The past few days I had a last-minute opportunity to attend a conference on theology and the arts at Duke Divinity[1], and found myself pondering a number of threads about incarnation and the life of Christ, connecting especially to this morning’s Gospel, so this sermon is partly an attempt to bring those threads together.
I have been wondering what Jesus’ life would look like if he were born now, in the 21st century, somewhere on this side of the world, maybe in New York or Staunton, or Miami, or Idaho. What would incarnation be? For instance, it’s harder in this era to travel by foot. Would he buy an old pickup truck, perhaps? Or take Greyhound? Hitchhike maybe? Would he wear robes and sandals or jeans and flip flops? Where would we find him – in hospital rooms or Baptist churches, shopping malls, homeless shelters, prisons, parks? How would Jesus be present with us today? Who would he walk alongside – whose burdens would he help carry?
Last week, at the 10:30 service, we held an instructed Eucharist, so instead of a sermon, AJ and Gen and I narrated the Eucharistic service from beginning to end – the opening collect all the way to the dismissal. You can find it on our YouTube channel[2], so I encourage you to watch and listen to it if you if you haven’t already.
An instructed Eucharist is not something we do very often, but it is a helpful, occasional exercise that opens up the liturgy, reminding us of the history and the theology behind the gestures – why we do the Passing of the Peace, and why do we pass the peace when we do it; why do we carry the Gospel from the altar table to the people, or say the Creed and the Confession together. Every piece of the liturgy has a particular reason for being there, and every piece of the liturgy, in a sense, carries a prayer in it. The liturgy, the Eucharist, are our ways of drawing close to God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – every Sunday morning. Liturgy, and especially Eucharist, is a way that Christ is incarnated every Sunday, a way we experience and celebrate his incarnation, past, present and future, in sacrament and prayer.
Yesterday, while at Duke, I had the chance to listen to poet, Church of England priest and singer/songwriter Malcolm Guite[3] speak as part of this week’s conference, and he mentioned a particular piece of the Eucharistic liturgy, the Sursum corda. If you are not as familiar with those Latin words, you’ll know the English ones – “Lift up your hearts” – the words that begin the Eucharistic Prayer, the Liturgy of the Table. Malcolm Guite told us that sometimes when he finds it hard to lift up his heart – because of personal grief or anxiety or heartbreak over the state of the world, I’m guessing – he remembers that he does not need to do that work – “God has already done the heavy lifting,” he told us. God lifts up our hearts, even when we cannot find the strength to do it ourselves.
Guite’s reminder to himself resonates with a familiar and difficult phrase in this morning’s Gospel – part of a familiar and difficult lesson Jesus is teaching his disciples. Jesus says:
“Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.
“Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”
However extreme his language is, Jesus is not telling his disciples to turn away from their families, to hate their parents, spouse and children – but he is telling them that the community, the extended family of humanity, is also vital, and cannot be ignored. In choosing to follow him, and in choosing to live lives of love and generosity, his disciples are committing themselves to love those who are bound to them in this new kind of family, the children of God, a family of faith, and beyond.
And then there’s the sentence that follows – Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. Our translation, the NRSV, comes up short a bit – a more accurate reading would be, Whoever does not carry one’s own cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
So what does carrying the cross, or carrying one’s own cross, mean?
Is Jesus saying that we must bear our suffering without complaint? How many times have we heard or read something along the lines of, “well, that’s my cross to bear,” or “that’s her cross to bear,” referring to a troubled marriage, perhaps, or poor health, or a difficult and unrewarding job?
Or is Jesus saying to be willing to die on the cross, to follow him to death, to accept the same suffering that he did, for the forgiveness of our sins? Hasn’t grace already happened?
As Malcolm Guite reminds himself, hasn’t God already done the heavy lifting?
Perhaps Jesus, by inviting us to carry our particular crosses, as he carried his own particular and literal cross, is inviting us to share with him not the pain of his death, but the experience of his life. Perhaps Jesus is inviting us into his incarnation.
Two thousand years ago, Jesus stepped into our world and lived a very real, very earthbound life – born in a barn, studied in synagogue, learned carpentry from his father, strength from his mother, made friends, traveled, laughed, shared meals, preached, taught, talked with women and children, healed lepers, engaged in political protests and got himself arrested. All very human things.
And, eventually, Jesus found himself on a road to Golgotha, carrying a cross – heavy work, with heavy heart, walking toward his own death – but also walking toward his own resurrection. And along the way, he is helped by Simon of Cyrene. Along the way, his mother weeps for him. Along the way, a soldier recognizes him as the son of God. Along the way to his resurrection, a nonbeliever buries him in his own tomb. And three days later, Jesus leaves the tomb and returns to this broken, troubled, violent world he loves so much.
Preacher and theologian Karoline Lewis[4] tackles the question:
“…what does it mean to carry your cross?”
“It could mean,” she writes, “to carry the burdens of those from whom Jesus releases burdens. It could mean to carry the ministry of Jesus forward by seeing those whom the world overlooks. It could mean favoring and regarding the marginalized, even when that action might lead to your own oppression.”[5]
Jesus is asking us not to take on his pain, but to take on his joy; not to take on his suffering, but to take on his life. Jesus is asking us not to resign ourselves to the weight of grief of our burdens, but to commit ourselves to complexity. Jesus is is asking us not to walk a road that leads to death, but to lift up our hearts to God, the giver of all life. Jesus is asking us to walk along with him – and to know that he is helping carry our load, just as we are helping carry his. Jesus’ love for us calls him to be with us, always, and our love for Jesus calls us to be with him. It is a shared story, and a shared journey, that we commit to with one another as the children of God.
Carrying the cross could mean stepping into the role of Simon, and easing the burden of someone facing death. It could mean stepping into the role of Jesus’ friends, trying, imperfectly, to stand with him in his last hours in the garden and in the city. Carrying the cross for Jesus means carrying the cross for those around us who are in pain, easing the load of those who are exhausted, helping those who cannot feel hope.
Carrying the cross for ourselves and for others means following Jesus in the hard, joyful, exhausting, heartbreaking, world-changing work of living, walking towards not death, but resurrection and everlasting life.
Amen.
[1] https://dita2025.com/
[2] https://www.youtube.com/live/Vwo0HFT5Ce8?si=NBGiFC40ezURPMBn
[3] https://malcolmguite.wordpress.com/
[4] https://www.karolinelewis.com/
[5] https://www.workingpreacher.org/dear-working-preacher/carrying-the-cross
