Proper 17, Year A | Matthew 16:21-28
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
September 3, 2023
the Rev. Jonathan Hanneman
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““If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” – Matthew 16:24[1]
What is a cross?
We see them all the time: on churches and jewelry; on bumper stickers, flags, and t-shirts. They slide into our colloquialisms and conversations, whether we encourage someone to cross their fingers for good luck or reference a difficulty as “my cross to bear.” And what with the Zia[2] being New Mexico’s state symbol and our city’s name literally meaning “the crosses,” they’re kind of hard to avoid on signs and other branding around here. I even have one tattooed on my wrist.
But really, what is a cross?
Being churchgoers, chances are you can tell me at least a short history about crosses. Back during the Roman Empire the government would use wooden versions to torture or kill people. Jesus was famously nailed to one for his execution. You might even know that it was illegal to crucify a Roman citizen; only “foreigners”—the many conquered or occupied people groups surrounding the Mediterranean basin—needed to fear them. Soon after the Church began to form Jesus’ followers started adopting it as a sort of code—an easily overlooked mark that only those in the know would recognize. Eventually Constantine painted a modified form of a cross on his shield during his military campaign to become Emperor, and in less than seventy years from that point, Christianity went from being an oppressed breakaway branch of Judaism to the official religion of the Roman Empire. Along with that, what had been an icon of pain and suffering became an emblem associated around the world with dominance, conquest, and victory: death become life and salvation for all.[3]
Jumping to our own day, even though we might know in our heads that the cross was initially a bad thing, it’s hard to associate it with much beyond just being a symbol for Church or Christianity anymore. People wear it almost like a sort of talisman. It hangs not only at the front of congregations like ours but probably from half of the rearview mirrors in the state. People flash homemade posters of it at sporting events and all too frequently try to associate it with their political causes.[4] In a lot of ways, the cross really doesn’t mean much of anything anymore—it’s just a sort of vague suggestion of something religious.
Unfortunately, when we hear Jesus say his followers need to “take up their cross,” Christians have a tendency to take it as an equally vague suggestion. We’ll occasionally sense or brush up against the deep discomfort buried in its past, but most of the time we associate “taking up our cross” with enduring an annoyance or having to do something we don’t particularly enjoy. It’s become jargon we use to make our inconveniences sound like martyrdom.
But Jesus isn’t talking about having to walk to the gas station because we forgot to fill up the tank or having to sit through an unusually long church service or preparing to sit through lunch with so-and-so without saying anything openly rude. Taking up your cross has nothing to do with your financial status or family history. Honestly, it’s a stretch when we apply it to most of the illnesses or life tragedies we tend toss under its umbrella. In reality, taking up your cross can never be something that happens to you. It isn’t an accident of time and place or a random difficulty you suddenly find yourself facing.
No, taking up your cross is a choice. And it’s a hard one.
Our Gospel reading opens with Jesus repeatedly trying to prepare his disciples what’s going to happen once they reach Jerusalem. After last week’s declaration of Jesus as the Messiah, Peter and the others are riding high, dreaming about the powerful positions they’ll receive when Jesus finally clears out all the bad guys and successfully establishes God’s Kingdom on earth. But that’s not how things are going to work out, and Jesus is trying to redirect their expectations. Having just told off Peter, I imagine he’s a bit exasperated when he finally makes his statement, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
As with taking up our cross, we tend to distort other parts of what Jesus says here, too. We pat ourselves on the back about how we deny ourselves when we choose not to express our irritation or if we successfully avoid eating that all-too-tempting piece of cake, but those are just matters of self-control. As Jesus uses it here, to “deny” oneself is more along the lines of rejecting or even renouncing. If you’re going to deny yourself the way Jesus is talking about, you’re actively setting aside anything even distantly connected to self-interest. You’re deciding to disassociate from any advantages, comforts, or conveniences you might hold dear. You’re choosing to give yourself away without expectation of anything in return. You’re declaring that you will seek the good of those around you, even if it means enduring trouble or facing disaster for yourself.
Likewise, taking up your cross is electing to enter a state of death while still alive, to walk the path of pain, rejection, and humiliation. It’s a determination to follow Christ along God’s pathway even as that road clearly leads to pain, degradation, and death.
Despite our modern associations, the cross isn’t the symbol of life or joy. Nor is it a celebratory declaration of what Jesus may have done for you. It’s not something we use simply to advertise religious affiliation, and it certainly isn’t some sort of magic charm. The cross, properly understood, cannot give any of us power or strength. It doesn’t offer authority or significance. It isn’t a pathway to peace or popularity or prosperity. When you take up your cross, there’s only one thing you should expect for yourself, and that is nothing. There is no personal benefit to genuinely taking up your cross. It is an utter renunciation of self.
So what is a cross?
It’s a reminder—not to others, but to ourselves—of the price we all must pay if we would truly follow our Savior.
“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
[1] All Bible quotations are from the NRSV unless otherwise noted.
[2] An ancient Native American symbol that takes the shape of a modified cross.
[3] We modern Christians must remember, however, that the sign was rarely, if ever, celebrated among those being dominated or falling under conquest.
[4] Which is an open violation of the Third Commandment.