Cross-shaped Love

Romans 12: 9 – 21, Matthew 16: 21 – 28

 

Recently, I have returned to working with a model of “brain training” called Positive Intelligence, or PQ for short. I’ve talked about it a bit before – maybe you remember. It is a way of understanding your essence, your true self, which we tend to bury under judgements and defensive postures that we have developed since early childhood as a survival mechanism.

And if you can get to know your essential self, then it stands to reason that everyone around you also has an essential self, also buried under judgements and defensive postures developed over a lifetime. Part of the practice involves remembering the essential self of those with whom we might have difficult encounters.

 

The goal of this work, simply put, is to be able to operate essence to essence (true self to true self) with hope, clarity and optimism and healthy collaboration…because ultimately, everything we do and encounter could be a gift or opportunity.

 

This explanation is oversimplified of course. But the model and the exercises are backed up by good neuroscience and psychology, and I do find that I am healthier and more productive, kinder and more patient, and (dare I say) wiser and more creative, when I am doing the work of PQ.

 

AND…I actually believe that this work is a form of contemplative prayer practice – that is to say that I think the work actually helps me connect to God in my daily life. I’ll unpack that a bit later.

 

It’s encouraging that Shirzad Chamin, the founder of PQ, has actually created and supports a working group of theologically / spiritually minded people who are using the model. 

 

I think I can hear some of you right about now…hey, that’s cool Pastor Laura. What does this have to do with those two passages, one from Paul’s letter to the Romans and one from Matthew’s Gospel? This is not a business school or a self-help organization.

 

Fair.

Fair.

 

Earlier in the summer, when I was looking at scripture and thinking about how to bridge the gap between summer and the new lectionary work that begins for us next week, Paul’s teaching to the church at Rome about LOVE seemed like a really good fundamental teaching to look at…because lately I have tuning into the reality that faith without love is inadequate, incomplete. That feels like a key for this community called Faith and the work we share together. Paul’s big on this idea. His first letter to the church at Corinth, chapter 13, verse 2 reads:

 

And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.

 

So…I felt called to talk about love somehow. So, Janice and I jumped into Romans 12.

 

And then…there is ever important context…in this case meaning the context from which I was reading and praying with the text from Romans over the past two weeks.

 

Here’s some backdrop to my prayer these past weeks:

The deadly shooting of three black people in Jacksonville rooted in racism, carried out on the 60^th anniversary of the civil rights March on Washington.

Another shooting at UNC that appears to be rooted in anger.

And antisemitic graffiti on the bike path just a block from our church.

A letter received Friday afternoon telling me that God wants me to know that we are wrong to be inclusive and we will go to hell unless we take down our rainbow flag and start preaching about sins like homosexuality and abortion.

 

Not exactly a season steeped in love.

 

I feel like the necessary response to such events - such heartbreaks - is so much bigger and deeper than the kind of love the society around us talks about in movies, memes and greeting cards. 

 

The kind of response needed is bigger than political action or police action or protest action or “love and prayers.”

 

This is where the text from Matthew’s gospel spoke to me.

Let me unpack some things from that text.

 

We’re entering the middle of a story here.  Matthew’s 16^th chapter is a turning point in Jesus’ life and ministry. The chapter begins with tense conversations between Jesus and the religious elite. There is a sense of menace and threat that builds throughout the chapter. 

 

Just before what was read today, Jesus has engaged in a conversation with the disciples, famously asking, “Who do the people say that the Son of Man is?”  

 

The disciples respond that Jesus is being called a prophet, like Elijah or Jeremiah.

 

And so Jesus asks the disciples the same question, and beloved Simon Peter quickly answers, “You are the messiah, the Son of the living God.”

 

Jesus praises that answer, affirming Simon Peter….and then we get to the text you heard today, beginning with:

From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. 

 

At this point, it seems that the Jesus movement was facing a PR problem – or an identity problem. You see, the tradition and the culture expected certain things of a Messiah – power in the face of political oppression, a remarkable reordering of power – and perhaps that would come with social and economic benefits.

 

Simon Peter names the truth – Jesus is the Messiah, but once that truth is spoken, Jesus has to help the disciples understand that there is not a bunch of glory and honor that actually convey with that title. Jesus needs them to understand the truth of who the Messiah is and what will happen next. Because what is to happen is NOT what everyone wants to believe, not what everyone hopes for.

 

Jesus tells the disciples about cross bearing – and he calls the disciples to share the stark work of cross bearing.

 

…If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me…

 

That work looked one way for Jesus. And it looked similarly violent for some of the early disciples. 

 

Let’s be clear that most of us are not called to give up our physical lives in a violent way. That is not necessarily our cross to bear.

 

Paul, in that letter to Romans, teaches that followers of Jesus are called to love. Again, this is not the love of memes and movies and greetings cards. It is the hard work of LOVE. It is love that rejects the evil of the world. It is love that embraces the hardest among us to love. It is love that is sacrificial, love for those whom the world rejects, love for even those we want to judge, love for even those who judge us.

 

The commitment to and the work of love is actually the cross we all bear into a world that isn’t very impressed by sacrificial anything for the greater good.

 

It is in this way that following Jesus can sometimes be a challenging path. It is a path marked by choosing love over ease and privilege. And the love we are called to choose is not vague. It is a very specific kind of love – the kind that is hard to share sometimes. 

 

It is love that holds fast to what is good.

It is love that demonstrates honor and respect.

It is love that is active and enthusiastic.

It is love that is hopeful and patient and resilient.

It is love that provides for people’s needs.

It is love that endures persecution.

It is love that reaches those others reject.

 

This kind of love touches lives. This kind of love nurtures community. This kind of love can change the world.

 

Richard Ward, professor emeritus of homiletics and worship at Phillips Theological Seminary puts it this way, “For most of us, cross-bearing means serving others with compassion. All cross bearers are God’s allies; they often set aside their own agendas for personal advancement in favor of meeting human need. They hold, by their witness, keys to a kingdom, though not one of human design.”

 

Last week Janice rooted this call to love and compassion in Paul’s teaching about how God has loved us, how Jesus has sacrificed for us. And this is where I want to connect back to my experience with Positive Intelligence or PQ. 

 

I believe that we understand our essence – we are in touch with and know our truest selves – when we are connected to the God who created us, the God who fearfully and wonderfully made us, the God who has uniquely gifted each of us to light the world. 

 

I believe that we understand our essence when we are mindful of what Jesus taught and what it means that he promised a Spirit to surround us always, never leaving us. The work of knowing ourselves is the work of putting ourselves in / connecting ourselves to God’s triune presence.

 

And when we regularly put ourselves in God’s presence – through prayer, study, reflection, service, relationships with others – we are actually better equipped to share ourselves, to share the love we receive from God, with others.

 

In the words of Israel Kamudzandu in his commentary on Romans 12 in Working Preacher, “Love is vertical and horizontal, Godly and social.”

 

Put another way - Love is cross shaped – it is cruciform. 

(Demonstrate this with gestures.)

We connect to God in love. And we are then able to connect to the world in love.

 

When we put ourselves in God’s presence and we understand our essence, our belovedness as God’s own, then we can see and acknowledge the essence, the God infused belovedness of the “other” in front of us. 

 

Love is cross shaped.

(Demonstrate this with gestures.)

We connect to God in love. And we are then able to connect to the world in love.

 

Today, as we have been practicing each week after the Word, we rest in silence for a few moments, today considering what it means to live into cross-shaped love.

 

 

May it be so. 

Amen.