By Brandon Beck, reprinted from Living God’s Mission.
There is a new energy, a new feeling coming into our life. We cannot base our expectations about how we will feel tomorrow, or even a few hours from now, on how we feel at this moment.
There are no two moments in time alike. We are recovering. We are changing. Our life is changing. At times, things haven’t worked out the way we wanted. We had lessons to learn. The future shall not be like the past.
From The Language of Letting Go, “New Energy Coming,” by Melody Beattie ©1990, Hazelden Foundation
A younger me wondered what a “cross-eyed bear” meant to singer/song-writer Alannis Morissette. I didn’t have the allegorical/Biblical knowledge to hear and perceive the words Alannis actually wrote/sang. Sometimes, when we don’t have prior knowledge/experience, we misperceive the world around us; it becomes more difficult to see ourselves and others – to love ourselves and others – to choose to follow Jesus in words and deeds. In the chorus of her 1995 song, “You Oughta Know,” Alannis actually writes/sings “It’s not fair, to deny me/ Of the cross I bear,” and I am drawn more deeply into the whole story she presents now that I see the cross and co-carry it because I hear and respond to the call to do so.
Early first-century teacher-philosopher, martyr, and mystic Jesus of Nazareth is quoted throughout both canonized and interpretive theological literature as having said, “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” (Matt 10:38, 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23) How often do we hear those words in church? In popular culture? In our hearts and minds?
The RCL Year C Collect for the Last Sunday After the Epiphany says, “O God, who before the passion of your onlybegotten Son revealed his glory upon the holy mountain: Grant to us that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.” We ask to be “changed” by carrying our cross – to become like Jesus, whom we follow because we have responded to a call to do so. We ask for the strength to do that lifting. Does the placement of this collect mean we do this only once every three years? Or is this an every moment of every day “pray continually” (1 Thess 5:17) ask?
Contemporary Christian Rock Band Big Tent Revival, in 1999, released a song called “Choose Life.” The chorus says, “Choose life/ that you might live/ The life that He gives/ He gives you forever/ Choose life/ the way that is true/ From the One who chose you/ your Father in heaven/ Choose life.” Perhaps it’s more than an ask; perhaps it is a choice. A life choice. A forever choice. Maybe it’s not just one and done, either. Maybe it’s a choice we have to make over and over again in order to live like Jesus – that choice to bear our cross.
Famed twentieth-century psychotherapist, Dr. Albert Ellis, founder of Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy, is quoted throughout both professional and pop culture psychology literature as having said, “The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny.” (my emphasis) Is controlling my own destiny compatible with my theology and interpretation of Scripture? Is it possible to decide my problems are my own and to bear my cross and follow Jesus at the same time? What would it mean for me to choose life, not blame others for my problems (not even God or the president), and to carry my cross – to see Jesus in and be Jesus to others? Maybe, just maybe, if I decide to carry my own cross, I might have a “new energy, a new feeling” or hope and possibility that Jesus followers, bearing crosses, are all around, making a difference for peace and justice in our world.
The Green Room 