Preaching text: Mark 8:27-38
In the aftermath of the recent FL shooting, Texas teacher Tanai Bernard wanted to ensure her 10-year old son, Dezmond, was taking his school’s active shooter drills seriously. So she quizzed him on what they did during the drills. Dez, as he is known, calmly rattled off the instructions that he’d received, that he and 3 other boys were to block the door with a table while the teacher blacked out the windows with construction paper. He then concluded by telling his mother that his classmates were then to stand behind him.
Mindful that her son is African-American, Tanai wondered aloud why the class would be standing behind one of the only two black kids in this otherwise white class. Dez explained, “I volunteered. If it came down to it I would rather be the one that died protecting my friends then have an entire class die and I be the only one that lived.”
And Jesus said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” I don’t know if Tanai Bernard takes her son to church. I don’t know if they are believers. But I do know that Dezmond Bernard, this 10-year-old from Texas, gets it. He understands what Jesus was saying even if he’s never heard it before.
Suffer the little children to come unto me, for the kingdom of God belongs to ones such as these. Ten years old and he understands what it means to take up the cross and lay down one’s life for others. Far too many of those who sit in pews like these each week don’t. No wonder Jesus had such high praise for children. They get it, usually far better than we adults.
There is a part of me, I am ashamed to admit, that is very resentful of my stepdaughter. Everything is a big joke to Emily. Everything has something to laugh at. I envy that. I deeply envy that, because the older I get the more bitter I find myself becoming about life. Life has beaten the crap out of me over the last several years. I’ve gone broke. Was in a horrific car accident that seriously injured my wife. Lost my home. Had my car repoed. Been in the hospital three times in the past three years for either life-threatening or life-altering conditions. I’m beat up and worn out. I find very little in life to laugh at. Very little that’s a joke. Very little to smile at anymore. It’s all deadly serious.
Along with that bitterness comes a poisonous selfishness. My faith compels me to fight against it, but I fear it may be losing battle. When I say, as I have in these past few weeks of sermons, that we are our own worst enemy, I know what I’m talking about. The temptation is so very strong to make it all about me. Me, me, me and to hell with everyone else.
And I’m not alone. Life beats the tar out of all of us. Many of you can point to calamity within your own lives that put mine to shame. Many out there can do the same. Many may claim they’d love to have my problems. But this constant abuse is getting to all of us. It makes us hard and cynical and bitter inside. It makes us selfish; we look out for #1 because that feels like the only way to survive these times.
And what it does is create a vicious circle that our whole society is now trapped within. Life hurts us, so we turn inward. We neglect and ignore the needs and dreams of others, and they are hurt by that. So they turn inward, and the process repeats over and over again. It’s a disease, a plague, and it’s spreading.
Just listen to the way people talk. The whole debate over guns that’s erupted yet again in light of the recent violence in FL is particularly telling. Has anyone here heard an argument against the banning of certain semi-automatic firearms that can’t be boiled down to “My pleasure at owning this weapon trumps your desire for you and your children to be safe.” My pleasure at owning this weapon trumps everything, because it’s all about me. What I want. What I like. What I enjoy. You, you don’t matter.
That’s a particularly timely example, but there many others. “Why should I have to pay more for other people to have healthcare?” “Why should I pay more in taxes so other people don’t have to starve?” Why should I care the poor, the disabled, the homeless, the mentally ill, the sick, or anyone else? They’re not me. Why should I care about why black lives matter? I’m not black. Why should I care about LGBT folk who want the same rights as the rest of us? I’m not gay. They’re not me.
There's also a flip side to the coin. Ask anyone of the generation who presently claims all the power, all the influence, and all the money, has most of the CEO positions and politicians, whose fault it is that our country is the way it is? It's the young people, the millennials, who have no power, no money, no influence. It's all about me, until it's about responsibility and blame and then it's "Everyone but me."
This is why our country is the way it is. We’ve stopped caring about one another, we’ve made it all about us. A nation of 326 million kings and queens who care only for themselves. Myself included. And we dare to call ourselves a “Christian nation?” There’s nothing about that that is remotely Christian.
Jesus shows us a better way. Living not for ourselves but for the sake of others. That’s what taking up the cross really means. Giving all that we are to make life better for our neighbors. It’s not easy. The world will not stop its abuse of us if we try. We not stop getting hurt. But Jesus knew that. Look what happened to him.
The world beat him with rods and staves. It rammed a crown of thorns onto his brow. It nailed his arms and legs to a rough wooden cross and then left him exposed to the elements to suffocate or freeze to death (whichever came first). He was God incarnate. There was no reason for him to allow that to happen to him except one: To reveal to us that our lives are more important than even his own. That’s God’s love for us, a love that says boldly “You matter more than me.”
God Almighty, incarnate as Jesus, said that of us. Of you and me. That’s how much you’re worth. That’s how precious you are. And now he asks that we show that same sort of love to one another.
That’s the love Dezmond Bernard shows his classmates. Tanai, I doubt you’ll ever hear or read these words, but you should be proud beyond words of your son. He is a young man of quality and character and this total stranger is very happy that one day it will be people like him who are running the show.
We can do the same. We can love like that if we can let go of our bitterness and our hurt and try to love again as Jesus did. It’s not easy, but it’s worth it.
Imagine what the world would look like if we did. When life takes a shot at me, I know that one of you, if not all of you, would help pick me up again. When life takes a shot at one of you, you can be assured that I and others would stand by your side. We are stronger together than apart. We can nurse one another’s wounds, give shoulders to cry upon, and we can love another.
This past Thursday was the 75th anniversary of the execution of Sophie Scholl, who as a young college student stood up to the tyranny of the Nazi regime and lost her life for it. She was 21 years old. (And a little child shall lead them. Isn't that proving properly prophetic?) Her final words are telling, “How can we expect fate to let a righteous cause prevail when there is hardly anyone who will give himself up undividedly to a righteous cause?”
Our neighbors and their well-being are a righteous cause. Let us take up our cross and live not for ourselves, but for one another. And by doing so, create a new world. Amen.
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