31st August
I want to begin by telling two brief stories – both true – and both highlighting aspects of the journey of faith of those involved.
Firstly-
Dr. Rebekka Zakaria, Eti Pangesti and Ratna Bangun are three Indonesian woman who were sentenced to three years in prison after their conviction of “attempting to coerce children to change their religion” under the Indonesian “Child Protection Act” after running a Christian Sunday school. At least 2 of these women have children of their own but despite their imprisonment they have inspired others by starting a church within the prison walls.
And the second story- which is a more personal one
12 years ago (it doesn’t feel that long ago!) I was travelling in East Africa with my husband and we met a couple of missionaries who worked in Tanzania. They had 3 children who attended a boarding school during the week and the couple travelled, spreading the Gospel as they went. They lived locally and learnt the local languages as they sought to show the love of Jesus to those who didn’t yet know him. Back in the UK remained most of their family and friends, as well as the jobs and home that had been so comfortable and familiar to them for so long
These are 2 quite different stories but I want us to explore for a moment what these two stories have in common. The common thread is that the people in these stories felt God calling them and they were obedient to that call – despite the consequences. The missionary couple left their homes, jobs, friends and families and uprooted their children from their schools to share the Gospel in a place far from home where they were sometimes met with hostility.
The women in prison felt called to stand firm in their belief by not denying God and teaching young people about Jesus. For this they lost their freedom. Both stories have consequences for those involved – albeit very different ones – and both show that there is a cost to being a disciple of Christ.
And Cost is the key word!
There is a cost to following Jesus and this is made explicitly clear in today’s Gospel reading
Where we heard the following words of Jesus: ‘if any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it and those who lose their life for my sake will find it’
If we imagine the context of this reading – those to whom Jesus was talking – his first disciples. Who were called to leave behind their homes, livelihoods and in certain cases their family –such as James and John who left their father and their fishing to immediately turn and follow. They would’ve had no idea what lay ahead but he called and they followed.
This particular Gospel story follows Jesus’ conversation with Peter exclaims that Jesus is the Messiah and Jesus has just told his disciples of the great suffering he is to endure before he dies and is raised……and now he is telling them to deny themselves and take up their own crosses and follow.
Like the early disciples and like the missionaries we are ALL called to follow Jesus and not just to turn and follow To take up our cross and follow
Now this may not always be easy, this is a path of cost and sacrifice, it is about surrender and Tom Wright comments ‘there are no half measures on this journey!’
And for us it might not be that we are called across the other side of the world. We may not all have to leave behind our home and job or our freedom, as in the case of the Indonesian women, and surely we cannot listen to this Gospel message without remember those Christians who are currently persecuted because of their faith…… those for whom the idea of ‘losing their life’ may have a very different and more painful and poignant meaning than it does for us – those Christians whom we pray for who live in fear and oppression.
But this Gospel message does apply to us all – we are called to lose our wordly lives as we are ALL called to leave certain things behind when we become disciples of Christ. We all have things that we want to hold on to, perhaps things we know that, as Christians, we should not do. It’s almost like we sometimes say ‘yes I will follow you – but these are my conditions!!!’
To name an example: ‘I want to follow Jesus but it is hard to change aspects of my lifestyle that I know are not how God wants me to live’ and so echo the famous words of saint Augustine who prayed “Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet”
BUT Jesus is not calling us to follow him with conditions or delay – we are called to turn from our old lives, take up our cross and follow Jesus in obedience and trust.
Obedience and trust – seen in the lives of the missionaries from my story, seen in the lives of the Indonesian women held captive for their belief and action, and the obedience and trust in which we must walk our faith journeys – but it isn’t always easy, the Gospel message reminds us it always supposed to be easy.
But of course it is not just about cost and in today’s passage there is also a great promise, the hope of finding our life when we turn from our old lives. Jesus both suffered and died and he paid the ultimate cost for us on the cross. We heard the words of Jesus this morning that ‘the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father’. The hope of the resurrection and the promise of glory come after his suffering. For Jesus there is no resurrection without the cross, and we must take up our own crosses – whatever that may look like for each one of us.
What do we hold on to that God wants us to let go of? Where do we lack trust and obedience? My prayer is that we are challenged to listen to God, to respond and to follow – to surrender to him, to walk in his love and his grace, and to trust in the promise of the abundance of the life found in Christ as we take up our cross and follow.
Amen