Don't Be Afraid

Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it. 
Matthew 10:38, 39

I’ve told many of you this story but going to tell you again anyway because to share what I feel called to share I need to fall on my own sword a bit.

I was finishing some last minute homework at a local cafe the summer that I finalized my plans to attend seminary. I was single and excited for the future and I saw an attractive young woman in line ahead of me ordering her tea. I decided to walk up to her, strike up a conversation and see where that might take us.

We grabbed a table and were hitting it off I thought. She eventually asked me about my future plans and immediately I froze. I realized that I’d have to tell her I was going to seminary and I suddenly felt really embarrassed. I was afraid I was going to come off as a bible thumping Christian oddball, uncool, irrelevant, weird and I quickly realized that that wasn’t a price I wanted to pay during this impromptu coffee date. 

So I lied. I told her I was pursuing a Masters in Religious studies. Vague. Noncommittal. That degree could mean anything. And the conversation went on. But I sat there just hating that I let that happen. I’d like to say that my perturbed conscience was enough for me to come clean, but honestly I also remembered the words of Jesus and inwardly shuddered:

‘Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven. Matt 10:32, 33

So when she finished sharing, I let her know, “hey, sorry I just lied to you right now. I’m not going for a Masters in Religious Studies, I’m attending a seminary because I’d like to train as a pastor.” 

To her credit, she showed kindness and even some interest in what seminary entailed. But our time together fizzled out. In my insecurity I felt it was because I gave off the impression I was afraid of giving, a very Christiain-y one and that’s why we didn’t go anywhere. Now I think rather I lied and that’s just not a way to start anything. Or it could have been something else.

But what I want to highlight is that the pressure to be a public christian isn’t a personal idiosyncrasy but something that the genuine follower of Jesus has to contend with. As Jesus highlights in our upcoming Sunday Gospel:

‘The student is not above the teacher, nor a servant above his master. …If the head of the house has been called Beelzebul, how much more the members of his household! Matt. 10:24, 25

Jesus was the kind of human who loved God and people perfectly, and people laughed at him, hated him, and he knew they would eventually kill him for what he said, what he stood for, and who he claimed to be: God come to us to save us from ourselves. So he tells his followers: if they will do this to me, why would you expect you to be treated differently if you’re imitating my life, if my teachings are forming your life, if you call me your Saviour and Lord?

In other words, if you follow Jesus then sometimes you’re just going to take it on the chin. And as uncomfortable as that is to consider, it’s also probing and it should be sobering. A couple of reasons why:

• If you’re a Christian and you haven’t ever taken it on the chin for Jesus then either you’re not actually following Jesus or the Jesus you’re promoting isn’t the one we find in his word, it’s a Jesus of your imagination which really amounts to the first point.
• You’re following Jesus but you’re so private about your faith that it amounts to no faith at all, for an authentic faith in Jesus is a public reality (imagine I told my wife: “I’m married to you but I’m not wearing a ring and I’m not telling anyone about you, not signaling I’m taken by you, and in public I’ll be embarrassed by you and tell people we’re not official or anything. Get the point?)
• For us here in the modern West, the reasons we almost always give are really a smoke screen to hide the fact that we don’t want to pay the price of following Jesus because we are cowards. I say we because I’m in this boat too.

In the years since that coffee date, I’ve become an ordained priest. And I’ll be honest, when I meet new people I always dread the question: “so what do you do in town?” Because I know the moment answer it gets weird. Either folks start giving me their spiritual resume (“I go to church with my gran on Christmas and Easter!” *nervous look*) or their eyes get glossy, an invisible but palpable wall goes up and now I’m uphill: I’m going to have to work hard to become normal in their eyes. And although it may be slightly different because I’m a priest, really, you know this can happen (has happened) to you when you say ‘yes I’m a Christian’ without deflating and disingenuous qualifications.

But to have integrity, to genuinely follow Jesus is to do what he said: 

‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. Matt. 16:24

And I am really thankful that this is how Jesus puts it, because although it might not immediately seem like it, there’s a lot of mercy and grace here. Because the truth is each one of us is in a different place in our spiritual journey. Some of us want to follow Jesus, and are taking real steps to follow Jesus but maybe we can’t mention it on a first date. Or maybe we’re okay on a date, but I can’t tell my boss. Or I can tell my boss, but not my closest friends. Or my friends, but my family wouldn’t understand. You get the idea. 

And that’s why taking up the cross is grace because death on a cross is a slow death. First you gotta pick it up, then you have to drag it somewhere, then you’re nailed on it but you don’t die right away, it’s slow. It’s a journey. If Jesus had said, take up your sword and fall on it, pick up your glock and pull the trigger,  well, then that would be incredibly steep. That wouldn’t take into account that humans need time to grow to trust Jesus that leads to courage to stand for Jesus because we love him for who he is and what he’s done for us on the Cross. 

But picking up our much smaller cross than the one Jesus climbed is the way to an authentic life. Because it’s in the losing of our life that we find it. And as mystical as this sounds, it actually makes a lot of sense. 

Because it’s the friend that insecurely and desperately clings to others that finds themselves uninvited and alone.

It’s the parents who smother their children with their expectations that lose them as adults. 

It’s the individual who grafts their identity to their money, career, reputation that, once they lose it, they lose their sense of self and any joy that could have been theirs. 

Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? Matt. 16: 24-26

If in the drive to save face and be perceived to be normal we lose our soul, was it worth it?

The Sunday school answer is no, and it's no less true for being trite. 

But Jesus isn’t saying, you gotta do it now or we’re through. He’s inviting you on a journey where you learn to trust him, and it’s in the journey that you will grow to love him, the source of life and love, more than the resume version of ourselves we’ve made up and promote because we’re afraid others won’t accept us and the only way we can look into the mirror to accept ourselves. 

So if you’re tired of putting on the act, you can let it go because Jesus doesn’t need it. And he’s telling us we don’t need it. He sees all of us and he loves us. He’s offering us his life and love and all we need to do is trust him. 

Won’t you take him up on his offer? In the end, really, what do we have to lose? Not much when we have everything to gain in Jesus the Creator, Redeemer, true King, and our Friend.