“If any want to become my followers, let
them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” (Mark 8:34b)
Have you ever changed your name? In
America it takes a lot of paperwork to do that. You have to get a new Driver’s
License and Social Security Card. I have to say that I really like my name because of its ethnic and etymological
significance; nevertheless, I find that I’ve been the recipient of new monikers
given to me by others. My folks baptized me as “Owen,” but school buddies knew
me as “Griff.” Since 1998 I’ve been “Pastor” to most people I encounter. Each
name, I’ll confess, has a slightly different identity attached to it.
In the First Lesson in the Revised Common
Lectionary for Lent 2, Year B (Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16), Abram and Sarai are
given new names by God. This re-naming is a sign that they’re now new people,
people who are living in a covenantal relationship with God. The idea here is
that the closer we get to God, the more we find ourselves changed.
Some years ago I decided to revive the old
tradition of giving confirmands new names when they affirmed their baptisms. Sometimes
the kids pick their own names, but I like to choose the names for them. I try
to come up with a handle that will reflect who the student is and who the
student, in relationship with God, could very likely become—assuming, of course, they’re willing to keep up their end of
the bargain. After all, our baptism, as Luther tells us[i], means that we’re always
in the process of being changed.
Like Abraham and Sarah, we, too, are living
in a covenantal relationship with God through our baptism. We are blessed to be
the blessing to others. I guess there are some TV preachers who will tell you
we’re blessed just to be blessed, but this rather spits in the face of the
Gospel appointed for this Sunday (Mark 8:31-38). Jesus is pretty clear about
what it means to be part of his posse—it means sacrifice and suffering, the
inevitable result of discipleship.
Now, you may think to yourself, “Well, that sucks!” and, to an extent, you’d be
right. In Jesus’ day, it really
sucked because all that jazz about taking up the cross (v. 34) could be taken
quite literally. A person almost had
to die for the sake of the Gospel, because the Gospel is such an offensive,
threatening affront to the sinful nature of the world.
Look: When Jesus preaches radical inclusivity,
it means that our folks aren’t the special, entitled people anymore. People who
are different, foreign, of another race, or differently made have the same
share in the Kingdom of God as we have. That really offends some folks.
When Jesus preaches forgiveness of
enemies, it means we don’t get to feel smugly superior. We have to give up our
sense of “fairness” and love people we don’t want to love. We no longer have
the luxury of holding grudges, and we can’t dream of the day when we can see
people we don’t like annihilated by some delightfully diabolical act of
violence. The old ideas of victory and defeat have to go in the dumpster. Peter
really hates that. He was so looking
forward to bloody revolution.
When Jesus preaches sacrifice, it means we
have to confront the fact that we never created nor owned anything on our own.
All we have—even our lives—is a result of God’s generous grace. Jesus asks us
to be the conduit of God’s blessing, but that’s going to mean denying ourselves,
and some folks just don’t want to do that.
It’s easy to see—isn’t it?—why Jesus says
the Son of Man must be rejected and
be killed. No one who attacks the self-satisfied comfort of the social order as
defiantly as Jesus does is going to get away with it without being persecuted
and denounced as a liar, a fool, or an enemy of the people.
This is our baptismal covenant, that we
die every day to our old, selfish ways and rise again to be people who will
make Jesus proud. It means we choose righteousness and abundant life over mere existence
and survival. It means we trust in God’s way and not lean on our own
understanding, because—face it—our own understanding usually just gets us in
trouble.
Being part of Jesus’ covenant always leads
to death—the death of our self-importance, intolerance, covetousness, anger,
and fear. But losing these things will lead to abundant life. Along with Peter
and Abraham and a whole bunch of folks in the Bible story, we’ll make missteps
along our path, but God loves to use imperfect people. So take heart. God’s
already renamed you.
You’ve been called “Beloved.” Try to live
up to it.
[i]
See Luther’s explanation to The Sacrament of Baptism (Part IV) in the Small Catechism. Luther references
Romans 6:4.
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