Wonderin' Whys and Shades of Grey Eyes:
10 seemingly unrelated individual observations on taking up the cross
Exodus 3:1-15 and Matthew 16:21-28
Delivered without notes while wandering around the front of the sanctuary,
Sunday, August 28, 2005
by Christopher William Purdom
1. There's a scene in in Mel Brooks' "Young Frankenstein" that is iconic to programmers. Frankenstein, played by Gene Wilder, gets off the train, where he is met by the hunchback Igor, played by Marty Feldman. Embarrassed by the family name, Frankenstein introduces himself as "Frankensteen", to which Igor responds that his name is "Eye-gore." Igor limps sideways out of the station beckoning Frankenstein to "walk this way." Frankenstein follows, walking normally, to which Igor responds "No, no walk THIS way."
2. As I was walking down the Parkway meditating on the relationship between the Exodus and Matthew passages that the lectionary writers juxtaposed for us this morning it occurred to me that Jesus is our Burning Bush, he who willingly takes up his cross and is crucified, but not consumed. Christ is to us and to the disciples as the bush is to Moses, a sign that oppressive empire can be survived and escaped.
3. Much like the "fishers of men" passage and the "Fishers of Men Bass Fishing Tournament," the "take up your cross" passage has inspired some questionable literal interpretation. You may have seen the preacher who goes around the country visiting college campuses with a cross on his back, and both times I was in Lynchburg Virginia on Thomas Road with Soulforce vigiling outside Jerry Falwell's church there was a giant bearded guy with a 12 foot high cross in one hand standing in opposition to us. While I admire their resolve and tenacity, the risk of anybody actually nailing them to those crosses seems remote.
4. But If ever there was a red-letter phrase that should be taken literally this is it. The cross, after all, is not metaphor to Jesus. In The Last Temptation of Christ, Nikos Kazantzakis even has Jesus the Carpenter building crosses for the Romans. To me, this passage from Matthew is a literal call to sacrifice our lives in the struggle against oppressive empire, but very few modern Christians, self-identified literalists or otherwise, have interpreted it that way, and those who have acted on that interpretation are so remarkable you can probably name them for yourselves.
5. In many Christian circles this invitation to sacrifice has mutated into an invitation to Stoicism, as in "my tics, my seizures, my panic attacks and my ingrown toenails are my cross to bear." Learning to live with our problems is a great survival skill, but that's exactly what it is, it's a survival skill, and I don't think that's what Jesus meant.
6. Some Christian churches, and I'm going to pick on Joel Osteen's church here, because I watched the opening of his new church on Channel 48 last week, preach that Christ died on the cross so that you don't have to suffer and can live in material abundance. I find that message troubling even when applied to the poorest among us, but increasingly this message is being preached to the American middle class. On television Osteen's new church looked to be about the size of the Spectrum, and it is. It's the former home of the Houston Rockets, and the congregation looked pretty comfortable. Even among the American middle class who believe that God wants us to sacrifice I hear things being called "sacrifice" that people in most of the world would call "gift" as in "my 50 hour a week, $50,000 a year job with no manual labor in a climate controlled office with paid time off and medical benefits is my cross to bear." And oddly, as people here are increasingly working side by side with those in the rest of the world who make less, have less, and live among those who make and have less, this attitude is getting worse, not better.
7. I spent 15 years in Shotokan Karate, part of the Bushido warrior religion of Japan, in which self-preservation in the service of self-improvement is our highest calling. My sensei was a kamikaze pilot.
8. If concentration on self-preservation is a stumbling block of Satan and keeps us from getting in to heaven, then what grievous sin do we commit when we play empire, when we play at empire, when we aid and abet oppression, putting people in a position where they are forced to concentrate on their own survival?
9. Was Jesus being overly optimistic when he said that those who took up the cross and followed him would see the reign of the Son of Man before they died, or is the reign of Christ the second generation of humanity, the next plane, the permanent fugue state, the Universal Christ Consciousness that we are born in to, that Jesus represented, and that each of us finds for ourselves when we let go of the illusion of our own individuality, follow Jesus' commandments to love God and neighbor as ourselves, and enter in to free love communion with the body of Christ?
10. Empire survives by dividing us and keeping us apart, forcing us to build crosses by making us dependent on resources taken from those who have not and given to those who have in order to create supporters of the status quo, convincing us that self-preservation, not love, is our highest calling, that love must be restricted, channeled, and approved in form, substance, expression, and purpose, and that we need protection from those who are desperate, dangerous, and degenerate. But those who have stopped worrying about self-preservation, who have recognized their capacity for love as a gift, not a problem, and have dared to love the wrong people extravagantly and "too much," who have been crucified mentally, physically, or spiritually have seen the reign of the Son of Man before they died.
© 2005 by Christopher William Purdom. All rights reserved. Please consult the author at tabernacle@tabunited.org if you wish to use the text of this sermon, in whole or in part.
