August 30, 2020: Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Matthew 16:21-28
Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?
“For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
What does taking up one’s cross mean? In Jesus’ time, taking up a cross meant one thing only: you were going to die by crucifixion. Jesus was preparing himself, and his disciples, for his upcoming death at the hands of the religious leaders and Romans.
In the US, we live in a death-denying culture. We house our elderly in buildings separate from ourselves, we revere youth and vitality and struggle with getting old, we don’t tell our loved ones what our end of life healthcare wishes are because we don’t want to think about it.
What would it be like, to live each day as if you knew you were going to die soon? Would it change some of the decisions we make about how we spend our time? Would it alter our choices about who we spend time with?
Jesus said, “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” What did he mean by this?
To live one’s life fully and to give of oneself unreservedly to one’s commitments is hard. Most of us shy away from dedicating ourselves one hundred percent to whatever it is we care called to do. We think in terms of how our actions will benefit us, rather than how they will benefit others. We resist giving ourselves whole-heartedly to the paths we have set out upon, because what if we are asked to do more than we think we are capable of giving?
Jesus models for us unswerving dedication to love others completely and without reservation, even if the choice to do so means he will be assassinated for it. He does not alter from the course he has embarked upon, though he knows it will cause his eventual death. How willing are we to stand up for the causes we believe in, to allow our lives to be turned upside down so that we can love others the way we have been called to do?