A sermon for St. Peter Lutheran Church, Denver
The year is 2006 and I am a
sophomore at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. I am sitting in my
dorm room, booting up the old desktop computer and navigating over to the
National Lutheran Outdoor Ministries Association website to apply for a summer
camp counselor position. At the time, this is how it was done if you wanted to
work for a Lutheran summer camp. I didn’t even know at the time that this was the
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod consortium of camps, but I also didn’t care,
because I only wanted to work at one camp: Lutherhaven. The previous summer I
had my first taste of summer camp leadership attending a youth service camp at
Shoshone Base Camp in the panhandle of northern Idaho, and I was dying to go
back to see what this summer camp thing was all about.
Now,
here’s how I know this was a lifetime ago: Many of those places I just named
have different names. Augustana College, now Augustana University. Shoshone
Base Camp, now Shoshone Mountain Retreat. Youth service camp, now Idaho Servant
Adventures. I suddenly feel kind of old.
But
I’m not so old that to have forgotten the interview I had for that camp
counselor position with Rebecca Smith, the Program Director at Lutherhaven (now
Executive Director)—probably my first real interview for a job in my life. I
remember her asking me a very straightforward question that took me aback.
“What is a Bible verse that is meaningful to you?”
By
some grace of God, I didn’t freeze. In fact, almost before I knew it, I was
blurting out, “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and
take up their cross and follow me.” I probably read that the week before or
something. Jesus—to Peter—in today’s scripture. Like any good leader, Rebecca didn’t
stop there. “Why that verse?” she asked. “Because being a Christian is about
doing hard things.” I said, or something like that. I guess that was good
enough—or they were desperate for male staff—because I got the job—and because
of that job, I am with you today, because boy, did I fall in love with outdoor
ministry out there on Lake Coeur d’Alene.
Nearly
two decades later, I am no longer thrilled with the response I gave to Rebecca
Smith. I was right that camp was going to be hard. It was going to test me in
ways I never imagined. At times, it hurt; at times, it made me feel unworthy.
It was also meaningful and wonderful and a place where I connected with God and
made lifelong friends.
But you know what?
It was never my cross.
I have come to realize something simple that I should have seen two decades ago: Your cross is not a hard thing that you can overcome through strength of will, gumption, and maybe a little help from God. Your cross will do one thing and one thing only—it will kill you. To take up your cross is to walk willingly toward death, which means it is nothing like any of the things we sometimes jokingly, sometimes seriously consider our crosses to bear. Your children are not your cross. The reality that your children are fragile—that they will someday die? That might be your cross. Your work is not your cross. Your family is not your cross—not even if they are kind of a rough crew. Your cross is not something you can look back upon and say, “Man, that was hard.” Rather, your cross is the thing from which there is no coming back. Your cross is the thing that will bring you to your knees.
At
first, this sounds like really bad news, doesn’t it? You might be wondering:
Why is the guy who is coming here looking for help in renovating Cedar Lodge
and to get more campers to come to camp preaching about how impossible it is to
bear the cross? It’s a bold strategy. But here is what I believe: Camp is for
truth-telling. Camp lays bare who we really are—not who we wish to be. At camp,
we are honest and admit we are fragile, we are temporary, and no matter how
hard we try, we cannot keep everyone we love in bubble wrap, safely tucked
away.
BUT
it does not end there. When we name our calling to follow Jesus with crosses in
tow, then we get to do something extraordinary: We get to live! Sure, we are
walking toward Golgotha, but so is everything in life. The freedom of a
Christian is the freedom to know where you are heading and to revel in joy on
the way there. It is to never have to justify yourself, because Christ has done
that for you. Then, what is left when we have left it all to Jesus? We get to
play! We get to stand in wonder of the world around us, living life, not for
cowering in fear. We can be bold and joyful and free. When I see kids running
around Ewalu, that’s what I see—bold, joyful, free kids discovering they are
known and loved by a God who has chosen them and loves them and bears the cross
for them.
So,
I knew I was going to preach this by Wednesday morning this past week, but I
like to listen to the Spirit whispering in my ear and follow where it leads.
