The Crosses of Our Discipleship

This sermon was offered by student, Alison Montgomery Fischer, in the All Saints Chapel of Church Divinity School of the Pacific on November 6, 2019. 

The assigned lectionary was Romans 13:8-10, Psalm 112, and Luke 14:25-33. 

One of the most surprising and frequent offerings of advice that I received when I started the ordination and seminary process was to be prepared to lose my faith or to at least have it completely dismantled and rebuilt. 

This process has, in many ways, reformed me as a disciple, transformed my spirituality and theology, and even dismantled and then restructured my confidence in the institution of the church. But I am grateful to claim that my faith in God and Christ has grown rather than diminish. Or that is at least my experience, thus far. 

However, I continue to guard my faith and relationship with Christ fiercely, because the experiences and relationships of this ordination process, and of life, have taught me that no one is immune to circumstances that can cause one’s faith to waver or be completely destroyed by the fallen nature of our world. 

Although I haven’t lost my faith in this process, I have learned how easily it is to lose my focus on being in communion with Christ and how easily it is to develop faults in the foundation of my faith. 

The stresses and busyness of our attempts to honor our professional, scholastic, and social responsibilities and commitments, in addition to the rest of life such as our relationships, finances, health realities…  Our lives quickly escalate into distracted existences that prioritize calendars and survival. 

As Christians, we are called to live as our authentic selves while conveying our faith in Jesus Christ through our words and actions. However, our culture obsessed with rigid expectations and identical boxes prevents our capacity of fully exploring our authentic and holy selves and discerning who we are, made in God’s image. We are called to show up in this world carrying our own crosses that we bear when it is much easier to simply stuff these messy crosses in a closet just so we can endure this life in our fallen world… 

I find it to be almost jarring how easy it is to fall into the performative motions of our honoring our responsibilities, existences that only honor part of our being, and even worship before we collapse into solitary exhaustion rather than in the metaphorical arms of Jesus. 

For those of us seeking ordination, we navigate our lives and this process, all while we know we are being assessed by a multitude of individuals who are discerning on whether or not to endorse the callings for ministry that we are seeking; the weight of it all can be overwhelming… But, the reality of constant assessment and judgement is experienced to a certain degree by almost every person in our society. Often, people judge as a way to distract themselves of their own problems and to create perceived realities of others that enables them to feel better about themselves. 

My experience has led me to witness this to be especially true within Christianity. Our faith has a bad reputation of hiding our authentic crosses in closets, expecting perfection in discipleship, having faulty theological and spiritual foundations, and selective membership in who is allowed in Christ’s body. But we have the opportunity to change this toxicity within our culture and the solution begins with how we honor the Holy within our own bodies and experiences. 

I wonder, how can we as Christians and faith leaders, be more authentic in recognizing and bearing our crosses to the world and then help facilitate a body of Christ that carries the crosses for each other. The life-giving crosses and the life-seizing crosses, they all offer an opportunity to be utilized for His glory. Is it an act of selfishness to limit others from experiencing the glory of God due to our self-imposed insecurities and shame that has already been eliminated through God’s redemptive grace and love for us?

Today’s Gospel teaches of the importance of the foundations of our faiths so that we are able to endure life’s trials and our moments of doubt, stress, and busyness. These foundations of prayer, study of scripture through comprehensive and critical scholarship, devotion to community, and living out the tenants of Jesus’ teachings are what enable us to take up the crosses of our discipleship. Everything else is a lesser priority. Without these foundations in place, and the priority of our relationships with the Holy Trinity as the core of our being, separation from God can occur quickly and stealthily even with the best intentions. 

The symbolism and metaphors used within our holy scriptures about “carrying our crosses” can be interpreted in various ways to reflect our discipleship. This scripture calls us to release our worldly desires, relationships, and sins that do not reconcile with the teachings of Christ’s Gospel. This metaphor is also understood to call us to trust our stresses, sins, and sorrows to God and rely on Christ’s teachings and our relationships in Christendom to enable us to endure this fallen world. We are called to carry our crosses, submit to the cross to carry us, and to help carry the crosses of others.

These crosses of ours are heavy, beautiful, splintering, invigorating, life changing, devastating, and enlightening. The foundations that uphold these life-seizing and life-giving crosses have the capacity to shift, and even be destroyed, when the entire existence is not focused on Jesus’ body, life, teachings, death, and resurrection. Every other aspect in our lives is a reflection of our understanding of and relationship with Jesus Christ. 

Luke 14:25-33 has led me to not only be more aware of the fault lines in my own faith foundation but also wonder where there is opportunity for us, as the Body of Christ and especially as leaders within the church, to claim what it means to more authentically carry our crosses as disciples of Christ and to also allow more grace and support for others and their crosses? 

These crosses of ours, our life-giving and life-seizing crosses of ours, may be unique in how they affect our lives; but they are not unique to the world and to Christendom. Each cross we are called to carry possesses the ability to minister to another person or group in capacities that we are incapable of foreseeing when we are willing to share our burdens and victories with others. 

However, that cross that carries us and thus enables us to carry others is just two pieces of wood without Jesus’ body. His death on the cross on Calvary models the core of our discipleship and faith.

 Jesus’ suffering on the cross, reminds us that he is suffering with us and that this cross has the capacity to carry us when our burdens are too heavy. Jesus knows suffering, fear, and betrayal and we can trust that we will experience healing and resurrection, just as He did. Though it may not be in the capacity that we desire or anticipate, the suffering will end, and our faith enables supernatural strength that empowers us to withstand the life-seizing and heavy crosses until it does.

While dying due to unjust persecution on that cross, Jesus modeled the necessity of forgiveness and mercy; for not only the others who were crucified with him that day but also the people who sentenced him to death. 

While in agony on that cross, Jesus modeled that it is acceptable to cry out and question God’s presence in our suffering. And even in our doubt, God is faithfully with us and loving us. 

In his death on that cross, Jesus offers us redemption, renewal, equality, love, grace, and forgiveness. That cross offers us new and risen life and the reasoning for our discipleship. We are called to claim these lifegiving crosses just as boldly as the crosses of suffering and trials. 

But together. Together, as the Body of Christ, we have the ability to carry and be carried. 

That is the beauty of the cross, our faith, and our calls to serve. 

That is the resurrection and new life offered by faith in Jesus Christ and living out His teachings. 

Thanks be to God.