Pick up YOUR cross.

Isaiah 50:4-9 and Mark 8:27-38

Andrea di Bartolo, Way to Calvary 1400 PD

It has been a pretty odd week. 

In the midst of the normal day in and day out, a significant day was solemnly marked this week. 

I was asked to participate in a command 9/11 ceremony, offering the invocation and benediction. 

That fairly standard task, that all chaplains are asked to do quite frequently took a different toll on me than it would under the normal circumstances. 

I found myself sifting through my own emotions and memories as I attempted to craft a prayer that would hold significance to those of the same faith, those of different faiths, and those with no faith tradition they called their own what-so-ever. 

On top of it all, my children came home from school with questions. 

In contrast to other years, they seemed to be hearing a lot more about September 11^th than they had ever heard before. 

They started to ask questions, like; 

“What is 9/11?”

“What happened on September 11^th?”

And “What is Patriot Day?”

On the eve of the September 11^th Ceremony I was to participate in, I had prepared my uniform and printed out my prayers. 

After reviewing everything carefully my family and I sat down for dinner, and amidst the chatter at the table, my kids began to once again discuss 9/11. 

Their reactions were sometimes more somber than others, sometimes even taking an inappropriate turn. 

They’ve heard us talk about 9/11, and I believe they had an idea about it. 

They have seen pictures, watched videos, and throughout the week we’d seen tributes on the television about it. 

But they still didn’t seem to fully grasp or understand it. 

It’s a foreign concept to me, and I think many of us, who just take it for granted that 9/11 is a scarring memory, etched into our heads and hearts universally. 

With so many junior sailors, officers, and students in this command, I have become increasingly more aware that many who’ve raised their right hands and donned the cloth of our nation don’t even have a memory of that fateful day. 

In conversation about it with my children, and so many others, I have come to realize it is not a day that they can “Never Forget” because they have no memory of it at all. 

More and more over the years I have heard that proclamation; “Never Forget” or “Always Remember” morph from a shared burden we all carry together, to a demand imposed on others. 

If one’s profile picture is not changed on social media, or we do not publicly broadcast our whereabouts on that fateful day, we are somehow opposed to those who do suffer so publicly. 

In light of my own emotions, the events of this week, my children, and the texts for today, it has haunted me how we carry this cross. 

Andrea Booher, 19 SEP 2001 FEMA Photo Library PD

Today’s text finds Jesus with his disciples, asking them to identify his role and place in society, and among his followers. 

Peter’s confession of faith is a well-known episode in Jesus’ ministry. 

Peter and the other disciples advise Jesus that he is seen as the return of one of the prophets in days of old, and perhaps even John the Baptist. 

Upon proclaiming that Jesus is the Messiah, Peter and the others are sworn to the secrecy of Jesus’ identity, before Jesus saves the bad news for last. 

What is most interesting about the text, and the texts we couple with this one, is that none of the disciples or Peter identify Jesus as Isaiah, or “the suffering servant” from our first lesson. 

I know that text particularly well. 

It was one of the first Hebrew texts I ever translated in seminary. 

I wrote an extensive paper on this lesson. 

It is a pretty graphic portrayal of a Prophet, speaking out to his people. 

He is speaking out not only to them, but in support of them.

He is attempting to strengthen them, support them, and allow them to grow as God’s people. 

In response he is brutally punished and silenced. 

This isn’t the end of the plight of the suffering servant, in the next song of the suffering servant, it becomes even more graphic. 

In the fourth act, the people become the voice in the song, announcing the servant’s death and their own responsibility for it. 

There is a tone of remorse in the voice of the author, and there is much debate in academic circles just who the servant was; an individual prophet like Isaiah, 

Or the collective nation of Israel. 

It matters both a little or lot, depending on the context of its use, 

But for today, the most significant thing is the fact that the vulgar brutality described mirrors the foreshadowing of Jesus’ own humiliation and death. 

An image Jesus alludes to in the Gospel today. 

Scattering the hopeful optimism of his followers that he will usher in a new age of what they see as justice and God’s intention for the world. 

Jesus foreshadows his own suffering, but the worst part is he in fact invites more suffering. 

“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 and for the sake of the gospel will save it.”

That one portion of the text has just been a recurring quote in my head this week, over and over again; 

Take up THEIR cross and follow me. 

Jesus isn’t asking us to be crucified on his cross. 

He isn’t asking us to suffer in the same way he did. 

He is asking us to “set our faces like flint” as Isaiah says, essentially staring down our pain, our grief, our bondage to sin, hatred, and anger. 

He is asking us to steer our ship into the storms of our worlds. 

Photo by Author

So, we did a thing in my house. 

We watched the events of 9/11 play out on old footage online. 

We told our children the stories from that day. 

My wife and I wept, and my children remained confused. 

Confused about what emotions they should or shouldn’t express. 

And in this moment, I leaned on Jesus’ Word. 

I approached the questions and confusion realizing that this is not my children’s cross. 

They are no more familiar with the events of September 11^th than I am with the events of December 7^th 1941. 

They cannot know what that NYC skyline meant to our collective nation, so we closed the lesson with a video montage we found of iconic movie scenes where the WTC could be seen in the background. 

They’ll never know how that day wounded me, or their mother, or our nation. 

They have no memory of what was lost that day. 

But what is more, just as I could not know December 7^th the way my grandparents or my great Uncle who blazed the trail I would follow when he responded to those attacks by enlisting in the USMC

They too cannot fully understand 9/11. 

My great Uncle rarely spoke of his experiences leading to WWII, or his role at Peleliu and Okinawa. 

But it was a cross he bore all his life, from that black and white photo of a young Marine surviving a brutal fight with a squad sized company of other Marines. 

He didn’t ask me to bear that cross for him, 

Perhaps it was due to his stoic nature, or post-traumatic stress?

But maybe, just perhaps, he knew this would not be the last cross young men and women would have to bear?

Perhaps he knew that a young Marine recruit would be standing at attention before a BN commander, announcing to a full company of Marine recruits that they would now be charged with carrying their own cross; 

A twenty-year multi front war. 

There are many crosses we must bear, and God help us all, who are we kidding when we demand others never forget?!

How does one even forget such a day as that?

But those who never knew it cannot be expected to carry that cross, nor should we want them to, 

Because this world is still broken, flawed, and damned by what we’ve become. 

The next generation will face their own crosses, so who am I to ask them to carry mine?

Unless we do better, we will continue to build the crosses that our children and their children will carry. 

Jesus doesn’t demand we carry his cross, he only demands we carry the ones we are faced with, 

But the crux, the hope, the grace, the resilience can be found clearly in the fact that in the midst of being called to carry our own crosses, the only one not carrying their own in that story is Jesus the Christ. 

He carried it for us, and the promise is that he will be the one taking it onto his shoulders when we believe we can go no farther. 

Amen

Skin in the Game

 

Mark 1:4-11

6 January 2021 Tyler Merbler CC
2021 Storming of the Capitol building.

On Wednesday, my Sailors had the tv in our waiting room tuned into C-Span. 

As I finished up a counseling session, it was eerily quiet in the building where I work. 

It is usually pretty lively and busy, but something was off. 

Everything looked normal, until I realized that the picture of the Senator speaking had a note at the bottom of the screen which read “recorded earlier.”

What I came to discover was that some type of forceful entry had occurred at the capital building. 

I didn’t even realize how bad it had gotten, until the Chaplain I work with, and I both turned on the tv’s in our offices

-Something we rarely have the time or desire to do at work-

Between the three televisions, we were all tuned into a different news networks, 

Looking onward in horror and shock. 

I became enraged, and one Sailor asked aloud how many of those protesting even knew how to wear the flack jackets and equipment they had clumsily draped over themselves. 

“They’re all a bunch of posers” came the reply of another. 

As the eerie quiet seemed to seep into the corners of the entire base, we too quietly left the building. 

It was odd how quiet my corner of our nation was in that moment, as I called an old friend I had served with as a Marine. 

He was standing by at the capital, preparing to repel the assault that had driven into the halls, and the chambers of our government. 

My friend has worn the cloth of this nation all his life, and as I was peacefully driving home, begging him to be safe and telling him how dearly I loved him, I felt as fake as those on the steps of the capital; helplessly and uselessly doing nothing. 

As helpless as I felt, when I got home, I watched in horror, with clenched fists, shouting at the television that those who were sacking the seat of our government had no right to do such a thing, because they have no skin in the game.

Domenico Ghirlando, Baptism of Christ 1486-1490 PD

Today is the Baptism of our Lord, even in the midst of all that is going on, ESPECIALLY in the midst of all that is going on. 

Today is the day that we not only recognize and celebrate the baptism of our Lord; Christ Jesus, 

But it is also the day that we hear Mark’s account of the incarnation. 

No baby, cattle, shepherds, or creche in this scene. 

It is only a muddy filthy little creek. 

I’ve been there, and I will tell you, it is not only about the color of chocolate milk, but it’s just about as thick as chocolate milk too. 

Mark’s gospel begins with the baptism, which many refer to as the “baptismal incarnation.”

