First preached by the Right Reverend Grant Lynn Ford at the Sunshine Cathedral on Sunday, February 26, 1991, then on Sunday, March 16, 2003 and now on Sunday, March 12, 2006.
The grace of our Master Teacher — the love of God in the unity of Spirit — be with you all.
God of Opportunities: You have offered us the choice of life and prosperity or death and destruction. Prophets of old have repeated these same choices. Jesus, in his words and in his life, encourages us to choose life, and to live it abundantly.
Yet, we are afraid of the opportunities you send our way. Lord have mercy.
We make choices of convenience rather than looking at the whole picture. Christ have mercy.
Sometimes we are even afraid to live fully and abundantly. Lord have mercy.
Loving God, forgive us for our poor choices, our negative ways; for letting fear stand in our way. Renew us in Spirit and in Truth that we may make the choices that are a part of Your Divine plan. May we walk in the Way of Your Beloved, Jesus, in whose name and honor we pray. Amen.
Bhai Sahib
When does gold ore become gold? When it is put through a process of fire. So the human being during the training becomes as pure as gold through suffering. It is the burning away of the dross. Suffering has a great redeeming quality. As a drop of water falling on the desert sand is sucked up immediately, so we must become nothing and nowhere… we must disappear.
Mark 8:31-38
31Jesus began to share with his students what was in store for him: pain and suffering, rejection by various religious and civic leaders, and ultimately, his death. But he also told them that he would rise from the dead three days later. 32While he spoke frankly and openly, Peter took him aside and quietly began to take him to task. 33Jesus stopped in his tracks, turned around, looked at his students, and then looked directly at Peter. “Get out of my face! Don’t try to trick me up, ‘Satan’! You’re not seeing this from God’s point of view at all!”
34Then he called the whole crowd together — his students and the rest who were following him — and spoke earnestly to them: “If you’re going to follow me, then you have to give up control and let me lead. You’ll have to take up your own cross — fulfill your own destiny — if you want to walk this Way with me.
35“If you cling to your life, you’ll lose it in the end. But if you surrender now and stop trying to determine your own destiny, the Good News is: you’ll discover Real Life. 36What’s the point of gaining everything you think life has to offer, but selling your soul to get it? 37What price-tag can you put on the ‘Real You’?
38“If you’re embarrassed or ashamed of me and what I teach when you’re confronted by fickle and unfaithful people, how can the Son of Humanity have any pride in you? If you can’t keep a ‘steady eye’ now, how will you look directly into the face of God and the angels of heaven?”
This week is National Girl Scout Week. Next week is Campfire Boys and Girls Week. March 17 marks Camp Fire USA’s 25th year of building leadership skills in youth. In 1999, unlike the Boy Scouts, Camp Fire implemented the following core value: “We are inclusive, welcoming children, youth and adults regardless of race, religion, socioeconomic status, disability, sexual orientation or other aspect of diversity.” Other groups that reach out to youth but do not discriminate include the 4-H and the Boys and Girls Clubs of American. Since we celebrate Pride South Florida today, this is a good day to salute all these groups that help to foster acceptance and understanding regardless of differences.
The month of March is dedicated to at least 31 different causes, including Poison Prevention, Cataract Awareness, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Colorectal Cancer, Foot Health, Frozen Food, Irish-American Heritage, Mirth, Noodles, Peanuts, Potholes, Talk with Your Teen about Sex, and Women’s History Month.
But for us today, it’s Lent, that strange season when Christians give up chocolate or beer or eating meat on Fridays. Why? I have no clue, except that the early church had its members giving up things as a means of self-discipline. The rest of us just figured it was a good time to lose a few pounds!
The real heart of Lent is preparation for Easter. Its focus is on the cross. We cannot arrive at Easter and Jesus’ resurrection except by way of Golgatha, the Hill of Death.
But the “cross” is also a powerful symbol for each of us, since Jesus said in Mark 8:34: “If anyone would come after me, you must deny yourself and take up your cross and follow me.” In today’s reading it’s translated this way: “If you’re going to follow me, then you have to give up control and let me lead. You’ll have to take up your own cross — fulfill your own destiny — if you want to walk this Way with me.”
What does this mean, this “take up your own cross”? Well, it certainly doesn’t mean wearing a cross around your neck, or dangling from your earlobe. It may be good jewelry, great fashion, and — yes — even an expression of devotion; but it’s not what Jesus had in mind in this reading.
Nor does it mean that when tough times happen we say in a whiny voice, “Well, I guess this is just my cross to bear.”
Denying ourselves and taking up a cross has to do with two very specific things: taking up our responsibility, and following after our destiny.
