2nd Sunday in Lent

Second Sunday in Lent – Year B (RCL) 2009
Genesis 17: 1 – 7, 15 – 16; Psalm 22: 23 – 31; Romans 4: 13 – 25; Mark 8: 31 – 38
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Parish, Portland OR
Sunday, March 8, 2009

LIFTING THE CROSS – CARRYING THE LOAD

Let us pray: God of the Cross we often look to that symbol for our identification with your passion and promise as it offers the memorial of your gift to us of suffering and death. Help us to understand the symbol as a true way of following your call to crucifixion and death as the way of life that you lead us toward. When we want only to live in Resurrection – help us to understand that life is about following you to crucifixion and death is about following you to Resurrection. As we look to understand your call to take up the Cross and follow you may we also see that Cross as our way of identity with all who suffer and our sharing with them and you the way of death into life. Amen

(SUNG) LIFT HIGH THE CROSS, THE LOVE OF CHIRST PROCLAIM
TILL ALL THE WORLD ADORE HIS SACRED NAME.

I am going to begin these remarks by asking your indulgence this morning. Early on Thursday I spent the hours between 1:00 and 4:30 AM in the Emergency Room at Good Samaritan Hospital. One of my challenges as an adult has been a gift left to me by my DA – and that is the tendency to produce kidney stones. I was awoken by that gift and my thought pattern and stamina are challenged in the days until it passes by a certain fog amidst the experience and so my remarks will be somewhat shortened and perhaps a bit “disconnected” as I write and deliver this sermon under the influence of pain meds! Still, I didn’t want to simply beg off – because this message that Jesus leaves to us in this mornings Gospel is such a powerful and conflicting one for so many of us.

As a youngster growing up in my Irish Catholic brood – the house was filled with religious images and pictures to assure us of the power of God in our lives through the workings of holy mother the Church. One memory around the cross holds a prominent place in my childhood. Over the entry to the dining room was a large and graphic statuary depiction of the Crucifix hung just above the archway. The staircase to the upstairs passed over that archway and was railed by a single plain wood banister than ran the length of the ascending stairs. As a curious six year old – my eyes and my mischievous nature were drawn to the porcelain Jesus, arms outstretched and blood dripping from the palms of his nailed hands holding him on the cross. I would often stare up while passing under the archway and ache for my God who suffered by hanging there day after day, week after week, month after month without uttering a single complaint. One day I figured out that if I leaned over the banister at the half way point on the staircase I could reach out and touch the crucified body and this fascinated me. I reached out and lifted the Crucifix off the wall and tenderly kissed the bleeding hands and feet. I think this was probably an idea that I had been given when we would do something similar at the Adoration of the Cross in the service on Good Friday’s when Father would hold out the large crucifix and allow the parishioners to kneel at the rail and reverently kiss the wounded figure of Christ. At any rate what happened next can only be attributed to the simplicity of a childhood understanding of concepts to complex to be explained. One afternoon when mi sainted Irish Mither (may she rest in peace) came home – what greeted her was her 11th child sitting at the foot of the staircase with the fear of God in his eyes when he recognized that “your gonna get it when your Father gets home” tone in her voice as she said “Dennis James what on earth do you think you’ve done”? At my feet was the porcelain figure taken off of the cross with the arms snapped off and lying close to the emaciated twisted corpus. I explained to her that I just felt so sorry for him that he had to hang there because of my sins and never got to even put his arms down for a rest! I have no memory of her exact words – but the family story has me sent to bed without any supper; and the Crucifix hung for many years with the epoxy glue stains clearly visible at the arm joints.

(SUNG) LIFT HIGH THE CROSS, THE LOVE OF CHRIST PROCLAIM
TILL ALL THE WORLD ADORE, HIS SACRED NAME.

One of my favorite things about being an Episcopalian is the beauty and pageantry of our liturgy. True, that most likely comes from my deep roots in the pre Vatican II Roman Catholic Church – and that does nothing to dampen my love of the ritual and solemnity of the liturgical rites of this protestant and catholic institution. How wonderful I thought when first finding the Episcopal Church to have that full procession lead by the stark simplicity of a raised cross in the hands of the crucifer every Sunday! That had been reserved for “special” occasions in the Church of my youth. Yet how appropriate for the teaching of Jesus in the lesson from today’s passage by the author of Mark’s Gospel telling – that, indeed, we like Jesus are called to be cross bearer’s or crucifer’s every day in our life’s journey.

What does that phrase mean for you – to “take up your cross” and follow Jesus? For much of my life it had meant what the good Sisters of St. John the Baptist and the Church had taught me it meant. Whatever suffering you experienced – whenever your punishment seemed well beyond any sense of justice for the sin you had committed – that was your cross to bear and that is what Jesus said you had to do. If we had less money and more mouths to feed than most of the other families in the neighborhood – that was our cross to bear; and that is what Jesus said you had to do. As I have matured in my faith – and been given the freedom in my Anglican understanding of the Body of Christ – to question those old assumptions and rote Baltimore Catechism explanations of good and evil my interpretation of “taking up the cross” and following Jesus continues to evolve. That does not mean that I don’t still grapple with “my crosses” and complain about why I have to have them – why do I have to deal with kidney stones? It simply means that as I age and get a bit more patient with God – as God has always been with me – I get it that we are all called to crucifixion and death; just like Jesus so that we can all be called to resurrection and life; just like Jesus.

(SUNG) LIFT HIGH THE CROSS, THE LOVE OF CHRIST PROCLAIM
TILL ALL THE WORLD ADORE, HIS SACRED NAME.

This symbol has marked us for life – this symbol of death – this cross. At our baptism we were marked with the sign of this cross and sealed as Christ’s own forever. The sign and symbol of this cross is ever present in our corporate worship – even the joy and nurture given to us each week in the bread and wine of this table are dominated by this sign and symbol which hangs over it. This powerful symbol of terror and punishment crafted by the dominant and often brutal Roman conquerors was not understood by many to be a way of Glory – and I don’t think that the early followers of Jesus would have seen it that way as they too became victims of its torture and terror. Yet somehow we have to hear Jesus’ words “take up your cross and follow me” and find what they mean for us as followers. Jesus’ teaching gets serious, deadly serious this morning and there is no escaping the fact that we too are called to become crucifers – to take up the cross and follow the crucified One to Jerusalem, to Calvary, to passion, suffering and death and beyond!

Amen