Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost
September 3, 2023
Matthew 16:21-28

The audio of this sermon can be found on the Trinity sermon podcast page. The full video of the service can be found on the Trinity YouTube Channel.

Every six months, I go in for a regular checkup with my diabetes doctor. Well, it’s never just one doctor. Because I’ve learned that, when you go to UTMB, you see a whole cast of characters when you go to “the” doctor. This is not a criticism, just an observation. I see the intern, then by the resident, then the fellow, then my doctor. But in that little room, I’ll admit, I am not a patient patient. I’ve got things to do, sermons to write, meetings to get to. I realized pretty quickly that they’re using me to learn on. I mean, how often do they get a type 1 diabetic who is a priest walking into their office? Funny looking shirt, insulin pump, the whole bit. They look at me and it’s like I can see them trying to compute what they see. But I just want to see my doctor and get out of there.

And yet I know, I know that I’ve been on the other side of that dynamic. When I graduated from seminary, they were smart enough to put me in a church where I was not in charge, where I could learn from another priest. It was like a fellowship program. I had the basic tools – the funny shirt, the ordination certificate, and the diploma – but I really had no idea what I was doing. And the good Lord knows, I made plenty of mistakes. The only saving grace, for both them and me, was that I was still learning. 

Learning. Like interns, residents, and fellows. Like student-teachers, like student-drivers, like apprentices. No one is born ready to do anything – it takes time to learn.

“Then Jesus told his disciples, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me’” (Matthew 16:24). Disciple. Follower. Student. Learner. That’s what Jesus is talking about. Jesus is the master craftsman, the attending physician, the guru. The disciples are the interns, the students, the apprentices. And that’s one perfectly acceptable translation of the word, “disciple.” You could translate it as, “apprentice.” Think of how that would read differently: “Then Jesus told his apprentices, ‘if any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.’” Or, think if we talked about in the Church today like that. “Discipleship” is such a code word. What if, instead, we had “apprenticeship programs” and Sunday School was “apprentice hour”?

Now I’m getting excited. Because then, Jesus isn’t just someone who died on a cross to take away our sins, even though that’s true. If Jesus invites us to be his apprentices, that means that he is the master from whom we learn our craft.

And what craft are we learning from Jesus? What are we apprentices learning how to do from the master? We’re learning how to take up the cross. 

That is the Christian craft. We take up our cross and follow him. This is what Jesus is teaching us to do. 

Deny ourselves and take up the cross. It’s not a very attractive ad campaign, is it? I mean, that’s not how churches do their marketing. No, we tell people they should come to church because they’ll like the people and enjoy the music and the pastor is nice and we have stuff for their kids. Can you imagine if this was how we invited people to church? “Hey, you should come to church with me. Yeah, it’s great. You learn how to be crucified.” And yet, that is the gospel. If any want to become followers of Jesus, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow him.¹

That is what we are learning. How to pick up the cross and follow Jesus, the master. In the Church, we learning that the path to glory goes through crucifixion. The road to heaven goes through the cross of this life. This is the craft that we, the apprentices, must learn from Jesus, the master.

I know it sounds awfully theoretical, but there are ways to implement this day by day. Taking up the cross means that when you have a decision to make, you opt for the best thing possible, which may not necessarily be the best thing for yourself. That’s denying yourself. Taking up the cross means building up other people, not tearing them down. Taking up the cross means dedicating yourself to giving more not getting more. It means learning how to live like Jesus. Even when that means going all the way to the cross. And I’m not saying that you necessarily have to die for Jesus. The chances of that happening are slim. But I am asking you – are you willing to be inconvenienced for Jesus? Are you willing to put the public good over your personal tastes? Are you willing to give a little bit more to charity, so that someone else can have a marginally better life? Are you willing to stand up and say that the joke you heard wasn’t funny, that the nickname someone has isn’t appropriate, that the system is good for some of us not but for everyone? Are you willing to take up the cross and follow Jesus?

All throughout his ministry, that’s precisely what Jesus did. And look where it got him. On the cross. That, that is our image of discipleship. That is what we are learning to do. And then, when we love like that, and when people turn their backs on us, when they betray us, when we lose friends because we stood up for the right thing; that only shows that we are learning our craft, the craft of taking up the cross. We are learning from Jesus, because whatever pain we have when we pick up the cross, Jesus has felt it, too. Jesus said it best, “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?”

I know, I’ve been preaching on the same theme the past few weeks. Do the right thing, even if it’s hard; love God, love neighbor, yada yada yada. Same stuff every week. Well, don’t blame me, blame the Gospel of Matthew. For the past few weeks and for a few weeks more, we’re right in the middle of the long section in Matthew where Jesus teaches his followers, his disciples, his students, his apprentices, how to live. So if you’re getting tired of the same old message, well, maybe that means that God wanted you to hear it. 

But I have one more thing to say. Now that I’m a bit older, a bit more experienced, I have taught people who want to be clergy; the role has been reversed. You get to the point in your life where you start teaching others. And as I am learning, the quality that the best teachers have is grace. When the student gets an answer wrong, when the resident asks the patient a dumb question, when the young priest gives a terrible sermon; what the master must give is grace.

As the true master, the Lord Jesus, is gracious with us. In this life with Christ, there will be times that we don’t take up the cross. There will be opportunities to love, and we won’t. There will be a moments when we are not good apprentices. When we fall back into saving and profiting ourselves. This does not mean you should give up on your life with Jesus, or that it’s not worth trying again. It just means that you’re still learning. And on this side of glory, we’ll be learning our whole lives. So we confess our sins, receive our God’s grace, and get back out there again, trusting that we have learned something in the process. Deny yourself, take up the cross, and follow him.

But don’t hear it from me, hear it from the hymnal. At the end of the service we’ll sing this hymn, and it says everything I hope to have said:

Take up the cross, then, in his strength, and calmly every danger brave: it guides you to abundant life and leads to victory o’er the grave.

Take up the cross, and follow Christ, nor think till death to lay it down; for only those who bear the cross may hope to wear the glorious crown.²

1.  I’ve always struggled with this line, but I do think it’s worth pondering. ”We are not here to entice you into our religion by benefits allegedly found only it.  We are here to introduce you to the true God, for whatever he can do with you – which may well be suffering and oppression.”
   Jenson, Robert W. Systematic Theology. Volume 2: The Works of God / Robert W. Jenson. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. ↩︎
2.  Publishing, Church. The Hymnal 1982, According to the Use of The Episcopal Church. 1982nd edition. Church Pension Fund, 1985. 675.
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