Friday

It is finished. A lifetime, a ministry, an attempt to tell something of God's love, mercy, and grace. Take up my cross and follow? Are you kidding me? Look where it gets you. Isn't there another way?

When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He knew what he was talking about, I guess.

What does it mean to die to yourself? What does it mean to give your life for another?

Abba Poemen said, "When you hear someone complaining and you struggle with yourself and do not answer him back with complaints; when you are hurt and bear it patiently, not looking for revenge; then you are laying down your life for your neighbor."

I take this stuff seriously. It mostly paralyzes me, but I take it seriously.

I sometimes wonder what it would look like for the church to die. What would it look like if the corporate church were to put on the mind of Christ who, though he was in the form of God, did not take equality with God as something to be grasped at but emptied himself, taking on the form of a slave. What if the church sold all its buildings and furniture and real estate, gave it to the poor, and followed Jesus to the cross? It doesn't even seem possible, does it? Because all those buildings and furniture and real estate are useful. They can be used to further the work of God. They can also become the whole reason for the church existing. So much goes into the upkeep of the physical plant. So much of the church's resources go into self-preservation and its sometimes hard to see the emptying out.

But, as we were told to sing years ago, we are the church. And I'm not so good at emptying myself. I don't personally know anyone who is. It's no wonder that collectively we fail to do it as well.

But Christ calls us, and there is dying involved in the call. Dying to self. To put others before us takes a little out of us, is a small death. To give to charity when you want some shiny new toy is another death. To help someone on the side of the road when we're in a hurry to get somewhere, that's a little death. We might manage those. Sometimes. It makes small differences.

I heard someone say recently---I can't recall where---that death is a miracle. I can go along with that. It seems unnatural to stop breathing. It seems unlikely that it'll happen to us. It's hard to believe.

But there's something in our faith that speaks of death as a choice. Not as a suicidal thing, not as a killing sort of thing, but as a sacrificial sort of thing. Love takes something out of you. It is also sustaining and rejuvenating, but let's not fool ourselves, it also takes something.

There is an argument to be had as to where or not Jesus went willingly to the cross, but I'm not interested in that argument, not tonight. What I think is more interesting is that Jesus made choices that he had to have known would make powerful people angry. He did this even though he knew it could cost him his life. He taught, healed, helped even when he knew it would rub people the wrong way. And as much as I trust in the resurrection, I have to say---I'm often quite afraid to do that. I'm not willing to put myself out there in the same way that Jesus did.

I'm not willing to empty myself. Not often. Hardly every.

Jesus ended up on the cross---what a failure! I love the business books that speak of success in terms of how Jesus became a success. They read a different Bible than I do. Jesus did what was right, did everything right, and still ended up on a cross, a victim of a state sanctioned execution.

I'm not willing to be that big of a failure. I'm afraid of dying that big a death.

But that's our story today. Follow Jesus, get a cross. Follow Jesus---he calls you to die. Follow Jesus and learn to not hold grudges, to forgive, to take no revenge.

"Teach me to live that I may dread the grave as little as my bed.
Teach me to die that so I may rise glorious at the awesome day."

This is serious stuff. This is deathly serious stuff. And, to bring it around to the supposed topic of this blog, it bothers me that all sides of the argument around GLBT stuff (or just about any argument within a church, for that matter) are defending themselves, speaking ill of othe other side, not willing to die for the other. I'm in the thick of that. I'm not entirely sure how to die to myself in this argument. I'm not sure how to give my life for someone with whom I fundamentally disagree.

God, save us by your grace. We're certainly not going to get saved by works here.

Follow Jesus. Take up a cross and follow Jesus. Be willing to do what Jesus did, even though you know it will create powerful enemies. it will get ugly, maybe even bloody, and it'll likely be your own blood.

It was Jesus's own blood. And after all of it was done, Jesus gave up his spirit and said, "It is finished."

But in each ending, there is a beginning . . .