Isaiah 50:4-9
James 2:1-5,8-10,14-18
Mark 8:27-38
Psalm 116
When I was five years old, I liked to visit my friend Daniel. We would sit on his front steps and talk. Daniel was different. For one thing, he was old: Really old, maybe twenty or thirty or something. And he was some other odd religion: Jewish or Catholic or something. And, even though he was old, he lived with his parents: people said he was ‘retarded.' I didn't care about the differences. I liked Daniel. Most of my friends didn't like our friendship. They ran past us, singing, "Pat loves Daniel!" I didn't care about that either. I was proud of my friend Daniel because he was a fireman. Maybe one day I could be a fireman too.
When I was eight years old, I had another friend who was different. Greg was in my Sunday School class. He was my age, though he was bigger than most of us. We went to the same elementary school, but Greg was in the Special Class. We had fun together in Sunday School, so I invited my friend Greg to my birthday party. My other friends didn't like this friendship much either. They taunted me with, "Pat's gonna join the Special Class." I didn't want to be in the Special Class. It didn't matter that I knew and my teacher knew and most of the kids knew that my grades were the best in the class. When I heard them singing, "Pat loves Greg! She's gonna join the Special Class." I felt little and stupid and like I'd done something really bad. In grownup language, I was embarrassed and ashamed of being Greg's friend. Greg wasn't a fireman like Daniel. I didn't want my friends to think I was like him.
Nobody wants to hang around with a loser. And in today's Gospel, Jesus says that he himself is a loser.
You've gotta feel sorry for poor Peter. He gets this confusing news just after he's finally come up with a right answer, when he said to Jesus: "You are the Messiah!" Peter has announced that their very own rabbi is the one who has come to liberate their people. Jesus is the victor, the savior, the ultimate winner for everyone. This is Good News to shout from the housetops. So what does this Ultimate Winner say? First Jesus tells his friends, "Don't tell anyone!" that he's the Messiah, the Christ.
And then he goes and says openly and plainly for everyone to hear, that he's going to be the Ultimate Loser – that he will "undergo great suffering, be rejected by all the important people, and be killed." Nobody wants to hang around with a loser. This is really embarrassing and shameful.
If Jesus is the Messiah, this just isn't how the story is supposed to go. Can anyone blame Peter for saying, "No way!"?
And Peter, probably still euphoric from his grand right answer that Jesus is the Messiah, is put in his place. Peter, you just don't get it do you? And I'm not certain that Jesus's explanation clarifies things much.
Jesus says, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me."
If Peter and Jesus's other followers were ashamed that Jesus was going to suffer, be rejected, and killed, talking about a cross is worse. There is no more shameful way to die. Crosses are for the scum of the earth.
Even if someone commits a crime deserving of death, no successful and respectable person is executed that way. Roman citizens are executed by the sword. Jews are stoned. But the cross! The cross is a shameful sign for the lowest of the low.
Like the electric chair today. People with power and money, no matter what their crime, just don't end up there. No respectable savior ends up on death row. Would you be proud to wear a little silver electric chair on a chain around your neck? If "take up your cross" means "get in line on death row," are you ready? It would have been easier to sign up for Special Class in third grade.
This just isn't the Messiah Peter wanted. It's not what he -- or we -- had in mind when we decided to follow Jesus. We're just not the kind of people who end up on death row. "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me."
"Take up your cross." It's what we accept when we are baptized. Christians often speak of the crosses we carry. Usually there's talk of accepting the suffering that comes our way in this life. We say with resignation, "It's the cross I carry." Is that what Jesus, our savior, asks of us?
Miguel D'Escoto, a Nicaraguan priest, once observed, "I don't think we Christians have understood what carrying the cross means: the path of baptism. We are not carrying the cross when we are poor or sick, or suffering small everyday things. They are all part of life. The cross comes when we try to change things. That is how it came for Jesus."
Taking up your cross is less about accepting suffering than it is about doing something. The cross is about changing the world around us. Jesus' cross changed the world. So, who do we say that Jesus is? He's the one who comes to change things. The Messiah. The savior. The ultimate winner. How does this Messiah, this Christ, change things? Christ stands with the poorest of the poor. Christ stands with the losers and outcasts of his time. Christ willingly takes up the cross. Christ takes his seat in the electric chair. Christ is the winner who stands with the losers, and that changes everything. Everyone standing with Jesus wins life. He's asking us to stand, unashamed, with him and with the losers.
That's a classic. You've seen it in the movies: Remember Spartacus? There was a revolution among the Roman slaves. When they ask for Spartacus to be identified in the crowd to crucify him, Spartacus steps forward, saying "I am Spartacus." And so do his followers, all saying "I am Spartacus." Standing with the oppressed, with those of whom his world was ashamed, Spartacus did not stand alone.
It's a classic. More recent moviegoers have seen it in "In & Out" when a teacher loses his job because he came out as gay. Howard Brackett's students, family, and friends one by one stand up and say, "I'm gay." Standing with oppressed, with those of whom his world was ashamed, Howard did not stand alone.
But Jesus lived in the real world, not in the movies. Jesus stood with the oppressed, with those of whom his world was ashamed, and Jesus, unlike Spartacus and Howard Brackett, died alone, abandoned by his followers.
Now Jesus asks us to take up our crosses and follow. When we follow Jesus, we stand with those of whom our culture is ashamed, the kind of people James writes about: those poor people with dirty clothes. We stand with those our culture calls "losers": they are the powerless & poor, the outcast & oppressed; they are the "have nots" on the margins of society – the ones who end up on death row, in gay bars, or in special class; they are good people, broken people, loving people, sinful people, people like us – all God's children, all carrying crosses. Jesus is with them and asks us to follow him there too.
It doesn't mean that all Christians must take up visiting death row, though some of us might. It can be a simple, and as difficult, as a fifth grader saying to the teacher, "I want to go to the special class today." It can be as ordinary, and as dramatic, as welcoming a gay nephew's partner to Thanksgiving dinner, or celebrating the Eucharist at the nursing home or the bus station.
Jesus asks us not to be ashamed of him and his words, even when he identifies himself with the outcast have-nots of the world.
Who do you say that Jesus is? He's the one over there in the electric chair, or in the gay bar, or in special class. He's right there with the person you'd be most ashamed to be. Jesus is the Christ, the one who takes up the shame of the cross and by doing that changes the world.
He's asking us to take up our crosses and change the world, too. That's what Christians do. Christians take up their crosses and stand with the poor and the powerless, the outcasts on the margins of our culture. Christians seek and serve God in those of whom our world is ashamed.
There's another question hidden to today's gospel: Who do you say that YOU are? Let us never be ashamed to call ourselves Christians.