Mark 8:27-35
- Nine young soldiers had received overnight passes from their base camp. When morning came, not one of the nine was present. An hour after their absence was noted, the first soldier straggled back into camp. He was immediately taken before his company commander "I'm sorry to be late, sir," the soldier said, "but I had a date, lost track of time, and missed the last bus. I wanted to make it back on time so I took a taxi. About half way back to camp, the cab broke down so I went to the nearest farm and bought a horse. As I was riding on the horse, the animal suddenly fell to the ground and died. So I did the last miles on foot and here I am." Although he was skeptical about the chain of weird excuses, the company commander let the young man off with a mild lecture on the virtues of punctuality. Thereafter seven more stragglers reported in, one by one, each with the same story! They had a date, lost track of the time, missed the last bus, took a cab, cab broke down, bought a horse, horse fell dead. Finally, the ninth and last soldier arrived. Now totally exasperated, the commanding officer growled, "What happened to you?" The ninth man replied, "Sir, I had a date, lost track of the time, missed the last bus, hired a taxi . . ." "Wait a minute! Wait a minute!" cried the officer." Are you going to tell me that the cab broke down?" "No, sir," the soldier replied. "The taxi was fine. The problem was we couldn't get through. There were so many dead horses on the road."
And then here comes Christianity. We all know what its Founder said. It's all there in the gospel. Jesus says, "The one who saves his life will lose it." Again: "They will manhandle you and persecute you... .You will be delivered up even by your parents, brothers, relatives and friends, and some of you will be put to death." Again: "Unless you take up your cross and follow me, you are not worthy of the kingdom." And about Paul: "I will show him how much he must suffer for the Gospel's sake." So, it comes down to this. Christianity is perceived as saying, "We offer you pain, suffering, rejection, sorrow, imprisonment, and death. Our heroes are Peter on the cross, John in boiling oil, Lawrence on the grill, Linus on the rack, and John of the Cross in the looney bin. We guarantee that you will get tortured, garroted, quartered, and killed. Won't you join us?"
I ask you, when people say, for example, that such and such a priest is so holy, what do they mean? They usually mean that he looks emaciated, irritated, and constipated. His eyes are rolled upward and he is thin, wan, and frail because he is "spiritual," that is, he's far from earthy, fleshy things and near to expiration, the realm of the pure soul. And if that weren't enough, often as not Christian art offers us models of saints who look undernourished, piqued, and tubercular. Again, would you join such a club, one whose chief product is the cross? Not when you have Club Med staring you in the face.
There's something wrong, and that something is the way we read the cross. "Unless you take up your cross daily and follow me, you are not worthy of me." The cross here means commitment. And that we can understand because that's the way we live. If, for example, you want to star in the Olympics, you must take up your cross daily, every day. There's no doubt about that. And you suffer. You forgo entertainments, certain foods, leisure time, and commit yourself to an unrelenting routine of practice and self-discipline. If you want to be a doctor or lawyer or whatever, there are the crosses of commitment to bear: long hours of study and practice and internship and so on. If you want your marriage to be successful, you take up your cross daily: patience, forgiveness, attentiveness.
And if you want to be a disciple of Jesus you take up your cross, the price of your commitment fidelity in a world of institutionalized infidelity, ethics over job advancement, compassion over greed, forgiveness over revenge. There is a "cost" to such commitments; hence, the cross. But there is, of course, the by-product, too often neglected in our advertising: joy. The joy of receiving the gold medal, the joy of the degree behind your name, the joy of a loving partner, the joy of achievement, the joy of being a whole person, the joy of integrity, the joy even of hardship. How many couples, looking back over the first years of their marriage when they had nothing but each other, exclaim wistfully, "Those were tough years, but we were happy." You see, testimony to the "cross," to the pain that commitment always brings, but also to the joy that it brings.
Not the least of which is the love of God. The saints were happy in it. Mary, who knew hard times, spoke of it: "My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior." Paul and Barnabas actually sang in prison. Francis chanted his canticle to Brother Sun and Sister Moon. Thomas Aquinas - all 300 pounds of him - wrote hymns of exquisite joy. Saints knew happiness even when disdained for their commitment to beauty and truth. They knew laughter in dispute, contentment in adversity, and inner peace in distress. St. Teresa of Avila told jokes on her detractors, John Bosco danced with the children, and G. K. Chesterton wrote witty verses and clever stories.
The point is that Jesus is saying nothing more than what human nature knows: no gain without pain, no crown without the cross, no humanity without commitment, and commitment always brings the cross as it always brings joy. Which is why Jesus also said, "So you have pain now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you."
Christianity has suffered from poor advertising. The cross has been downsized to mean depressing hardship for its own sake. Joy has not been placed in the forefront where it should be. But we Christians should reverse that. It's not, "Come and join us and die." It's "Come and join us and live!" for Jesus has come to give life and give it abundantly.
(Reprinted with permission from Storytelling the Word, pp. 271-274, copyright 1993 by William J. Bausch. Twenty-third Publications, Mystic, CT.)[This resource, as well as many others, is available at a discount through the Homiletic Resource Center. If you enjoyed this homily, you might consider purchasing the BAUSCH TREASURY, a complete set of his homiletic books, including his new ones The Yellow Brick Road, The Word In And Out Of Season and A World of Stories for Preachers and Teachers, as well as all of his previous homiletic publications: