Pick up your cross

As we travel through Mark’s Gospel in the Lectionary this summer, we arrive, with eleven weeks until the First Sunday of Advent, at the beginning of the first climax of Mark’s Gospel. The end of Chapter 8 and the beginning of Chapter 9 are in my mind the most fascinating and compelling parts of the Gospel until we get to the Crucifixion and (reported but unseen) Resurrection in Chapters 15 and 16.

More times than I can count I have stood before groups and written reflections on this passage and challenged my audience to answer Jesus’ question “Who do you say that I am?” and I do think that that is the fundamental point of this passage. We are meant to answer him. We are meant to search within ourselves, listen to the voice of God, and, when we are called by the Spirit, to say with Peter, “You are the Christ (Messiah).” But perhaps equally important is Jesus’ teaching on what it means to be the Messiah, and our participation in that.

After Peter’s confession Jesus talks about how his mission will end with rejection and suffering and death, and ultimately resurrection. Peter “rebukes” Jesus (he’s braver than I am!) and after some choice words, Jesus turns to the other disciples and the “crowds” and says to them, “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, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” (Mark 8.34-35) Jesus tells us that to follow him, the self must be let go, and the cross must be picked up.

Fortunately for most, probably all, of the readers (and the writer) of this reflection will never have to die for the sake of Jesus or the Gospel. That’s not the world we live in. But we may in fact be asked to do something more difficult: we are asked to give up our self-interest and walk open-eyed into the needs of others and demand justice for them in the face the powers of this world. This is not self-abnegation to the point of losing the entire self, this is the letting go of the notion of the world as a zero-sum game; the idea that if you get yours I won’t get mine. We are to give up the idol of “I” and find the “we”.

God’s justice as known in scripture and in the person of Jesus is distributive: the earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, and there is enough for everyone. The thing about that is that God has also trusted us to be partners in the care and stewardship of this good earth. We have to participate in the distribution and the sharing of all the resources for good, and we have failed. We have created and maintained Pharoah’s Egypt in every corner of the earth, stealing what belongs to the poor, or at least being complicit in the robbery, and giving it to the rich. The land has been exploited and the climate has been, and continues, to change.

We are at a turning point in human history. We must learn to let go of so much of the self, pick up our cross, and follow Jesus into a future where there are no more crosses to bear because all “shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid; for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.” (Micah 4:4)

How are you, how am I, how are we going to participate in God’s mission and Jesus’ passion, and start to make that a reality today?