PROPER 19, YEAR B

September 12, 2021

St. Uriel's, Sea Girt

Mark 8:27-38

Beliefs have costs. A wise mentor once offered me those words as a bit of advice and perhaps also as a warning.

Wrong beliefs certainly have costs. When we decide that some particular proposition is true, it may well cost us dearly to be wrong. If I somehow end up believing that San Francisco is only 500 miles from Sea Girt, it’s going to cost me if I attempt to drive there in one day. We make mistakes and get into trouble when we base decisions on inaccurate information.

But even when we’re right—when our information is accurate, and our beliefs are true—we’re apt to find that their very truth makes costly claims upon us. Indeed, the most profound truths are not abstract and theoretical propositions, but realities that engage us personally and existentially. The truest beliefs are often the ones that have the steepest costs.

Today’s Gospel gives us a case in point of an individual expressing a true belief but then being unwilling or unable to accept its consequences. In response to the Lord’s question, “Who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answers, “You are the Christ”—in other words, you are the Messiah, God’s Anointed One. That is indeed the true answer, in contrast to some of the other answers that people have given to the same question. But then Peter protests when Jesus starts spelling out the consequences of that truth.

“He began to teach them that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again … And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him.” While Peter gives the right answer to the question of who Jesus is, he rejects that answer’s consequences for Jesus, the cost of being the Christ. Recognizing in Peter’s rebuke a demonic attempt to deflect him from his messianic mission, Jesus responds harshly: “Get behind me Satan! For you are not on the side of God but of men.”

But there’s more. The consequences of Jesus being the Messiah extend beyond Jesus himself to his disciples. Turning to the crowd, Jesus declares: “If anyone would follow me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me.”

The point is that there’s a deep inner connection between what we profess with our lips, what we’re called to do, and how we’re called to live. Acknowledging Jesus as Lord inescapably entails the commitment to take up our cross and follow him.

This passage in Saint Mark’s Gospel serves as a warning against certain types of Christian triumphalism. Among relatively new and spiritually immature Christians a frequent temptation is to view the faith as a kind of insurance policy against suffering and hardship. For example, the so-called “Prosperity Gospel” purveys false assurances that if we only pray hard enough, and in the right way, God will send us all kinds of blessings of earthly riches, bodily health, and worldly success. But Jesus knows better; and he warns his disciples that just as he will be rejected, suffer, be killed, and after three days rise again, so his disciples can expect nothing less than their share of rejection, persecution, and suffering in this world.

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” The obvious question is: How do we do that? What does it mean to take up our cross? Where do we find this cross that we’re supposed to take up?

Having reflected on this question over the years, I’ve come to the conclusion that most of the time we don’t need to look for our crosses; they find us! Deep down, I think, we all know this to be true. Life in this world brings all of us our share of frustrations, hardships, burdens, and pain—whether in the form of illness, injury, bereavement, broken relationships, or other setbacks and disappointments. In some cases, these sufferings are the consequences of our own bad choices. In many cases, we’ve had no choice at all, and we’re the innocent victims of unfortunate circumstances, or worse, the ill will, bad intentions, and wrongdoing of others.

We don’t have to go looking for our crosses; they generally come and find us. Still, while we don’t have a choice about which crosses are laid upon us, we do have a choice about whether to accept and take them up as our means of following Jesus. Here, right belief has good consequences. In following Jesus, we serve him; in serving him, we know him; in knowing him, we become like him – which is another way of saying that we become more and more the people that God created us to be.

The good news here, I think, is twofold. First, in taking up our cross and following Jesus, we find fellowship with him and with our brothers and sisters in Christ; and there’s no greater joy in this life. 

Second, the point that’s easy to overlook in the Gospels is that when Jesus foretells his sufferings, he always foretells his Resurrection as well: “he began to teach them that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” That last clause is crucial: “and after three days rise again.”

The cross is real, but it never has the last word. If we willingly accept our share in Christ’s sufferings in this life, he first lightens our load by sharing our burdens with us. And then he shares with us his glory in the life of the world to come. 

Several years ago, Aretha Franklin’s funeral was broadcast live. I’ve always really admired African-American preaching and Gospel music. While I didn’t necessarily agree with everything that all of the preachers said, one of the stories I liked best went like this: A daughter said to her mother, “When I get to heaven, there’ll be so many people there, how will I ever find you?” She answered, “Meet me at the exchange counter.” “The exchange counter? What’s that?” “Why, that’s the place where you exchange your cross for a crown!”