First Congregational Church

Jesus says in our Gospel reading, “if you wish to be a true disciple of mine, you need to leave everything behind, pick up your cross and follow me.”

To paraphrase from Bette Davis in All About Eve, “fasten your seatbelts; it’s going to be rough ride.”

There are some tough challenges in this Gospel to explain.

The first challenge is to explain the word “hate” and why we are to hate our family and even ourselves if we are to follow Jesus.

The greek word for hate here – miseo – has caused no end of problems and it can be translated to mean “despise” or “dislike” but it is better understood to mean “to cut oneself off from”.

In other words, Jesus is saying “to be my disciple you have to place allegiance to me and the Gospel above allegiance to family and even to yourself.”

It is about priorities.

Think about the exit row on an airplane. If you have children under a certain age, you cannot sit in an exit row.

The logic is that, in the event of an emergency, most parents would think first of their own children.

To assist in an emergency, you need to be able to place the welfare of your fellow passengers above all other loyalties. It’s not easy.

I remember the first time I sat in an exit row, a flight attendant explained how to open the door, remove the door and throw the door outside the plane. And then she asked if I was willing able to do that, and I said, “yes.”

Then she explained that part of the responsibility of sitting in the exit row in the event of an emergency meant that I would have to assist others out of the plane first.

I said, “You mean, I can’t just jump first and from the ground holler for people to follow me?”

She said “no”. That’s not how it works. Your first priority is to everyone else on the plane first and then yourself.

That kind of changed everything for me in terms of sitting in the exit rows. It meant risking my life for the sake of others.

That’s not an easy thing to do.

Neither is discipleship. That is why Jesus said that, in order to be a disciple, we must leave everything behind, pick up a cross and follow him.

Despite popular interpretation, this business of picking up a cross does not refer to a burden, but rather a risk. Carrying a cross is not about the weight of the thing itself, but the implication it represented.

In Jesus’ time, you only carried a cross if you were on the path to your own execution. The cross had not become a symbol for the Christian yet because Jesus had not yet been executed on Good Friday.

The cross was only one of the many symbols of execution. So Jesus was saying, “If you want to be my disciple get ready to be killed for the sake of my message and my life.”

So, do you still want to continue? Jesus was asking.

After finding out I had to put others first sitting in the exit row, the flight attendant always asks, “do you want to continue sitting there?”

And, it’s always up to me.

Jesus lays it on the line here in this text. It’s risky business being a disciple. Real risky. It means putting Christ and his teachings first – in front of family, friends, job, and even self.

On my last trip to Phoenix on Southwest, and after I got into my exit row seat I was asked if I was willing to put others first be helping them in the case of an emergency by sitting in the exit row and I said yes.

Then the attendant on the pa system continued with the safety stuff about fastening your seat, the tray in an upright and locked position, the oxygen things that hangs down, and the use of the life jacket and seat cushion as a flotation device.

From Albuquerque to Phoenix everyone on the plane thinks its pretty ridiculous to even think about a life jacket.

But the attendant put that in perspective too.

He said that before landing in Phoenix, we would be flying over 62, 946 swimming pools before landing.

And in the event that we would land in one of those pools, we needed to put on our life jackets, exit with the help of those sitting in the exit rows and he pointed to me and the others – and we waved – and once in the water, kick, paddle, kick paddle, kick paddle to the side of the pool where chips and salsa would be waiting and that we could keep the seat cushion as a souvenier.

That actually helped in my decision to stay in the exit row for that flight.

And it reminded me that discipleship can also be fun!

Amen.