Sunday, September 16, 2012

Imagining our Cross


Imagining Our Cross                                                  The Dover Church
September 16, 2012 16th Sunday after Pentecost  Scripture: Mark 8:27-38

         As many of you know, I rowed in high school and college. Rowing involves a lot of what is now called cross training," doing other forms of exercise to gain complementary strength and endurance. We did a lot of running. We biked, racing each other the 8 miles to and from practice on the river. We did endless calisthenics, had competitive pushup, pull up, jump up and sit up parties, lifted weights, and rowed, rowed, rowed, in shells at 5 AM in all kinds weather on the Connecticut River, on an indoor tank in the basement of the gymnasium, and on ergometric machines which bore a striking physical and emotional resemblance to torture devices.
Looking back, the hardcore fitness and the camaraderie were the big hooks for most of us. After all, we only had 8 races every year, so the winning and losing part only took up perhaps one hour of the more than 750 hours we spent on rowing every year. We took real pride in being strength and endurance maniacs. We loved competing against one another, recording times, passing personal bests, trying workouts that looked impossible until we actually did them, and then raising the bar the next time. We gloried in the knowledge that our workouts would kill the guys on the football, basketball, baseball or hockey teamsyou know, the teams in the spotlight. We loved it when our coach would announce with a smile that our warm up, our warm up mind you, would be The Death Loop, a seven mile run for time which somehow managed to go uphill, sometimes steeply and sometimes only gradually, but uphill nonetheless, for the whole course, except the last mile back to the gym. The memories have me scratching my head now, wondering how I pushed myself so hard and still studied and had a social life. Looking at me now, you're probably scratching your heads too.
We loved it. We loved the fact that we were getting better and better, stronger and stronger, faster and faster. We loved the fact that we were pushing each other to become better. We loved that there seemed to be no limits to how far we might be able to push ourselves. We loved to imagine that we were becoming the biggest, toughest, most fearless team who just couldnt possibly be out powered, out lasted, out gutted, or out sprinted down the home stretch. I have never known such intense physical suffering, and yet I loved it for what it brought me and taught me and the friends I made.
When any of us reflect on how we got to where we are with something we are passionate about, we know it involved suffering: degrees in medicine, law, engineering, performing arts, business, any study, professional advancement, the armed services, parenting, staying happily married, you name it. We know that to excel in life we have to push ourselves, push ourselves beyond what we think we can do, beyond what we have previously done, beyond what others tell us we can do. If we cared about it, we went for it, all the way. In a word: achieving goals involves suffering. Getting to where we wanted to be involved suffering. Can I get an Amen?
And then we come to church. If we have been coming to church for any length of time, we know what Jesus is going to say, if you would be my follower, then you have to first deny yourself, then take up your cross and follow me. And for many of us, our gut response is Whoa-ho-whoa, Jesus. Take it easy there. Youve got the wrong Christians. Were happy Christians, relaxed Christians, not gung-ho, uptight Christians. That sort of religious enthusiasm makes us uncomfortable." A lot of us prefer our faith to be more of a spectator sport, with us, comfortably on the sidelines, watching God and Jesus do their thing. Jesus said, the measure you give will be the measure you receive. So if you prefer sitting on the sidelines watching God and Jesus, what are you going to get? Youre going to see God and Jesus sitting on the sidelines watching you watching them.
We know through experience that anything worth achieving has involved suffering in our lives, but when Jesus says it, we go, ehnn. Savior. Messiah. Ehnn. Kingdom of God. Ehnn. Salvation. Newness and fullness of life. Joy. Ehnn. Im really busy right now. Thatll have to go on my honey do list for after Christmas.
I hear a lot of grumbling about all the hoopla around the various elections coming soon. I see an enormous surge of energy, enthusiasm and generosity of time and money. I see millions and billions of dollars being spent and countless human hours applied to competing causes. All that enthusiasm on both sides, both positive and negative, all that money and effort, both positive and negative, it all translates into enormous aspiration for something better, something different, of striving towards a dream. What disturbs me is how so much of that energy, enthusiasm, ingenuity, time and money is creating fear, distrust, anger, division, blame, and shame which no winner will be able to pull everyone together over afterwards. The winners are set up to be next cycle's losers.