It has led some to claim that Christ truly becomes the embodiment of the Divine, not in the nativity scene, but in those waters and in that moment. 

That is a debate best left for another day, but today there is one thing for certain; in that moment, God -in and through Christ Jesus- shows that God indeed has skin in the game. 

We are baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus, but one of the most asked questions in the church is why is it so necessary for Jesus to be baptized?

This again is another question, to which many debates and answers are offered up, but I think the answer to that question can be found in that incredibly disgusting water. 

Photo by author; Jordan River 2014

During my trip to the Jordan River on the celebration of the Baptism of our Lord, the tour bus parked on the Israeli side of the river as I guzzled down a Dasani bottle of water. 

I chugged it down like a frat boy with a beer at a Friday night party, as we exited the bus. 

When we got to the river, I was filling up the bottle with Jordan river water as many other seminarians looked on and laughed a little bit. 

We had all grown exhausted of the trinkets and souvenirs pushed on us at each location we visited. 

Dirt, rocks, pottery shards, necklaces, trinkets of all sorts, are sold all over the place. 

Each of those sacred sites are like a religious Disneyland, so everyone becomes a little jaded and cynical about what others seem to find worth taking home. 

So, it was no surprise that my retrieval of that disgusting water seemed silly to some. 

After spending time at the Jordan, we got back on board the bus, and one of the friends I had made asked directly “Are you really going to take that home with you? It’s kind of silly isn’t it?”

“Maybe…” I told him, “but it’s kind of a cool reminder that Christ was baptized in a river so full of filth of every kind, to include our own sin.”

You see? We are baptized into something holy, while Christ is baptized into something vile. 

The Christ is baptized into our filth, our sin, our shame. 

In fact it is such a vulgar and filthy commitment, that the very heavens and universe itself are driven apart, into a schism, divided by the injection of something fully holy, into something fully and completely vulgar. 

Jesus Christ shows us that yes, truly, God has some skin in the game here. 

The Baptism of Christ, 
Master of the St. Bartholomew Altar 1500 PD

I’m still not okay with what happened this week. 

And each time I watch the videos and pictures from what transpired, I become angered and I find myself accusing others of having no skin in the game. 

But I can’t control what they invest of themselves, into this nation, or into this mission we are called to share in by God, to love others as Christ loved us. 

I can’t demand that they invest more into what we hold sacred; the hallowed halls of our institutions, the history of this nation, the rule of law and constitution that serve as the framework and guiding light for how we live and are held accountable. 

I can, however, be more diligent in ensuring that I hold myself to those standards. 

I can display my pride for my nation and my allegiance to it, by honoring the colors of my nation in the face of such actions, or carrying that constitution in the pocket of my uniform, ensuring I am aware everyday, to that with which I pledged and continue to pledge my loyalty to daily. 

I can look for opportunities to serve, not only my nation but also my community, investing of myself in those places most uncomfortable and unclean. 

Likewise, I should most certainly and most importantly do the same with my baptism, remembering daily the promise made to me when I wash my face, just as Luther prescribed. 

But also remembering it is not just a reminder of the skin God put into the game, but the skin God calls me to put into the game as well. 

I need to live out my baptism daily, which is as much, and so much more of a challenge than honoring my nation, 

Because one day, this nation will fall, and this past Wednesday we were reminded of how vulnerable we are to such a thing. 

I do not celebrate that fact, nor do I ever want that to be a sight my eyes or the eyes of my children ever behold. 

But when that day comes, God will still have skin in the game, 

Just as God always has; 

When Adam desecrated the sanctity of the garden, 

When Cane desecrated the sanctity of human life, 

When the sanctity of the very seat of God -the Temple- was sacked and destroyed. 

Throughout God’s story and human history, things that we hold sacred and holy have been desecrated, 

It doesn’t make it right, and it most certainly doesn’t make it acceptable, 

But we need to do more than ask ourselves what others are doing about it, 

And we need to ensure, that whatever we do about it, it is through the lens of the highest allegiance we hold in our Christian lives together; 

The promise God makes, and calls us to in our baptisms, 

A banner colored into our own skin, with the dye of Christ’s blood +.

I pray we all can still see something sacred and beautiful in this nation, as we clean up the mess that has been made and sweep up the carnage from those halls that were sacked,

but we must never see that cross through the lens of any flag, that cross is meant to be the lens that colors all other things we love, 

Because God was the One who first taught us how to love, loving each and every one of us, above the colors of any nation. 

Amen

Image of the stained glass window,
showing George Washington at prayer,
located in the Capitol Prayer Room
US Government PD

These views are mine, and do not represent the DoD, DoN, or Chaplain Corps.