September 8, 2013 | 8:00 a.m.

Carrying the Cross

Victoria G. Curtiss
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 139
Jeremiah 18:1–11
Luke 14:25–33

He comes to us as One unknown . . . as of old, by the lakeside, he came to those . . . who knew him not. He speaks to us the same word: “Follow thou me!” and sets us to the tasks which he has to fulfill for our time. He commands. And to those who obey him, whether they be wise or simple, he will reveal himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in his fellowship, and as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience who he is.

Albert Schweitzer
The Quest of the Historical Jesus

From the southeast windows of the condo where my family lives, one can see a huge hole in the ground, surrounded by an orange rim. It was created for the foundation of a new, fancy high-rise building called the Spire. That hole was dug before we moved into our place five years ago, and it is still just a hole. The resources to build the high-rise evidently dried up when the economy fell in 2008. Who knows if anyone will invest in completing its construction.

Jesus told a parable similar to this when he was surrounded by large crowds traveling with him. There may have been hundreds, even thousands, in the “great multitudes.” Jesus was attracting a lot of attention. Maybe people gravitated to the authority with which he spoke or the freshness of his teachings or the power of his healing or the hope they found in his talk of God’s kingdom. Perhaps they were poor or bored with nothing else to do, or maybe they sensed a disaster brewing and didn’t want to miss out.

Whatever their reasons, Jesus talked to them about the high cost of following him. We don’t know if he was seeking to strengthen their resolve or was concerned that they didn’t realize what following him would entail. While most of us would count huge numbers of people a mark of success, Jesus knew discipleship was not for everyone. Following him was not like being a groupie for a rock star or following someone on Twitter. Following him means being his disciple. And the path of discipleship is the way of the cross. It requires dying to one’s self in order to live for Christ. It demands all one has to give, dedicating one’s whole life, risking everything in obedience to God. Any who seek to follow Christ should first count the cost, for what builder constructs a foundation of a building without first calculating the cost to make sure she can complete it? Or what king goes to war without first determining whether he has enough troops for a victory?

When Jesus names the cost to be his disciple, it is very high. Frankly, it is so extreme it doesn’t even sound like Jesus. He says in order to be his disciple, we must hate our parents, our siblings, our spouse or partner, and our children. Really? Are we to cut off all our family relationships? What about his commanding us elsewhere to love one another? What about the ways he loved his own mother to the end of his life? What about his constant teaching that we should love our brother and sister, the poor, and even our enemies?

He says we must hate life itself. Really? That sounds like a path of self-destruction. What about his teaching that he came that we may have life abundant?

He says we must give up all our possessions. Really? Are we to become destitute with no place to live and nothing to eat? Are we to become totally dependent on others just to survive?

What does Jesus mean with such extreme statements? Linguistic scholars familiar with the Aramaic language that Jesus spoke help us understand that such language is quite vivid. A common way to get one’s point across would be to use dramatic contrast or hyperbole. Jesus is not saying we should hate our relatives or become destitute or throw our lives away. He is saying that following him demands our highest loyalty. The word hate here is better translated as “detach from.” We need to let go of all our attachments in order to make Christ the overriding priority of our lives. We should not begin the journey of discipleship unless we are willing to go all the way. He used the strongest language possible because what is at stake is human life itself. The high cost of discipleship must be total dedication that moves from a wish to careful deliberation and decision making. Of course no one knows exactly what one may encounter on the journey of faith and life. But Jesus knew that deciding to follow him cannot be done on impulse. God’s ways are not the ways of the world, and one must choose, again and again, to serve God above all else, even above other people and things we love.

Discipleship goes a step further than being a responsible, or nice, human being. Although discipleship is not always in conflict with other allegiances, sometimes it is, turning us upstream against the ordinary flow of loyalties. When loyalties compete, they need to be sorted out according to some priority. For those who hear a call to discipleship, Jesus Christ becomes the sorting principle. The embodiment of self-offering love, of mercy and compassion, is our “true north.”

If you are like I am, you may think you already put Christ before any attachment you have to possessions or wealth. That is, until you are called to give some of your money away, and then you realize how much you want to hang onto it. You may think your allegiance to God takes priority over the influence of your family relationships, until such time as you may be called to do something that may meet with disapproval of a loved one or bring tension into your relationships. You may believe you are willing to give your very life to Christ, come what may, until you are actually called to do something that threatens your security or safety or success. Such reminds me of the person who said she was a vegetarian—between meals.

In the process of becoming faithful disciples, we must detach from our relationships with loved ones so they do not become a barrier to our faithfulness. We are called to examine how often we do not risk taking an action we believe is right, to which God is calling us, because we are afraid if we do so we will lose the affection and approval of others. We may avoid investing ourselves for fear of failure and looking bad in others’ and our own eyes.

