On the light pole across the street from the Church on Wabash someone has posted some fliers. (I’ve seen them in other places around the city as well.) The fliers highlight the Maya Angelou quote: ‘When someone shows you who they are, believe them.’ While I am not exactly sure what these particular fliers are trying to say the quote is spot on. The Jesus version of the quote is: By their fruits you shall know them (Mt 7:16). Don’t believe so much in what people say about themselves; believe in their actions. If someone is always fighting, don’t buy it when they say they are for peace. If someone is always looking in the mirror, be skeptical when they say they’re not vain. People reveal their true selves by how they behave.
In the first chapters of St. Mark’s gospel Jesus is very reluctant to talk about himself. He lets his actions speak for themselves. He brings healing to the sick, compassion to the hurting, comfort to the grieving, encouragement to the sorrowing, instruction to the confused. There is a scene in St. Matthew where the followers of John the Baptist ask who he is and Jesus responds: “Go and tell John the things which you hear and see: The blind see and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them.” Believe because of what I am doing. His disciples have been watching all that Jesus has said and done over their time together and had formed an opinion about him. Things come to a head when Jesus and his followers are taking a few vacation days at the mountain town of Caesarea Philippi. They have come to know him up close and personal so he asks: “Who do people say that I am?” … “But who do you say that I am?” Jesus has shown who he is and they believe him. “You are the Christ.”
We as believers today must also base our faith on what we have heard and seen. We have, for example, seen farther out into the universe than any human beings before us. With modern telescopes we have looked back to the very beginning of time, seen across distances beyond any reckoning, endeavor to quantify the countless stars and galaxies that make up our universe, been amazed at the nebulae and quasars, observed planets in other solar systems. What a mighty God we serve who has brought into being the glory of creation which is more than we can wrap our minds around. Closer to home we have heard and see the beauty of creation: the sun setting over the lake, the monarch butterflies on the annual migration, the garden in full bloom, clouds rolling in for a thunderstorm more awe-inspiring than any fireworks display. Our God is not only big, but also beautiful. In addition, we have heard and seen God at work in the people woven into our lives: the first steps of a child, the kiss of a couple at their wedding, a raucous dinner table full of love and laughter, elders holding hands on a park bench. What a loving God we serve. We have heard and seen many things which bring us to faith, which lead us to trust that the God who can do such things can care for me as well.
However, we have also heard and seen some ugly things, some hateful things, some deadly things. You wonder about God when you are in the midst of tragedies. One of my favortie authors, Annie Dillard, observed that whenever the priest would begin the prayer: “All your actions, Lord, show us your wisdom and love” she had to resist the inclination to stand up and object, “Not so much.” Where is the action of God in dealing with cancer, mental illness, abuse, birth defects, innocent suffering? If God is so good and God is so powerful why is there so much pain in the world? That helps to explain why Jesus issued a corrective to the disciples’ recognition of Jesus as the Christ. Yes, he was the Christ, but he was different Christ from what they expected, a suffering Christ, a Christ who was not above but within the nitty gritty that makes up human existence. “The Son of Many must suffer greatly,” he said, because people suffer greatly. God was not content to put the whole thing in motion and walk away. The cross is God taking responsibility for the world he created. Jesus would plunge himself into the most dreadful of human experiences to demonstrate that there isn’t any place where God cannot be found. Jesus nailed the troubles of this world onto the wood of the cross to show that all things can be make new in God. Peter thought, as human beings do, that having God on your side meant freedom from the troubles of this world. The cross shows that when we have God, we are free even in the midst of the suffering.
Our response to this new way of looking at things, Jesus teaches, is following him by denying ourselves and taking up our cross. While the idea of taking up the cross sounds intimidating, most often we do so in the midst of daily life. We take up the cross by being faithful to our spouse in creating the oneness of marriage. We take up the cross by being attentive to the children and their needs instead of focusing on our own. We take up the cross by forgiving those who have hurt us in life. We take up the cross when we work to help those who are suffering, as the epistle of St. James reminds us. The cross demands compassion – which translates as “suffering with.” Suffering with others might be a cross but it is, as Jesus promised, an easy and light burden and the true path to joy.