The University of Chicago did a five-year study of leading artists, athletes, and scholars. Conducted by Dr. Benjamin Bloom, the research was based on anonymous interviews with the top twenty performers in various fields. These people included concert pianists, Olympic swimmers, tennis players, sculptors, mathematicians, and neurologists. Bloom and his team of researchers from the University of Chicago probed for clues as to how these achievers developed. For a more complete picture, they interviewed their families and teachers.
The report stated conclusively that drive and determination, not great natural talent, led to the extraordinary success of these individuals. Bloom noted, “We expected to find tales of great natural gifts. We didn’t find that at all. Their mothers often said it was another child who had the greater talents.”
What they found were extraordinary accounts of hard work and dedication: the pianist who practiced several hours a day for seventeen years; the swimmer who rolled out of bed every morning at half-past five to do laps for two hours before school, and so on.[i] That’s how you get to the top — you set your goal, you assume your responsibilities, you give your all!
If that is true in outward society, it is even more true in an inner, spiritual sense. The person who wishes to be a success as a Christian will set the goals, assume the responsibilities, and go for it.
What are some of those responsibilities? They are not good deeds by which we hope to be saved. For Paul says in Ephesians: “It is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this not your own doing, it is the gift of God.” No, those responsibilities that we take up, says Paul — well, he puts it this way: “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” [Ephesians 2:8-9a, 10]
The Amplified Bible translates it this way: “living the good life that God prearranged and made ready for us to live.” The responsibilities of “the good life”, and good activities for Lent? I mention a few.
Attendance at worship: this is where we get our spiritual energy to do the things God has called us to do.
Helping: this is how we flex our spiritual muscles, doing the good works God has called us to do. Three years ago Bernie McGlinchey was our Volunteer of the Month. Today he’s a valuable member of our Cathedral Chapter, serving as Volunteer Ministry Associate. He found fulfillment at the end of a mop and a paint brush. Today he’s helping others find that same sense of fulfillment.
Giving: tithing — giving ten percent back to God — shows gratitude for what God has given us. It’s also the way we open the window of heaven, so that continued blessing — and even more abundance — will come our way.
This is a good time to thank those of you who have been generous when we needed to make necessary repairs because of hurricane damage. Many of you have also given generously to our Foundation’s Capital Campaign, which will provide a greatly expanded Worship and Performing Arts Center here at the Cathedral among other things And, most important, you are continuing to be faithful to our Ministry Budget, which pays the bills around here. Many of you have made new pledges for 2006 in our “Home Is Where the Heart Is” campaign. I hope you’re also filling out your Lenten quarter folders as we “make change with our change”.
Quiet time: a time for spiritual development, for reading the Bible and other inspirational literature, for meditation and prayer. This is how we put something in our treasury, so that we have something spiritual to give others.
Purpose: we should all be discovering what God’s will is for us, and then following after that plan. You see, in this way we not only take up our cross — taking our responsibilities — but we follow after him — we follow after our destiny. When Jesus died on the cross, he fulfilled God’s plan for his life. When we take up our cross, it’s not to suffer. No, it’s rather to fulfill our destiny. Remember our prayer? “Thy will be done.”
What are the results of living “the good life”? According to research conducted by George Gallup, 12% of Americans are “highly spiritually committed”. They are those who truly understand what Jesus meant when he said, “deny yourself, take up a cross and follow me.”
Gallup says the members of this group are “a breed apart from the rest of the populace in at least four ways: 1) they are happier; 2) their relationships are stronger; 3) they are tolerant of people of different races and religions; 4) they are community-minded.” They are involved in service to others. Now that’s cross-bearing that makes sense — and makes a difference!
The “good life” of success, prosperity, health and happiness begins when we do what Jesus said: “take up your own cross — fulfill your own destiny — if you want to walk this Way with me.”
When we take up our responsibilities and follow after God’s plan for us, becoming the very person God has destined us to be, we will find the sweet life that is filled with friends, focus, and fulfillment — a life that can be shared with others. And that’s the Truth!
[i] Dr. Denis E. Waitley, Winning the Innovation Game, (New York: Berkley Books, 1986)
I am discovering my destiny.
I am helped while I help others.
I am healed while I heal others.
I am blessed while I bless others.
I receive much even as I give.
I am living the Good Life —
— the life God planned special for me!
And I like it like that!
And so it is. Amen.
The Bible didn’t say it, Benjamin Franklin said, “God helps those who help themselves.” Those words are a far cry from the words of Jesus, who said: “If you cling to your life, you’ll lose it in the end. But if you surrender now and stop trying to determine your own destiny, the Good News is: you’ll discover Real Life. So take up your cross!”
