Lent 2 B Mark 8:31-38

When I was a kid, a confirmation student actually, a pastor said something to me that forever colored the way I think of taking up one's cross to follow.  He explained that these words have a double meaning. To take up one's cross must refer to the crucifixion to taking on the small bit of Christian sacrifice. But to take up one's cross also meant to grab a stick or staff with a cross on the end to tie up your belongings, like the hobos and train jumpers used to in the 30's and 40's. Like travelers during the dust bowl and the depression and so from that time on I pictured a good follower of Jesus with only a little red checkered bag worth of possessions always on the road. Always on the way.

This might not be quite right, it isn't quite wrong either. Jesus throughout his whole ministry was on the road. On the way, the gospel of Mark says over and over again; he was en tei hodoi in greek, on the road. He traveled from place to place, begged meals or ate with unsavory types, had dusty, dirty feet and often was not welcomed into towns, especially by the authorities because what he had to say and the way he appeared didn't appeal to the good and proper people in town. And so he was always on the way.

Despite the less than desirable appearance of Jesus though it was an honor to be en tei hodoi with him. There was once a blind man that Jesus came across, he was standing on the side of the road, on the side of the hodoi, litereally in the gospel. Because he was blind he had to wait on the sidelines, never able to join in. His whole life was given up because he had this one deformity. So when Jesus came along and healed him and he was able to follow, he did, he jumped right into the road and followed. I'm not even sure he had time to grab his little cross and bag of belongings and I'm not sure he missed it because he was given the great gift of sight, the gift of being able to follow on the way.

Jesus tells a crowd in our gospel lesson today that if they want to follow him, to be on the way, they must deny themselves and take up their crosses. For those who want to save their life will lose it and those who lose their life for Jesus' sake, for the sake of the gospel will save it. This sounds like horrible news to people who have everything but it must have seemed like such a blessing to people who knew that they had nothing, or to people whose things were slipping away, who were having a harder and harder time making ends meet, paying taxes, keeping their homes, staying in good relationships with their family memebers, beating depression, getting over grief, losing their health. To those people these words meant life.

Because imagine turning this on it's head. Imagine that you have lost everything, your whole life so that you are stuck on the side of the way, unable to work or unable to follow or unable to fix things, unable to live.

Or imagine you are an early Christian living under Roman rule being
told to bow down to Ceasar and deny your God or lose your life.

Or imagine that you are a person living in Alabama in 2009 and you have lost your home and job and are living paycheck to paycheck, deep in debt and in a place too small with too little food for your family of four.

Or imagine that you are a grandmother who had just met her newest grandbaby and has been diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Or imagine that you have been married for twenty years and that marriage is falling apart.

Or imagine that you are a president or prime minister or governor or mayor in a country at war and in deep economic trouble and you hear these words.

Those who lives are lost will find new life in me.
Those who are losing everything will find new life with me.

Then this becomes great news...but it is still a trick to let go of control even when we know things are beyond our power to fix.

That is certainly Peter's problem in our gospel lesson today. He has all that he needs, he is second in command to a great and powerful rabbi, he is learning how to heal he sick and do deeds of great power. He has the right answer when Jesus says who do you say that I am, he answers the Messiah and he is exactly right, everything is turning up Peter and then, In a flash it is all gone.

Jesus says I will have to undergo great suffering and be rejected by the chief priests and leaders and I will die in the process. And Peter says no Lord, please, no, anything but that, everything was going so well, anything but that. And Jesus doesn't say you're wrong to feel hurt and sad about this. He doesn't say no, this outcome will by fun. What he does say is simply get back in line Peter, you were right that I am the Messiah, you are wrong that that doesn't mean sacrifice, so get in line, take up the few things that you really need to live and follow me and I will bring you to new life.

Peter got caught up with all the things that he thought he needed, fame, wealth, power and control so that he lost sight of the main thing that he needed. Life.

Peter needed the hobo example with the little red bag. Because those people, were able to sort out what really mattered to them in the midst of economic, professional, medical and family hardship. They choose life, and that meant letting go of the things that they were no longer able to control. They let go and they took up a cross and the set out on the road, en tei hodoi and they found life, they lived.

Jesus calls us so clearly to do that. To let go of the things that weigh us down and to trust that life comes to those who are willing to be on the road and in the way of Christ, following him.

I don't know exactly what this looks like for each of you, for each of us, but
I do know that when I think of those depression era people with their
little bags I realize that they were able to put the things that they
needed in a small enough package that it could be carried on their
walking stick, that it was light and no longer a burden to them, so that they could save their own lives.

I wonder what it
would look like if we took everything that is holding us back in life,
in love and in faith and wittled it down until we just had the core of what we needed, just those things that mean life and God to us. If we put our mind of divine things like love and trust and following Jesus not on human things like fear, money, power and control. What would it look
like to be en tei hodoi with Jesus? What do you let go of in order to be in the way of Christ, not just on the side of the way? What does new life in Christ mean for you?