when I got out of bed this morning I tripped on the skateboard and by mistake I dropped my sweater in the sink while the water was running and I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day." After a bad day at school and an even worse time with the dentist, Alexander continues his book of lamentations: "Lima beans for dinner and I hate limas. There was kissing on TV and I hate kissing. My bath was too hot. I got soap in my eyes. . . I bit my tongue. The cat wants to sleep with Anthony, not with me. It has been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. I think I'll move to Australia."

Alexander is us. We all have bad days or weeks or months when life confronts us with one blow after another. Sickness, pain, sorrow, crushing disappointment, loss, or a disturbing sense of human folly, all these conspire to bring us to a state of anger or deep spiritual pain. But rather than seek a geographical cure, suffering Christians look to our Lord Jesus and see in his suffering on the cross a symbol of our own. For we believe that with great compassion he plumbed the depths of the human condition on the cross in order to be our savior. And to give our own suffering some meaning and purpose, we may even see it as joining together with Christ’s redemptive act on behalf of the world. We bear our suffering, then, with dignity. That is what we may hear when we hear Jesus’ call to take up our cross and follow.

However, there is danger in that classic approach to the meaning of the cross. Too often Christ’s challenge to take up the Cross has been preached and accepted in the minds of the faithful as a kind of helpless acceptance of misery and submission to victimization. Then, like little Alexander in Viorst’s book, we begin a self-focused litany of disappointments, failures, health problems, family problems, financial problems, or whatever the case may be, ending with a mournful sign, "I guess I’ll just have to bear this cross."

But truth is, ordinary human suffering and disappointment do not fully express the nature of the cross Jesus urges us to accept! We need to remember that in his spirit, Jesus on the cross was anything but morose and passive. He chose to endure it. He saw it as part of his mission–the cross was the direct result of his preaching and teaching. Miguel D’Escoto, a veteran of the struggles for justice of the church in Nicaragua says it simply: "I don’t think we Christians have understood what carrying the cross means. We are not carrying the cross when we are poor or sick, or suffering small everyday things. They are all part of life. The cross comes when we try to change things. That is how it came for Jesus."

D’Escoto points to a more active view of the meaning Jesus’ call to us to bear the cross: "The cross comes when we try to change things. That is how it came for Jesus." This is no small matter! An overly passive and narrow understanding of cross-bearing over the centuries led to a result the very opposite of what Christ called us to! One of the worst things Christian communities have done is taught victimization–taught people that bearing the cross essentially means being doormats, to take abuse over and over and do nothing about it. By that I mean in particular, to do nothing about situations in which change is possible. Thus, rather than being like Jesus Christ was--a sign of hope for the poor and the oppressed, for the abused and misused–the church itself, in the name of Jesus, has cozied up to the rich and the powerful, aligned herself with oppressors and violent men, and has actually taught ordinary people to view their victimization as "bearing the Cross."

Classic example: Many women have been taught that their place in life is to passively suffer. When a woman trapped in the vicious cycle of domestic violence believes that, she doesn’t have a chance. She will continue to be battered, and very likely eventually killed. Following what D’Escoto suggests, Awful as her situation is, none of it is bearing the cross. She will bear the cross only when the day comes when someone intervenes, shows her hope so that she decides: No more! I am going to change this situation. I’m getting help. Now the husband will rage and threaten and alternately beg and sweet talk. And every doubt and every doormat teaching will scream in her mind, urging her to go back, go back to the old ways. How dare you change! You’re not being a good Christian wife! But if she accepts the true challenge of the cross, she will take up the burden and risks of a new life. She will speak the truth, and live the truth. She may even begin to work to liberate other abused women from the cycle of violence. That is cross-bearing discipleship. "The cross comes when we try to change things."

Why can we say that? Because no change ever happens without struggle. So the devil comes around and whispers in our ears: "Be careful now. Maybe you’d better leave things alone. Don’t upset the apple cart." Well, maybe we need to think about what a wise counselor once said: "Why not upset the apple cart? If you don't, the apples will rot anyway." Really, don’t we all know that misery and hopelessness are rotten company? Why do we stick with rotten company when we could be enjoying God? Because we don’t have the courage to change!

Which brings us to the Serenity Prayer: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." The cross-bearing our Lord challenges us with is a call to not only to accept the reality of suffering, but also the challenge to change the things we can.

But where do we get the courage to try to change things? Hannah Whitall Smith said it wonderfully: "The greatest lesson a soul has to learn is that God, and God alone, is enough for all its needs. This is the lesson that all God's dealings with us are meant to teach; this is the crowning discovery of our entire Christian life. GOD IS ENOUGH!" Isn’t that what Jesus was all about? Isn’t that why he died on the Cross and rose from death on Easter, to show us and the whole world in one incredible moment that "God is enough"?!

Well, then, since "God is enough" we find the courage to walk with Jesus and to take up the cross he offers: The cross [that] comes when we try to change things. Amen