Sunday, June 22, 2008
As you try to live as a follower of Jesus in your daily life and work…do you find it easy or difficult?
I hear different answers as I travel around the diocese. Some people tell me they are blessed to be able to live and talk about their faith openly with colleagues in their work place. I’ve also had several adults tell me that when they told people they work with that they were going to be confirmed or received into the Episcopal Church, their co-workers said, that’s a stupid thing to do. Why would you waste your time with hypocrites?
Several adults have told me that they had to quit their jobs because their boss required them to do things that they felt were unethical. Young people have told me about schoolteachers who made fun of them because they go to church and are Christians. Here are a few stories about people from our diocese who find it difficult to follow Jesus:
For a moment – let us think about how difficult it is to be a follower of Jesus in some other countries of the world … Because our church is part of the worldwide Anglican Communion, I have had the privilege of hearing stories from Bishops around the world and the challenges that they face as they seek to follow Jesus. A Bishop from Sudan told me how he had been sent to prison because he was a follower of Jesus. He told stories of Christians in Sudan whose children had been kidnapped and taken into slavery, of priests and lay leaders who had been killed by anti-Christian soldiers.
A Bishop from Pakistan described how every Christian who had been baptized in his diocese in the last ten years, converting from Islam to Christianity, had been killed.
Again this morning, police and soldiers attacked Anglican Christians in Zimbabwe. As they gathered for worship in their churches, attacks on Anglican Churches have been going on there for weeks.
I tell you these stories to remind you that in this country and around the world, it is very costly and difficult for some people to live as followers of Jesus in their situation. In fact, more people were killed in the last century because of their faith in Christ, then in the previous 1900 years put together.
So when we hear Jesus say in today’s gospel, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword”, we know that he is describing the experience of people in his generation and down through the centuries.
Jesus said, blessed are the peacemakers. Jesus lived as a peacemaker, even forgiving the people who crucified him. So we who seek to follow Jesus are called to be peacemakers and reconcilers, after the example and teaching of Jesus.
But even though that is our desire, others may carry hostility toward us, just as they were hostile and violent toward Jesus. Although we want to live as followers, we can’t expect that we will be treated any better than our master, Jesus, himself was treated.
We are very, very blessed by the religious freedom in our country. Too often we take this gift of religious freedom for granted. Yet, in the luxury of our freedom, we may become complacent and not take our commitment to following Jesus as seriously as those who live in more threatening situations.
Whether we live in threatening or supportive situations, Jesus speaks the same message to us: in today’s gospel “whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” What does it mean for us to take up the cross and follow Jesus? Jesus tells us that, it was his goal and his desire everyday to follow the will of his Father in Heaven. Jesus prayed in the garden, thy will, not mine be done.
The cross was the result of Jesus living as God wanted him to live.
The cross is the intersection of the vertical dimension of relationship with God…with the horizontal dimension of our daily lives on this planet. The way of the cross involves living our daily lives…with a constant relationship with God, as we seek to follow God’s guidance for the way we speak and think life.
Our daily temptation is to be so focused on getting things done, rushing through each day, that we forget God’s presence with us in each moment. We forget to ask Jesus how he wants us to respond in this situation…e.g. when a driver cuts us off, when a co-worker or family member speaks sharply tous. Too often we simply rush through our days on a horizontal level…and forget to stay connected with God…as we live through the day. We forget to take up our cross and follow Jesus.
I learned something valuable from a friend of mine named Tom. He was a good man who became an alcoholic, then a drug addict. He lost his business, then his family and ended up living on the streets of Boston. One day, as a street person, as he walked passed a church, he heard a voice speak inside him saying, “Tom, you don’t have to live this way. He stopped and paid attention to that voice for a moment then went into the church and found himself in an AA meeting.
Through AA, God helped him turn his life around. Tom told me he is now an 18 or 20 prayer a day man. I asked him what he meant by that. He said, when he gets up in the morning, he kneels by his bed and asks God to guide his day. He says, “I can’t stay sober and live the life you want me to live, God, without your help”. He lives the way of the cross by checking in with God throughout the day, asking for guidance and help at least 18 or 20 times.
At the end of the day, before getting into bed, he always kneels down and thanks God for the day. He thinks back over the day and pays attention to how God helped him. He checks to see if he connected with God at least 18 or 20 times during the day. If he prays less often than that, he asks God for help to stay in more frequent contact the next day. He says, if I don’t have at least 18 or 20 connections with God during each day, then I know I’m trying to run my life on my own…and I know what a mess I made of my life when I tried to live that way. So I ask God for help to stay in more frequent touch with God the next day.
Jesus ends today’s gospel by saying, “Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” Tom thought his drinking was under control and that he was in control of his life. But when he was a self-made man, in control of his life…he actually lost his life to his addictions. When he let go of trying to control his life, turned his life over to God and asked God to guide every area of his life…for the first time, he found what it means to live a healthy and fulfilling life as God intended. He experienced what it means to let go and let God.
Tom’s experience is similar to people around the world whose lives are threatened because they are followers of Jesus…they learn to trust God for guidance at every moment. Because they literally trust their lives to God’s care and guidance in each situation, they often have a depth of peace, love and joy that we often miss when we get stressed out by trying to control our lives by ourselves.
Whether our lives are easy or difficult, Jesus has invited us to take up our cross and follow him everyday. What might that mean for you and me this coming week?
I invite you to close your eyes for a moment. Let’s be aware of Jesus here with us now…looking at each of us with his eyes of love and care for us – and all that is going on in our lives.
Imagine that Jesus asks you a question: What percentage of your life are you trying to control…and what percentage of your life do you allow God to control?
What changes might Jesus want you to make in the way we pray at the beginning and end of each day…and during each day this week… so that you have more connections with God, …perhaps 18 or 20 prayerful changes each day… so that you are depending more on God’s guidance …and not trying to live your own wisdom, energy and control alone?
Oh Jesus, teach us how to pray, at fresh depths and, with more frequency, teach us how to take up our cross daily and follow you – even when it is not easy. Help us to let go and let God guide our lives.
May your Kingdom come and your will be done on earth – in our lives – as it is in heaven for the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory are yours, now and forever. Amen.