As disciples of Jesus, we are given an invitation to participate in the work of building up God’s Beloved Community by taking up our cross and following Jesus. This invitation is a reminder that our faith is not a lifestyle choice or passing fade. It is a calling which shapes everything about us; our words, our actions, our relationships. It shapes how we view the world, how we engage each other as Beloved Children of God.
February 25, 2024
God is Doing Something Amazing! Are You UP For It?
“Take Up”
Mark 8: 31-39
Rev. Dr. Heather W. McColl
Mark 8: 31-39
Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes and be killed and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
He called the crowd with his disciples and said to them, “If any wish to come after me, 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. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”
Take Up Mark 8: 31-39
I had a very different sermon planned for this morning but as my week progressed, I realized that that particular sermon was not the word we needed to hear today as the people of God. I shared earlier in the week with someone that not only does it feel like disease is in the water around here, it also feels like dis-ease. It feels like a sense of uneasiness, a sense of something not being right. It feels like we as a whole, as humankind, are so far removed from the healing and wholeness of God’s Beloved Community, and that this removal is our choice, and is our preferred mode of operation. I jokingly told that person that the full moon was bringing this sense of dis-ease to everything and everyone.
Yet as the week progressed I realized just how pervasive this sense of dis-ease truly is. From my daughter being called the n word on Tuesday at school to the death of a young non-binary student who was attacked in their school bathroom, this dis-ease is not only being felt by us in our own lives. It is also infiltrating every part of our society and culture.
With all this dis-ease and disease happening in our community, in our state, in our nation, in our world, as I sat down to write this sermon, I wondered how in the world am I going to stand up here and bring the good news? Then I realized it was in asking that question that I had my answer, had our answer as the people of God.
What I mean by this is as we look at this text, as disciples of Jesus, we are given an invitation, an invitation to participate in the work of building up God’s Beloved Community by taking up our cross and following Jesus. This invitation is a reminder that our faith as Jesus’s disciples is not a lifestyle choice. It is not a passing fade. It is a calling which shapes everything about us. It shapes our words, our actions, our relationships. It shapes how we view the world. It shapes how we engage each other as Beloved Children of God.
This invitation to take our cross and follow Jesus is pretty clear. Because it grounds our calling in the mission and ministry of Jesus Christ, Jesus who came to bring life giving healing and wholeness not just to a select few but for all of God’s people. This invitation grounds our calling in the understanding that by taking up our crosses and following, we will come into direct opposition to the powers that be, into direct opposition to the systems which prefer and will do anything to maintain the status quo. This invitation to take up our crosses and follow Jesus grounds our calling in the recognition that “Jesus’ mission was not to die but that his faithfulness to God’s healing mission eventually resulted in his death. Let me say that again..Jesus didn’t come here to die. He died because of his faithfulness to restore, his faithfulness to bring healing and wholeness to all of God’s people. The powers that be back then and the powers that be now like the status quo. And they did and will do anything to maintain that status quo. The powers that be back then and the powers that be now recognized that what made, what makes the ministry of Jesus so powerful, so life changing, so life transforming and in turn so threatening to the powers that be is that it did not, and it will not abide any impediment to the immediate restoration of the broken and outcast.”
Now please hear me say…As modern day disciples I am not expecting each and everyone of us to go out and be martyred for our faith. Yes I know that is happening in other part of the world. But here in Midway, in the state of KY, in the US, in the year 2024, we as disciples of Christ face a different challenge.
We face having the strength, having the courage to let go of our expectations of safety and acceptance in order to stand up for the Gospel message of love and grace. Our challenge is standing up, speaking up. Our challenge is using our privilege, our resources, our networking if you will to become instruments of God’s justice, instruments of God’s peace, instruments of God’s love and grace for all of God’s people.
Yes, I know this challenge is uncomfortable. And yes, I know the excuses. Believe me, I used them all to avoid going into ministry, but you see where that got me. I know this challenge is difficult but there is grace in taking up our crosses.
You see, too often we equate this “taking up our crosses” with becoming Jesus, not becoming like Jesus but becoming Jesus. Let me stop us right there and say…that is not what Mark or Jesus is saying in this passage. Remember one of the joys of our faith is that God is God and we are not, and we give thanks each and every day for that fact.
In our text, Jesus does not say take up my cross. Jesus does not say take up THE cross. What he says is take up your cross, take up our cross as a community of faith. Jesus is telling his disciples, he is telling us that to take up the work of building up the Beloved Community here on Earth for all of God’s people, that it is not enough to display our gilded crosses in our sanctuaries or around our necks. The cross calls us to give up the narrative of me and mine and embrace the narrative of we and ours, that I am not made whole until we are all made whole. I am not truly free until we are all truly free. I am not truly embraced as a Beloved Child of God until we are all embraced as Beloved Children of God.
What Jesus is telling his disciples, is telling us is that as his followers, as the ones who have experienced the love and grace of God, as ones who know how this story ends, as ones whose very lives have been transformed by the hope of the resurrection, we are called to follow a different path. We are called to be in community, to be in relationship with one another, with those on the margins, with those who this world would rather ignore. We are called to take up our cross and follow Jesus. We are called to stand up, to speak up, to be the heart and hands of God here on Earth, bringing healing and wholeness for all of God’s people. We are called to take up our cross, to take up the causes of justice, of mercy, of grace, of connection, of hope, of love each and every day. We are called to live our lives in such a way, to share the Gospel in such a way that the powers of dis-ease are destroyed. As Jesus followers, we are called to be up to something good for the sake of the Kingdom of God.
Or in the words of modern day theologian and preacher, Cole Arthur Riley…When we as followers of Jesus take up our crosses, we “refuse to bow to the status quo. Others may have chosen to limit their imaginations for liberation, but we will not. We have the vision of God’ Beloved Community coming to fruition here on Earth to guide us and lead us. And this vision of healing, this vision of wholeness, shows us time and time again, that there are systems and powers that have and continue to have gained everything from our complacency.”
What Jesus was telling his disciples, is telling us still today is that the best way we resist the narrative of power and might and reframe the narrative to one of love and grace is to take up our crosses and follow him. May it be so.
Amen.
Additional sermons are available in the Sermon Library.
Listen to the podcast.
Leave a Reply
Your email is safe with us.