So, on Wednesday morning the Spirit said, “Look down at your notepad. You have
finished all the urgent things calling for your attention.” Now, you know what
my first instinct is when I notice that the list of things is empty: Add more
things to it. But the Spirit wasn’t having it on Wednesday, and it told me,
“You know what you need to do.” And who am I to argue with the Holy Spirit, so
I did what it told me and I went fishing.
I
packed up the fly rod and loaded the kayak on top of my car and drove down to
Backbone State Park. I put the kayak in Backbone Lake and paddled up the length
of the lake to where the Maquoketa River pours in. Now, if you’ve ever been to
Backbone Lake, you may know that the lake is the color of Iowa soil most of the
time, which is not a ringing endorsement. It is full of goose poop and mud,
algae and matted weeds—the product of a dammed, warm body of water.
(D-A-M-M-E-D… not the other one, I just wanted to be clear… I don’t know you
all well enough to curse, yet). Anyway, as you paddle upstream from the lake,
something really neat happens—the muck and algae soon give way to sandy bottom
and clear, spring-fed water. The lake turns into a cool, driftless river.
Just as quickly, I
could see I was surrounded by fish. There were suckers everywhere—white suckers
and northern hog suckers[1]--but
also bass and bluegills and the occasional trout. I paddled as far upstream as
I could go, then I left my kayak on the shore and began walking through the ankle-deep
water. Only then did I start to fish. More than fishing, though, I was thinking—thinking
about what it means to take up our crosses. Clearly, sitting in my office
creating work for myself was not taking up my cross. Neither were my kids, who
were liable to keep sending me up and down the stairs for another bedtime drink
and their missing stuffed animal and whatever else they could concoct to make
bedtime last as long as possible. No, neither my work nor my family was my
cross. The temptation with cross-bearing is to make myself into a martyr—to
create so much noise in my life that I have nothing left to give to the people
I love. That is not cross-bearing—that is more like making an idol of myself.
It is the mistaken belief that I am the only one who can fix things—if only I
try hard enough.
If you feel this
way, please, for the love of God, go fishing.
You see, 2006
college sophomore me suspected I was being called to hard work in outdoor
ministry, but that is only part of the story. Yes, we work hard for the sake of
our campers, but all the effort in the world only matters if we love our
campers—a little like Jesus loves them. That is hard work, because our
campers so often fight the idea that they are loved for who they are. They are
suspicious of it. They have been born into a world where nothing is enough—where
they know that it good things come to an end and nothing we say to the contrary
can change that. They are ready for the good news of Jesus—the cross-bearing,
life-and-death real Jesus who promises us not that it will be OK if we work
really hard. Our campers know that isn’t always true. No, they are ready to
hear that Jesus loves them in spite of the brokenness of the world and
the brokenness of their selves. The love of God does not dance around death but
plows headlong through it. Children get this—it is mostly just adults that
throw around objections. Our campers are ready to believe that there is
something better on the other side, worthy of cross-bearing, and camp is one of
the few places in their lives where we give them the freedom to peer through
the dim glass, squinting toward what comes next.
We let them play
in the water and consider what it means that with that water they have been
baptized into death. We sing in front of the cross about laying down our
lives—about freedom—about joy—and they come to understand that grace is only
grace if there is something on the line, and it is not dependent on their hard
work or effort to earn it. Instead, we have a God in Jesus Christ who took up
on the cross on our behalf.
So,
I am going to take it easy on 20-year-old me for a minute, because 20-year-old
me is so many of our staff who come to us thinking things will be hard when
really it will be impossible. They cannot save their campers, but Jesus has.
And that realization changes everything—Jesus saves us, even when we think we
are bearing a cross that is really just our own hubris. Jesus saves us, so we
can freely give ourselves back to a world who needs us. Jesus saves us, so we
can go fishing, and realize we are not so big in the scheme of things, but
Jesus loves little things.
Amen.
[1] By
the way, if you want to catch an Iowa state record fish, I can
all-but-guarantee there is a state record northern hog sucker in the Maquoketa
River. I have seen plenty that are in the 2 pound range, chilling in the
current. It’s just that nobody fishes for them. Maybe it is because of their
name and maybe it is because the Iowa DNR’s own website begins their
description of the fish by saying, “The hog sucker is not physically appealing.”
But also because they just aren’t that easy to catch!
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