In the process of becoming living disciples, we must learn to give up all of our possessions—our need to acquire, our yearning for success, our petty jealousies, our denigrating stereotypes of others, our prejudices and hatreds, and more to follow the way of Jesus. This can include exploring how overwork can become an addiction. Overwork itself becomes a possession that we can hoard through rationalizations such as, “I promise that after I am done with this project, I will not take on so much anymore.” As Emilie Townes puts it, we are called to engage in that deep process of reflection that discipleship demands of us, to explore whether we are being followers and doers of the word or if we are measuring our lives by human yardsticks (Emilie M. Townes, Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 4, pp. 46, 48).

Japanese-American theologian Kosuke Koyama had a unique way of reflecting on all this. Koyama wrote,

Jesus demands self-denial from us if we would come after him. [Which means] the cross. . . . What a thing to carry! What a heavy, badly-shaped, demoralizing object . . . to take along as we follow him. Won’t it slow down our pace? Won’t it produce a persecution complex within us? Won’t it make us too serious, too nervous, too sensitive, too emotional to fit into the normal run of everyday life?

In following him, why is it necessary to take up a cross? Why not a lunchbox? Why not a nourishing lunchbox in which are found hard-boiled eggs, Swiss cheese, a lamb chop and green lettuce, and a thermos of hot coffee? And with a neat handle for carrying?

With a nourishing and well-filled lunch-box in our hands, we can . . . light-footedly follow Jesus “from victory unto victory.”

Koyama goes on:

The lunchbox symbolizes our resourcefulness, our energy, good honest thinking, careful planning, and commitment to our faith.

Don’t say, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate their own [family] . . . or even life itself cannot follow me.” Don’t say, “Take up your cross.” Instead, wouldn’t it be more productive—doesn’t it make better sense—to say, “If any would follow me, let them prepare themselves and take up their lunchbox and follow me?”

“Think how much good we can accomplish if we remain energetic and resourceful. And, if necessary,” says Koyama, “we can even walk ahead of Jesus instead of following him.”

This theologian challenges us, and he goes on to differentiate what he calls the “crusading mind” from “the crucified mind.”

The crusading mind wants to carry the cross by its handle. For the crusading mind, the resources of faith are the Christian’s equipment for work in the world. The handle, Koyama says, stands for our having efficient control. Resourceful, crusading Christians operate in the world knowing just what to do. They have better ideas. They have better strategies. They don’t seek help; they give it.

But the crusading mind, sooner or later, gets humbled. Eventually, the crusading mind is invited to become transformed into the crucified mind.

Do we, in our following of Jesus, have the maturity to keep on keeping on when, despite all our efforts, there is minimal social change, when root causes of problems require more than one generation to address, when love doesn’t solve and resolve? To persist in caring when caring doesn’t cure—that comes from a different attitude than the crusading mindset.

The crucified mind, says Kosuke Koyama, is “the mind which is trained under the weight of the cross ‘without a handle.’” No handle on the cross, because we are not in charge. Carrying the cross entails trusting without proving, forgiving and being forgiven without being vindicated. It means allowing our resourcefulness to be crucified and redeemed. It means persevering even when everyone says it can’t be done. And they may be right. It means acknowledging our need, risking failure, asking for help.

This is not easy work, seeking to be faithful disciples. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a book called The Cost of Discipleship. He said that when God calls persons, God bids them to come and die. Bonhoeffer also said, “The call to discipleship is a gift of grace and that call is inseparable from grace” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, 53). We cannot follow Christ without the gifts of God’s guidance, help, and strength.

Discipleship is a process. It takes time and involves both false starts and modest advances, points out Emilie Townes, as we grow in our faith journeys to dare to live the holiness that resides in each of us (Emilie M. Townes, Feasting on the Word, p. 46).

The cost of discipleship is not always dramatic. Lamar Williamson wrote, “The woman who devotes her life to raising children in the home, the man whose faithful dedication to a mentally ill wife is quiet and steady, the youth whose civil disobedience for conscience’s sake leads to prison or exile, these are among the countless thousands who through the centuries and in many contexts have interpreted the text with their lives (Lamar Williamson, Interpretation: Mark, pp. 156–157).

To speak of the cost of discipleship sounds like harsh news. But this harsh news holds good news, for the cross is also the way of our salvation. Reformer John Calvin wrote that self-denial is the way Jesus offers us freedom from selfishness and the “deadly pestilence of love of strife and love of self.” Denial of self is the escape from selfishness. Self-denial is the gift Christ gives us that enables us to dedicate ourselves to God and to seek the things which “are of the Lord’s will.” Self-denial leads to the very positive affirmation of the power of love in human relationships of God and neighbor (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1:684–719).

Calvin also wrote that cross bearing enables us to face suffering. To bear our cross means to obey God even in our pain and loss, in facing the tragedies, trials, and griefs of life. The image of the cross can elicit our patience in bearing pain. Calvin teaches that the cross of Christ is healing medicine for the diseases and injuries of life. The cross is accountability and correction for our mistakes in life. And, above all, the cross is comfort when we are persecuted because we stand with God’s justice (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1:684–719).

The cross of Christ is costly. And it also brings us hope and joy in the midst of suffering, honesty to acknowledge our hurt, and a freedom from bitterness. So take this harsh news that sounds like bad news and let your life be transformed.