Why Church? Cross to Carry: Psalm 66: 8-19; Mark 8:31-38
A friend of mine, who grew up in a well-known evangelical church denomination, told me how Mother’s Day could be one of the most passive-aggressive, shady, and savage events of the year at their church. Miss Della Louise (name changed to protect the less than innocent) would come up and start giving out the annual awards. One year she announced the oldest mother award, the youngest mother award, the mother with the most kids award, and then an unexpected category…the mother with the most kids by the most men award. He said every head in that church jerked upright to full attention with this look of profound terror. They all knew at that moment they had been schooled again in Miss Della Louise’s master class in passive aggressive churching.
And so, I thought we’d pick up on the theme of absurdity by having the “Take Up Your Cross” scripture on Mother’s Day. The more I thought about it however, I realized that women and not just mothers carry some of the heaviest crosses and many different crosses in our society. I think of my own mother, who stepped in because the other parental unit in my family was not always so helpful. She took up the cross of raising me. She took up the cross of feeding us, taking us to church, seeing after my schooling, going to colleges, graduations, school events, cleaning, laundry, managing the bills, working full time. But Jesus teaches that love is often found is sacrifice and giving.
On this Mother’s Day we celebrate those who gave birth to children, loved them, and mothered in the traditional sense. But this day is also about more than just the traditional mom. So many women teach, take on children, take on adults as children, nurture, love, encourage, pray, and so on. Mothering is about far, far more than simply giving biological birth. Mothering is about giving and nurturing life in all situations, and that is truly a cross to take up and carry, for in Jesus’s own cross we were nurtured and given life. I am grateful not only for the mother who gave birth to me, but for all the women in my life who have mothered by nurturing, loving, caring, guiding, and in many instances feeding me. Bonus points that so many mother figures in my life like Mexican food too.
In the Psalm we read one way of taking up the cross—God listened when the Psalmist cried out for help. My mother is a very good listener. She is very longsuffering to sit on the phone listening to me prattle on for over an hour. Most of the time, I am seeking advice in life, and most of the time we’re both at a loss. One of the hardest things to do in life is to listen without judgment. It’s easy when someone confesses or spills their heart out to either be startled by it or minimize it because it’s not so significant to you.
Listening with an ear bent toward help, love, and nurturing is incredibly hard, but it is also Christlike. How many times over and over in the scriptures, and especially the Psalms, do we hear phrases like, “I cried out to the Lord, and the Lord heard my cry and had mercy on me.?” God listens, and in being willing listeners, we too take up that cross of offering compassion and comfort.
Taking up our cross also points us toward God. As Jesus is telling of his coming suffering and death, Peter decides to stop what he believes is crazy talk. He reprimands Jesus for saying such things. Jesus, in verse 33, tells Peter that he needs to see things from God’s perspective, and not just a human outlook. One of the things I appreciate most about my own mother and the women who have been like second mothers to me is that every single one radiated this love and presence of Jesus in their lives.
I have a friend whose mother was a disaster on a good day. Her mom was an addict, cold and cruel, and had zero interest in anything to do with her kids. But my friend, who stumbled into the church next door to her house, found a grandmother who fed her, took care of her, loved her, and taught her about faith for the next 20 years of her life. This amazing woman opened her heart and her life to this child who needed someone. Taking up our cross means confronting difficult thoughts and situations with the grace of Christ. There’s a saying on a bumper sticker I used to have in the office. It says, “First God created man, then he had a better idea.”
Peter, for all his strength, couldn’t bear to hear Jesus predicting his own betrayal, suffering, and death. I would imagine it was not only Peter who was unable to bear the words. He was probably speaking on behalf of most if not all the disciples. If everyone was comfortable, Peter wouldn’t have made the effort to take Jesus aside and instruct him to watch his words. Compare that to the strength of Jesus’s mother Mary, who walked the way of the cross with Jesus and stood at the foot of the cross. Despite the brutality, the sadness, the terror, she never wavered, and she stood by her son till the end. Her strength is a testimony to her ability to be in tune with God, and to help the others hold firm in God.
Lastly, taking up our cross is about perspective. After Jesus’s famous, “Take up your cross,” line, he says to the disciples, “What do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?” As I get older, I’ve learned I still like recognition from time to time, but I don’t particularly need it like when I was younger and wanted everything I did to be the best ever, and the whole world to know it. But I find there is one person’s validation and approval which still counts, and that is my mom’s. She listens to the service every week without fail. And I realize that is not necessarily because she needs a bonus sermon, but she does it, instead, for me.
And so, it is between us and God. In everything we do, we do it for the glory of God. A friend of mine told of how one Sunday morning everything was off for her family. They woke up late, milk spilled at breakfast, had to stop for gas, and everybody was shouting and fighting all the way from waking up to arriving at church. Finally, she turned around and said, “That’s it! When we walk in here you better act as perfect as Jesus himself because I will not put up with anything even slightly less this morning. Does everybody understand!?”
In a world that morning where everything seemed to go wrong, she did her best to nourish her children’s souls, to get them to a place where they could hear about God, and to make sure they half-way behaved. It would have been so easy to give in and give up. It would have been so easy to write church off as too hard and too exhausting to make it happen. But what benefit if she had all the comfort in the world and did nothing to nourish her and her children’s souls?
If we ask this week, “Why church?” The answer is that we have a cross to take up and carry. To carry our cross, we must listen to others, point them towards God, and keep a faith-focused perspective. And on this Mother’s Day we recognize and applaud that in many instances it is our women, our strong mothering presences, who are the most adept at taking up the cross (through every situation) and carrying it.
So, this Sunday we’re probably not going to hand out the somewhat passive aggressive awards for oldest, youngest, number of children, and so on. But instead let’s celebrate simply because so many women have taken up the cross of Christ’s love and life and have dared to nurture, love unconditionally, and provide that mothering presence for the ones who needed it most.
Worship Video: https://www.facebook.com/fccmacon/videos/763464995508119