“Take up your cross and follow me.” For two thousand years the church has found in these words of our Lord the supreme call to discipleship. What the twentieth century martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “the cost of discipleship” is summed up in this terse summons of Jesus. But what is the cross we are to bear? Without an authentic, biblical answer to that question, we can’t even get to first base in our discipleship.
Over the years I’ve heard many explanations of the cross we are called to bear. Let me give you some examples. The friends of one woman who had a daughter who was severely challenged both mentally and physically said this child was the cross that mother had to bear. (Please note that the mother never saw her child that way. She experienced her daughter as a blessing.) The friends of another woman saw her alcoholic and abusive husband as that woman’s cross. I’ve heard other people call their arthritis, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and various other diseases the crosses they must bear. I even remember one poor old soul say that the awful singing of the man who lived in the adjacent apartment was the cross she had to bear every morning as the man “serenaded” the world from his shower!
All the above circumstances and afflictions, however, have nothing to do with the cross Jesus calls us to take up as we follow him. They are more like Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” than they are the legitimate cross of discipleship. Illness, inconveniences, irritating fellow humans, natural disasters, and co-dependent relationships in which one person chooses to be victimized are not the cross of genuine discipleship.
The cross we are called to bear is the price we pay for being faithful to the will and reign of God in this world. The cross of discipleship is any form of persecution, suffering, or rejection we endure for being, living, and proclaiming the good news of God’s liberating and redeeming Kingdom bursting into our time and space. Some examples of such courageous bearing of the cross of discipleship I have observed are the following:
The white minister who accompanied an African-American girl to school during the early days of desegregation (He was nearly beaten to death with baseball bats and was rewarded for his courage by being fired from his church while he lay near death in the hospital.)
The teenager who chose patterns of life that are not materialistic and consumeristic because of Jesus’ teachings on the real priorities of life and had to experience the ridicule of his peers and much of his family (There are such young people in our world who, like St. Francis, hear the gospel in more powerful ways that most of us do.)
The Presbyterian minister in Texas who was jailed for providing sanctuary for Central American refugees facing persecution and death back home (While serving as senior pastor in the Wabash Christian Church in Wabash, IN, I was told that some houses in the county still standing served as stations for the “Underground Railroad.” Why do we see those who provided that sanctuary as heroes while we see their modern counterparts as criminals?)
The couple which decides against the wishes of family and friends to embrace some mission work in settings which force them to live near the edge of poverty in order to be faithful to their God-given call and vision (I have known couples and singles who grieve because their families and friends do not understand their mission and dream.)
Those who risk rejection when they challenge the stereotypes and prejudices promoted in our society against women, racial and ethnic groups, those with different sexual orientations and identities, those who are different because of physical, emotional, and mental challenges they must cope with in a world that values people by the godless standards of “success and production.” (Those who are really committed to the good news of Jesus Christ as God’s grace and compassion for ALL humankind and ALL creation will always have a hard row to hoe in the world)
Young people who take Jesus’ words seriously on nonviolence and choose not to serve in the armed services because their peace convictions are rooted in the gospel (For the first three centuries of the church, Christians following the way of Jesus chose the path of nonviolence. It was only after Constantine “converted” the church to the path of violence that the church began to bless and participate in war.)
From the above examples I believe you get the idea of what the cross of authentic discipleship really is. It is the cost of saying “Yes” to Jesus in a world that says “No.” I am convinced that for the most part we Christians in North America know very little about bearing such a cross. I am sure that such is the case with me. I am forced, therefore, to conclude that one of two things must be true. Either we live in a world already transformed in the image of Jesus and thus already reflecting God’s will and reign in ways which make our faithful witness superfluous, or we have been molded to the ways of the world to such an extent that we cannot recognize genuine discipleship when we see it or are called to it. Maybe that’s why we call such things as a man singing off-key in a shower the cross we must bear.
