Take up your cross
Proper 17, Year A; Rom 12: 9-21; Matt 16:21-28
Last week we read the famous confession of Peter in answer to Jesus’ question, “who do you say I am?” The episode is given in its fullest form in Matthew’s version, including the blessing on Peter, the acknowledgement that he will be a rock on which the Church is built, and the “bestowal of the keys” (vv.18-19). All three Gospel versions of the episode however continue with some version of the confronting aftermath of the story, which we read this week. Jesus goes straight on from being acclaimed as Christ to predicting his demise:
Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised (16:21).
And of course then Peter, spurred on by his success in the last part of the conversation, decides to correct Jesus, but earns the harshest of rebukes in turn: “Get behind me, Satan!” Jesus then explains not just his own fate but the difficult call to discipleship, and the need not just for himself but for them—us—to take up the cross.
It is awkward to have all this spread over two weeks as a sort of double episode. When we read the equivalent story in Mark next year, we get the four parts of this story (confession, prediction, denial/rebuke, teaching about following) together in one reading, which makes best sense of the Gospel narrative. Today then has to constitute a corrective or at least a nuance about confessing Jesus as Christ, or about apostolic ministry, or both: the glory of Jesus and of his apostles is the glory of taking up the cross.
Jesus alludes to the process he would undergo, as did so many under Roman rule, of being paraded between prison and gallows, carrying the instrument of torture and death. Our mental pictures of this are typically inaccurate; the condemned did not carry a “cross” in the sense of the whole apparatus, but the cross-bar or patibulum —like a railway sleeper—to which they would later be attached, by rope or nails, before being hung on the existing upright or scaffold.
The image Jesus uses refers however to that journey, not the crucifixion itself. While we of course think ahead to his own way of the cross, the first readers of Matthew’s Gospel saw many such walks in their daily lives; condemned prisoners were often dragging their own cross-bars through the streets, providing a kind of spectacle and a warning. To be told their own life was like this process was not so much a matter of noble suffering, but of shame and vulnerability, or of ridicule.
Ancient prisoners (and even fairly recent ones) served as spectacles, as a sort of moralizing entertainment, both in the moment of death and often before it. Our own treatment of those in the judicial and penal systems now lacks some of the color, but is if anything becoming even more a form of entertainment and distraction. The implication of carrying the cross isn’t just suffering, but shame and misunderstanding.
It may seem strange to imagine the life of the Christian as a criminal spectacle; of course in the early years of the Church, this was not an uncommon experience, in quite literal terms. At least by tradition, Peter himself was to end his life similarly. As that possibility of persecution faded, in at least some places and times, the more generic idea of “having a cross to bear” overshadowed the original and more confronting sense of the Gospel.
So the comparison of discipleship to carrying a cross is not an invitation to think of our personal struggles as a sort of spiritual gift. They may be so in some way at some times, but that this isn’t the point here. Taking up the cross refers to what we face specifically because of following Jesus, not to what following him does to help us interpret suffering generally. This easy mistake has often led us to accept or hallow forms of suffering we should not have.
What now? Although some Christian-related groups complain about recent cultural change, and the loss of influence and privilege taken for granted in the former Christendom, even very conservative Christians are not persecuted in the contemporary West. Perhaps, this Gospel hints, that may be a good thing?
Yet most of us will still not be asked to bear anything very like a cross, and the significance of the Gospel could thus remain a bit obscure. Paul may help us here.
There is, if we look closely, a sort of parallel here in the Epistle with Matthew’s double episode. In the Gospel, Jesus is shown indeed to be the Christ, not gloriously as Peter imagined, but in what seem to most people like shame and ridicule, for the sake of showing the deepest love for his own. Contrary to all common sense, he must suffer many things before rising again. Peter likewise will be the rock and given the keys, but to do this must take up the cross to follow him.
In the Epistle, Paul expands on his call last week to be “living sacrifices” (12:1), describing this new life into which we have been raised after dying with Christ. In doing so he also offers another idea of what it means to follow Jesus. At first it is much less confronting than “take up your cross” talk; read a bit superficially, it could be just a sort of “do unto others” list, fleshed out a bit. Paul however contrasts the typical view of what success and happiness are with a kind of reversal describing the truth, which may—like the cross-bearer—seem shameful to others. He also contrasts a set of common-sensical responses to everyday challenges, not necessarily grand dilemmas, with a set of paradoxical alternatives that represent the way of the crucified one: generosity for its own sake, not for hope or return; giving honor rather than seeking it; and at one point at least, Paul uses a key image related to the Gospel: bless those who persecute you (12:14).
Whether or not we find the path of discipleship leading to suffering and shame, the way is clear, and it is utterly counter to the wisdom of the world. Our call to take up the cross is not first a call to suffering, but a call to love. Dominican theologian Herbert McCabe once put it sharply: “If you don’t love, you’re dead, and you do, they’ll kill you.” Yet those who have already died to sin and are alive in Christ need not fear the power of death.
Meanwhile? Take up your cross. As to what it means now, Paul lands that clearly enough at the end: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”