Take Up Their Cross

Mark 8:31-38 (NRSV) 31 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. 32 He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 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." 34 He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 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. 36 For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? 37 Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? 38 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." Picture It sounds absurd because really, it is, but I considered myself a Christian for 21 years before ever thinking about this passage. I was exposed to it in my introductory Christian ethics course in college, along with Matthew 25, when Jesus says he is found among the least of these, welcomed when, for example, the alien is welcomed or clothed when the prisoner is clothed. For an entire semester, I had to seriously think about whether I wanted this life, whether I wanted this God, because once you start to study Christianity it is more radical than you ever assumed, more risky than you would ever be comfortable with. The semester before, funnily enough, was when I took world religions and had weekly meals or field trips with people of different faiths. I discovered how I could love God quite well as a Jew or as a Muslim. To this day I am always learning from interreligious dialogue how to love God better; their voices are essential. However, there was a serious accounting that had to be done, because these religions, as beautiful and as much common ground as there may be, are also very different. Christianity places a very specific demand on its adherents, which we, especially in the climate crisis, have notoriously failed to do: to deny ourselves, pick up our cross, and follow Jesus. When I first heard this passage, I immediately thought of Jesus' words in Matthew 11:28-30: “‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” The call to the cross sounded at odds with Jesus' words here, it did not sound like an easy yoke or light burden. I always assumed Jesus going to the cross was something he did for me, not something I also had to do to claim the name of Christ. So often when this passage is preached, people read it and laugh saying, “Oh foolish Peter!” and are quick to identify themselves as the would-be protagonists, happily accepting Jesus' words. But I know that I am Peter. I would be the one to say to Jesus, “No, why would you risk rejection by all these important people? Why would you go so far as to be humiliated on a Roman cross along with the other criminals? We have a movement going here, just keep teaching, Rabbi.” While there is a particular emphasis on convenience, consumption, and individuality in our American contemporary culture, sacrifice was considered to be just as foolish then as it sounds to us now. Picture Jesus fiercely responds to Peter’s rebuke, “Get behind me Satan!” There is an irony here because in the verses immediately preceding this section Peter is the one who correctly identifies Jesus’s identity. Jesus asks, “But who do you say that I am?” and Peter responds, “You are the Messiah.” In other gospel accounts, this is the moment that Jesus establishes the church on the rock that is Peter. We cannot miss that in Scripture the same person who rightly identifies Jesus, Peter, is in the next moment rebuked for not understanding the significance of this identification. When Jesus foretells his death, we learn the stakes of love in a world that privatizes the good. The abundant life Jesus says he has come to give is one of liberation for the poor and oppressed, dignity bestowed upon the lowly and abandoned, a party-like feast for all, especially the marginalized whom society has deemed ill-fit. If a Christian identification of Jesus as Lord neglects its sacrificial, cross-bearing nature, that with full force combats Empire domination and logic, then it is a misidentification set on human things. If Christ collapses into some sort of therapeutic, cheap feel-good-now message, then we are a hindrance to the Kingdom. Within the Church always remains the potential to one minute be Peter and the next Satan. This is no clearer than now, when the Church and the individuals who make up the body of the Church are neglecting the call to pick up their cross in the Anthropocene. Our culture tells us that the damage being done is not our problem, that someone else will fix it, and that the Earth exists to serve our ends and not the other way around. Jesus says something different. Will we desire the flourishing of all creation if it means we must forfeit our convenience and comfortability? How will we commit to Christ’s vision of love as we destroy creation around us? In CJM’s 2024 Earth Day Sunday Resource, we see what this might look like regarding plastics. Some ways we can pick up our cross is to have a plastic free lent or advocate for our denominations or communions to completely divest from fossil fuel companies and petroleum companies, which are some of the largest producers of plastic products. The climate crisis will undoubtedly require sacrifice, and others may need to be uniquely incentivized. But Christians should not shy away from the demands that will be asked of us to heal our world, God's beloved creation. In fact, we should be leading the way, because the one whose name we claim has already demonstrated it for us. It is not easy, and it was never promised to be easy, but as I discern what my crosses are, and in my daily struggles to pick them up, I have realized that in bearing the cross for my siblings in creation, I do, unexpectedly, find an easy yoke: transcendent rest and beautiful intimacy with God. Within the Church always remains the potential to one minute be Peter and the next Satan. This is no clearer than now, when the Church and the individuals who make up the body of the Church are neglecting the call to pick up their cross in the Anthropocene.