I read the Bible and dream. I read the Bible and dream about what would happen if all that enthusiasm, money and effort were applied instead directly at the thing standing between each of us and what we aspire to for all of us. I dream about what would happen if, instead of funneling all of our enthusiasm into a candidate who, in all likelihood, is going to do his or her best but will fall far short of our wildest expectations and may well not even get to the thing that really troubles our waking and sleeping mind, if each of us and all of us together with like minded people, addressed our time, money, ingenuity and effort to working towards our personal goal for a better life for all of us. It's been done before, to remarkable effect if we think about Gandhi, Walesa, Mandela, King, and others.
If you want to be my follower, first deny yourself. Get off the sidelines, step out of your comfort zone. Then take up your cross. Fix your heart and mind on one thing that stands between you and what you aspire to for all of creation. Thats also denying yourself, by the way. Your aspiration can never be just about you. It has to be for all creation. And then follow me. Do it the Jesus way. Read the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 5, verses 1-16, the Beatitudes, the crib notes on the Jesus way. And just so you dont come back to me later and tell me I misrepresented the whole thing, Jesus spells out the suffering you will run into along the way. If it's worth doing, it will be tough.
Imagine if we, you and I and all the people in our church, applied all the money, ingenuity and emotional energy we are individually expending on the various elections to a real problem that really troubles us right here in Eastern Massachusetts. You may not know it, but right now, one in nine people in eastern Massachusetts is facing hunger on a regular basis. For children, that number is one in four. 48% of those people don't qualify for government assistance because they are working and making too much, yet not enough to eat regularly. They have to choose between food, utilities, mortgage/rent, medical care or transportation.
Feeding hungry people is neither a liberal or conservative cause, but a Jesus cause. Can I get an Amen? Jesus is quite clear on this one, but from a purely utilitarian perspective, it's also clear that being hungry is the root of so many things we want to improve in our Commonwealth: poor school performance, which leads to un- or underemployment, crime, family break ups, neighborhood disintegration, community polarization, everything we read in the local news which disturbs us, wishing it were different.
I was down at the Greater Boston Food Bank on Thursday and they want to partner with us. Their goal is that by 2013 every hungry person in eastern Massachusetts will have at least one meal a day. One meal a day. They are distributing over 35 million pounds of food to 545,0000 people every year, but they have a ways to go to one meal a day for everyone. We can help make that happen.
The Saviors already come and he wasnt named Obama or Romney, Brown or Warren, Bielat or even, believe it or not, Kennedy. It is everyone's responsibility to vote and it will make a difference who is president, senator, and congressman next year. We just don't know what that difference will look like or how it will play out. What we can know for certain is the difference our faith convictions want to see in our neck of the woods: no more hungry people. You and I, all of us here and wherever two or three gather in Jesus' name, we are the Body of Christ, the hearts and hands of God in Jesus Christ in this place at this time. As such, we have some serious work to do, but we're going to have to get in the game, get with the Jesus way, and do the hard work that needs to be done. It's going to require education, volunteerism, leadership and money, denying ourselves and taking up our cross in Jesus talk, the very same things a political campaign requires, except where our present political climate is creating fear, distrust, anger, division, blame, shame, we will be sowing love and compassion, building trust and community, and replacing shame and blame with dignity and hope. Imagine that. If we think of giving food to hungry people as a hand out, it may conflict with our economic or political principles and we're less likely to do it. If however, if we think giving food to hungry people allows us to be the instrument of answering peoples' prayers when they pray "give us this day our daily bread," that we are quite literally a vehicle of God's will, then we will be acting from religious principles and want to do more. Imagine who we'll become, what we'll learn, the friends we will make. If you do imagine that, please speak with me after worship and we'll start a team to do just that.
        

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