Pick Up Your Cross
Pick Up Your Cross
by Pamela J. Tinnin

Mark 8:31-38

I’ve mentioned before that I used to work with Vietnam veterans. I was a volunteer with a group called Project Outreach during the last years of the war and for several more after it ended. Like I’ve told you, I did secretarial work, took guys to the V.A. hospital, and did some counseling—well, more just listening.

Over the years vets drifted in and out of the office that was located in a shabby Victorian home in a rundown neighborhood. Some men we only saw a time or two, but some were regulars, and became volunteers themselves. One of those was a guy named Jerry, a short stocky man in his mid-twenties with a pleasant smile and an eager helpfulness.

He’d been terribly wounded in the war—the helicopter taking him to Saigon to catch his "ride home" was shot down. Seeing him, you’d never have guessed Jerrry had spent 3 months in a V.A. hospital, and months more in a rehab center. He was always on the move—he was a mainstay of the center, bustling from one task to another. He drove the van on hospital runs, answered the crisis hotline phones late into the night, worked on the wornout plumbing, and was always starting some new project—like the Saturday he showed up with buckets of paint, drop cloths, and ladders, to paint the enormous old house, from the peeling wood siding to the fancy scrolled trim on the front porch and around all the windows.

Jerry didn’t ask any of us to help, but by the end of the day, one by one we had drifted outside, picked up a paint brush, and joined in. When dark came, we had to stop. Somebody took up a collection for pizza and drinks. I remember the coolness of that September evening, how good it felt to sit there in a lawn chair, tired but pleased with the work we’d done. There was an old rose bush that twined its way up the porch post and its sweet smell hung in the air. A neighbor’s dog, a slow, friendly mutt of unknown parentage, came and dropped down next to me, his head warm against my leg.

I was so tired, I didn’t talk, but the guys got to telling stories from the war, nothing awful, or tragic, just funny things—tricks they’d pulled on a new guy, the way they’d fooled the officers, the crazy times on R&R in places like Hong Kong or Sydney, Australia. The pizza came and for a while all you could hear was chewing and swallowing. We sat there for a long time, long after the food was gone, too tired to move. I was getting ready to drag myself out of my chair to head home, when Jerry’s voice broke the silence.

“At the end of my tour, I was countin’ down the days,” he said. “We hadn’t seen any trouble for a couple of weeks. It was good duty near a little place not far from DaNang, nothing but a few huts, pig pens, and rice paddies. It was beautiful there—in the early morning, the mist drifted along the water in the paddies, no breeze, and the heat already rising like steam.  One morning the Lieutenant sent me out with four other guys.”

We could tell by the tone of his voice, this story wasn’t like the others—there was no sound of amusement, just words coming out flat and dry. I noticed then how quiet it had gotten in the yard—nobody said anything, just waited. I couldn’t see in the dark, but I felt Jerry move in his chair, heard him clear his throat.

“We found this kid—really he found us, just stumbled into us, not more than 14 or so, 90 pounds if he was that. He wasn’t from the village, and the guys started saying VC, he’s VC. I don’t know—maybe he was, how could you tell? They started asking him questions, but we didn’t know Vietnamese and he sure didn’t speak English.” Jerry laughed, but it had a terrible, painful sound.

“Then it all turned ugly,” he whispered into the darkness. “They started slapping him, yelling at him to tell where his buddies were. I could see the kid was real scared—his eyes big in his head, his hands shaking.”

It was so quiet. No one moved or spoke until Jerry went on.

“That was when the guys said, “C’mon, Jerry, hit ’em. Hit ’em.”

“They were my friends,” he said, “the only people I could count on over there,” his voice sounding like there was something caught in his throat. “He was just a kid,” he said, “but I hit him, not hard, just enough to fool them. I remember his soft cotton shirt against my knuckles, how his thin bones felt like a bird’s.”

None of us knew what to say. I reached over and put my hand on Jerry’s arm, but he didn’t seem to notice. After a long time, a guy they called Ratchett spoke up, his voice loud after Jerry’s soft words. “Oh, c’mon, Jer. Nobody expected you to be a martyr.”

“Nobody expected you to be a martyr.”

•     •     •     •     •

Nobody wants to be a martyr, do they? I know I don’t, but when we read the text in Mark today, it’s pretty scary, because that’s what Jesus seems to be saying to Peter.

Poor Peter. First Jesus calls him to the task of fishing for people. Then, in Matthew, he’s called the rock upon which the church will be bult. And now, Jesus suggests that because Peter denies that Jesus will be bound over, tortured and crucified, that Peter’s not that far from Satan.

I can hear it all now. Peter says, “Don’t talk like that—don’t spout all that stuff about how people will turn against you, spit on you, hit you—don’t talk about dying.” And who can blame him? After all, Jesus was saying, if you follow me, this is what’s going to happen to you, too. Nobody wants to think about that stuff. Nobody wants to think that your faith might actually cause you problems, get you in trouble.

But Jesus makes it plain as day. He rebukes Peter, says “Get thee behind me, Satan” which is just a way of saying “get away from me.” Then he spells it out—sacrifice, offering yourself for others—is exactly what being a disciple means. “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” And this, “What does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?” In other words, if you lose your soul by the choices you make, what kind of life do you have anyway? You begin to die, bit by bit, until there isn’t much left.

But because we know the rest of the story, we also know there is grace in it, too. That even though we fail in our Christian walk, even though we betray others, even though we betray the one who came to bring us new life, it’s not over, it’s never over. Through God’s mercy we can be forgiven and start again—whatever our failure is.

•     •     •    •     •

The other vets told me that Jerry had never talked about what happened in the war—and he never spoke of it again. But before we left that night, after we thought he was finished, his soft voice came again.

“You know,” he said, “I was raised Church of God. I was a true believer. Maybe that sounds dumb or corny, but even when I was a kid, I knew—just knew—that I was chosen—that all of us are chosen—it’s just up to us to say yes, to turn our lives over to Jesus. But I haven’t been in a church since the war—people like me don’t belong there. See, I should have stopped them, should have fought them off. I should have saved the kid.” And I realized then that the Vietnamese boy had died.

What Jerry knew is what Peter hadn’t figured out—that if we want to be disciples, if we take our faith seriously, we can’t just bring it out of our pockets on Sundays and then put it away again until we come back to this nice, safe place. Our faith must go with us out there into the world, out there where sometimes it’s dangerous to live like Jesus. But in a way, Jerry was as wrong-headed as Peter ever was—because Jerry didn’t understand who Jesus was either. He didn’t see that while Christ makes tough demands on us, his love doesn’t falter when we fail; his grace doesn’t dry up when we’re weakest; his forgiveness doesn’t disappear when we need it most.

More than thirty years have passed since I saw all those guys. I hope Jerry found what he was looking for—no—more than that, I hope he found what he needed, what we all need. A love that knows no end, a mercy with the power to wash our spirits clean, and the grace that gives us a new heart—the gifts of God for all the people of God. AMEN

(Comments to Pam at pamelatinnin@EARTHLINK.NET )


Guerneville Community Church-UCC
Guerneville, California