Take Up Thy Cot

Hi, Everyone,

Two nuns are walking at night in Transylvania when a vampire jumps out and begins moving toward them.  “Quick!” one nun says to the other.  “Show him your cross!”  The second sister takes a deep breath and bellows into the vampire’s face, “Get out of the way, you toothy jerk!”  This joke works best heard aloud rather than read, and in cultures where “cross” is a more regular synonym for “angry.”  I got a chuckle out of it, though.

I’ve been thinking a lot about crosses recently.  That is, perhaps, not all that surprising, since this past Friday marked the day when Christians remember Jesus’ crucifixion.  However this year, what struck me most was a comment from a documentary on Martin Luther King Jr. which I began watching recently.  The first MLK quote the filmmakers include is, “I have long since learned that being a follower of Jesus Christ means taking up the cross.”  This struck me so intensely I had to pause the film, but not because it’s such a revolutionary idea.  After all, Dr. King is drawing on centuries of Christian rhetoric—initiated by Jesus himself when he told his followers “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24, NIV).  Nor was I affected by King’s words because they stirred me to some great sacrifice or noble cause.  

In fact, that was the problem.  They stirred me, but to what end?  What, I found myself asking, is my cross?  For quite some time now, I’ve craved having a cause, a fight, a destination to run toward.  I was raised with a deep sense of stewardship, and as such, I am perpetually aware that the talents, resources and circumstances I’ve been given can provide opportunities to serve other people.  What then, I keep asking myself, is my Thing?  How can I serve most fully?  How can I be of most use?  Though these questions are not new to me, they have been especially vehement recently, as I try to make vocational choices (more of that to come in another letter soon).  Whether or not this is true, it often feels like I am bumbling around from one thing to another like a bee laden with pollen but with no clue how to get back to the hive.

And so, with Dr. King’s words echoing in my conscience, I asked yet again: what burden am I made to endure?  And I suddenly thought, what if my cross is the cross of no cross?  What if my biggest struggle for now is the humbling notion that God isn’t asking me to do something exceptionally noteworthy and costly for Him?  What if I am being asked to sacrifice my sacrificial energy itself?

I recently had the opportunity to pray through the Stations of the Cross, a sequential method some Christians use to contemplate Jesus’ journey to his death through fourteen stages or “stations.”  Each station is accompanied by an image and a brief prayer pertaining to that stage.  Considering my questions regarding the cross, Station II was of especial interest to me: “Jesus bears his cross: Lord, we join you in your journey of suffering.”  I realized with shock that it did not say “Jesus bears his cross: Now go and bear yours,” but rather that we are to join Jesus in the suffering He’s already enduring.  All God asks is that we join Him, not that I find a niche market of suffering for me to endure in my own personal way.  I’m afraid my culture’s deep reverence for individualism and my own desire for uniqueness have seeped into even this corner of my faith.  

I am beginning to suspect that thinking in terms of my cross rather than Jesus’ cross is, at best, simply a form of pious navel-gazing, and at worst, downright idolatry.  While Good Friday is half of the equation, it is only half.  The cross has always been a means to an end; it has never been and never will be the final word.    

As I consider joining Jesus as he continues to bear his cross in the world, I am reminded of a frequent occurrence at my school. The children sleep on portable cots during nap time, and when they wake up, they are in charge of putting their bedding away.  The cots are relatively light, but large compared to the average three-year-old, so not all of the children can carry them by themselves.  At the beginning of the year, I would put away most of the cots while the children managed their bedding.  Over time, however, as they have gained coordination, strength and confidence, they have been able to participate more.  They love helping me carry their beds, and even though it is less efficient and more cumbersome for me to do it this way than for me to take care of it myself, I love it too.  They are perfectly aware that I am strong enough and big enough to take their cots myself, but they want to participate because they want to help and they want to be with me.  And that’s how it is with God too.  He does not need me to help Him.  I know I join Him in suffering only because of his grace in allowing me to do so.  I join Him because I want to be with Him and I know being with Him means suffering sometimes.  If the driving force isn’t relational, then my motivations reek of martyrdom. 

So what do we do?  How do we approach this call to carry crosses?  Again, I find myself seeking wisdom from my students.  While I still do help many of them carry their beds, increasingly, they are forming teams to transport the beds themselves:

chanting our teamwork song: “What’s gonna work? Teamwork!”

and then doing the “Teamwork Cheer." 

It might be difficult for me to determine what my cross is, but it is not hard to see crosses all around me: people fighting disease, relational strife, poverty, depression, loneliness and anxiety.  Perhaps if I spend less time trying to identify my one, unified, Cross-with-a-capital-C to bear, and more time responding to the varied opportunities for teamwork-style suffering that come my way, I would be closer in spirit to what Jesus and Dr. King were talking about.  After all, even Jesus’ ministry appears rather haphazard on the surface.

I realize that these questions may not be relevant for everyone.  Perhaps much of my desire to find a cross to bear comes from my own particular nature, nurture or the old familiar indeterminate combination of the two.  But for me right now, at least, I think my challenge is to look widely for chances to help others bear their crosses and to loosen my grip on any specific one.  

Unless, of course, I ever become a nun in Transylvania, in which case you’d better believe I’ll be holding onto my cross pretty tightly.

Have a good week,

Sarah/Mouse