Pentecost IV, Proper 7

Zechariah 12:8-10,13:1
Galatians 3:23-29
Luke 9:18-24

If anyone intends to come after me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

A ten minute walk from here is the Department of Justice headquarters, and if you could slip through security and enter its Great Hall, you’d see a twelve and a half foot tall statue of Lady Justice, erected in the 1930s. About five years ago she attracted almost as much attention as Janet Jackson – indeed, she may have inspired Janet Jackson – when curtains were placed in front of Lady Justice so no one would be able to see her exposed breast.

It is an Art Deco statue – sleek, elegant lines, a style as cold as the aluminum with which the statue was cast. She’s impassive, aloof – hardly voluptuous. Lady Justice is the other end of the spectrum from the famous 17th century sculpture of St. Teresa in Ecstasy. St. Teresa is fully clothed, but her ecstasy is full-frontal impassioned. Bernini’s masterpiece sits conspicuously above an altar in our Lady of Victory, a prominent church in Rome.

The curtains in front of Lady Justice came down a couple years ago. Most people don’t associate passion with Lady Justice. To the contrary, she’s often depicted with a blindfold and holding scales of justice and a sword. She’s supposed to be rational, impartial, even remote – a model of fairness, objectivity, and rectitude.

Justice is an essential virtue for civil, godly society, one of the fundamental qualities which shape the way we treat one another. We routinely offer masses here for social justice. Justice promotes harmony, prosperity, peace. We cultivate this virtue.

I expect that most people would describe God as just. Yet when I reflect on today’s gospel, I’m not sure. At least, it certain isn’t a core quality of his. It certainly isn’t the primary way in which he deals with us. It’s certainly not what I see in the cross. 1

Think of the parable of the prodigal son. The younger son receives his inheritance, abandons his father, squanders the money, and then when he has nothing to eat, he returns home. The father sees him coming, runs out to greet him, rejoices, and throws a big party. The older son, the victim, wants justice. He points out that his father’s behavior is absurd and unjust. How can he celebrate this scoundrel and shower even more gifts on him?

The father has no interest in justice. He’s instinctively self-giving regardless of the recipient’s worthiness. The father is still giving to his wastrel son and without condition. How can he do this? The father said, “He was lost, and now he’s found. He was dead, and now he’s alive.” This fills the father with joy and delight.

Jesus told the parable of the farmer who hired people to work in his vineyard, and the farmer paid those who worked a single hour the same wage as he paid those who worked under the hot sun all day. That’s just? Again and again and again, Jesus confounds us when we assume that we know who God is and how he’s supposed to act.

We develop expectations of God. We want him to gratify our desires. But God comes to re-shape our desires and our sense of right and wrong. And he shows us that shape on the cross. The cross shows us faithfulness, how a follower of Christ should endeavor to live.

In today’s gospel, Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do people think I am?” The people think Jesus is not the Messiah, but a forerunner of the Messiah; they think that Jesus is someone like John the Baptist. Jesus didn’t act as they expected the Messiah would. If Jesus isn’t the Messiah, then the people can more easily keep their own image of God. If Jesus is the Messiah, then all of their cherished assumptions are up for challenge.

S. Peter makes his startling confession that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ of God. And Jesus immediately talks about himself as someone who the authorities will reject, someone who will suffer and die. The disciples can’t fathom a Messiah who will suffer and die. They expect a triumphant Messiah, the recipient of the world’s glory. Indeed, we, too, have that reluctance judging from how many more people come to church on Easter morning than on Good Friday. 2

Jesus shows us that the Messiah is not about worldly power and acclaim, but about suffering and the cross. He calls his disciples not to worldly power and glory, but to picking up our cross day by day. Taking up our cross every day is denying ourselves, giving ourselves, sacrificing ourselves.

Perhaps the best way to understanding taking up our cross is that it’s volitional, an act of choice – not something imposed upon us. Losing a job, having ill health, having difficult family or friends, living with a lack of ability or poor luck – in a way these are not crosses even though we talk about them that way. 3 These are not matters of choice. Jesus has compassion for us, and he is with us in our pain and difficulties. Following Jesus means voluntarily taking up our cross, voluntarily accepting hardship, and doing so in the service of God, voluntarily denying ourselves to serve human need.

At the heart of the mystery of human existence is the paradox that the more we give of ourselves the more life we have, and the more we live for ourselves the less life we have. Following Jesus comes from recognizing that the purpose of life, the great imperative, is to give of ourselves, and giving of ourselves comes from seeing our possessions, other people, and ourselves differently than the world sees them. 4

First, how do we think about our possessions? “If we believe that what we have is ours because we’ve earned it, we’ll have a hard time giving. We’ll expect everyone to earn their possessions, just as we think we’ve earned ours.” But they aren’t ours! What we think of as our own, be it our home, our jewelry, our retirement portfolio, even the clothes on our back aren’t ours at all. We haven’t earned them.

God has given us these things. He’s given us talents, abilities, friendships, life. We all have more than we deserve. In a sense, we’re all prodigal sons. We give more freely, more enthusiastically when we appreciate how much we’ve received, when we appreciate that none of it is ours. How can we think, “Let them fend for themselves,” when we haven’t been left to fend for ourselves?

Second, how do we think of others? In our culture, every relationship tends to become a market. The world encourages us to use other people, to get something from them. One of the most popular self-help books ever is Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. 5 Seventy years after being published, it’s still a big seller.

Carnegie writes extensively about giving to other people and showing interest in other people, but the goal is for our own gain. He advises us to make friends so that we can get something from these friendships. It’s friendship for gain. It’s giving to benefit ourselves, not other people It’s reciprocal obligation, exactly opposite to God who gives expecting nothing in return.

We don’t have to see other people as competitors or as a means for our own gratification. Rather, we see every person as God’s beloved, as cherished. We see every person a recipient of God’s gifts, gifts that must be given through us. The world encourages us to grasp and compete, to get others to serve us. A Christian community shares according to need. (Acts 2:45) A Christian finds his fulfillment not in being served by others, but rather in serving others.

Third, how do we think of ourselves? “It is possible to have a [great] fortune and as many talents as a Renaissance man and still be poor. ... No matter how much we have, we remain a ‘not-enough’ people.” To be rich, to feel satiated, has little to do with how much we have. It has everything to do with our attitude.

A truly rich person lives with gratitude, aware and in awe of his blessings. A truly rich person lives with contentment, striving still, but striving out of fulfilment and gratitude, not striving out of the emptiness of craving. A truly rich person lives with trust and hope for the future, not holding back reserves. A truly rich person lives with commitment and enthusiasm, not calculating, not cynical, not afraid to fail, not afraid to be burned. A truly rich person delights in giving.

God delights in giving to us – not because we deserve it, not because it’s just. God delights in our existence, that we are. And so he gives himself to us on the cross. When we take up the cross, we discover that it’s more blessed to give than to receive, that fulfilment and growth come from giving, that love trumps everything, even justice.

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

1. A tension between love and justice exists in the doctrine of the atonement. Is the cross really where God satisfies justice and bears our punishment for us? Is justice as integral to God’s being as love? Is justice a greater imperative than love?

2. Fred Craddock, Luke, John Knox Press (1990), p. 128.

3. Craddock, p. 130.

4. Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge, Zondervan (2005), pp. 107ff.

5. Volf’s illustration, pp. 89-90.