The Second Sunday in Lent

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Episcopal Church
March 4, 2012

2 Lent B

Someone asked me this week what name I would choose if I could have any name I wanted. The question gave me pause, since I have really never thought about changing my name. I am named for my grandmother’s mother, who went by "Lottie," the shortened form of Charlotte, and I share my name with my dad’s first cousin who is also my god mother. As a child, I was the only one in my class with my first name, which I rather liked. There were multiple Cathy’s, Denise’s, and Emily’s, but no other Charlotte. There was no confusion, for better or worse, when the teacher said my name. Until the last quarter of my last year in college, I was never in a class with anyone else named Charlotte and I was just fine with that. As an adult, I have had one very good friend by the same name but that has really been all. So, the thought of changing my name to something else and having to choose a new one caught me up short and made me wonder what that would mean.

This morning, we hear Abraham get a new name. The name change occurs in the context of the outrageous promise God makes to Abram. The promise is so outrageous, that we hear no response from Abram when his name becomes Abraham. Abraham is probably too concerned with how God will make him the ancestor of a multitude of nations to be terribly concerned about the addition of a mere syllable to his name! Thus far, Abraham is 99 years old and has only one heir, a son named Ishmael, whose mother is one of the servants. God says to Abraham "I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you." All God asks of Abraham is that Abraham walk before God and be blameless. Then, God changes Abraham’s wife’s name from Sarai to Sarah and promises to give her a son in her equally old age, an equally outrageous promise.

In the gospel lesson, we hear Jesus make an even more outrageous promise. We hear Jesus tell the disciples that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised, and we see Peter take Jesus aside and begin to rebuke him. When Jesus says "Get behind me, Satan," that is more like name calling than a name change. Jesus has already changed Peter’s name from Simon to Peter earlier in the gospel. Peter, however, thinks the outrageous part of Jesus’ teaching is the part about suffering and dying, because Messiahs simply don’t do that. Messiahs lead, conquer the oppressor, and bring liberation to the people. They don’t suffer and die. The part about rising from the dead is so outrageous that Peter doesn’t even hear those words, which is understandable. No one had ever risen from the dead. Ever. But Jesus is telling the disciples that not only will he suffer and die, but that his death is not the end of the story. After 3 days he will rise again. Even God’s promise to Abraham seems tame when compared with Jesus’ promise to the disciples.
Then Jesus says a curious thing to the disciples. Jesus says "If any want to become my followers let them deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me." What on earth does Jesus mean by that?

Crucifixion was a common means of execution in the first century Roman world, and those to be crucified often had to carry their own crosses to their place of crucifixion. The image of discipleship that Jesus offers here is, quite frankly, horrifying. Why would anyone want to pick up their cross and follow him? Even in our own culture, when we hear the phrase "someone has such a cross to bear," we usually think of illness, financial disaster, family problems, or some other grave misfortune that has fallen upon the unlucky person. So when we hear Jesus say "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me," the image that often comes to mind is of someone having to pick up all their misfortunes, all their trials and tribulations, and haul them up on their shoulders in order to follow Jesus. While that is obviously less gruesome than carrying a cross in the first century, we still are left with a picture of discipleship that is anything but appealing.

However, in another place, in another gospel, Jesus says "Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will refresh you. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." When Jesus says "take up your cross and follow me," might he mean something different than either having to carry our own means of execution to our grave or having to hoist all our burdens onto our backs in order to follow him?

At every baptism, when the water is blessed, we pray "We thank you, Father, for the water of baptism. In it we are buried with Christ in his death. By it we share in his resurrection. Through it we are reborn by the Holy Spirit." Afterwards, each newly baptized person is marked with oil in the sign of the cross and these words are said, usually using the person’s name: "Charlotte, you are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever." In baptism, we become joined to the crucifixion, death, and resurrection of Jesus. We are marked as Christ’s own forever. In baptism, we are given Christ’s name as Christians and we are given the cross of Christ to carry as our own.

If we believe that Jesus means for us to pick up all of our own burdens, heave them on our backs, and carry them all by ourselves in order to be Jesus’ disciples, we are thinking like Peter. We are focusing only on Jesus’ words about suffering and dying. We are not hearing the most important part, which is the outrageous promise that after three days he will rise again. At his baptism, Jesus heard the voice of God say "You are my Son, the beloved" and then he was led into the wilderness for 40 days to figure out what it means to be the Son of God. The 40 days of Lent are our time to think and pray about what it means to be people who are called to take up the cross of Christ and follow Jesus’ outrageous claim that death will not have the final word. What does it mean to be people of hope in the midst this week’s violence in Chardon, people of light in the midst of the natural disasters of Friday afternoon, and people who know that no one has to carry their burdens all by themselves? We take up the cross of Christ and follow Jesus because in the midst of all evidence to the contrary, we believe that God’s outrageous promise is true and that life will always have the final word.

Amen.

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