Gloria Dei Lutheran Church

I served on summer staff at Holden Village after my first year of seminary. That was also the summer that I fell in love with hiking. As a kid, I had hiked several short trails, but nothing like the multi-hour traverses that are possible in that beautiful corner of the world. One of the staffers, an experienced hiker themself, kind of took me under their wing to teach me the basics, everything from things that I should make sure to carry in my backpack, beyond water and snacks – like an extra pair of socks: you never know when you’re going to need them and you’ll be glad you had them! to how to cross a stream safely. Valuable lessons.

This was all leading up to a hike to Holden Lake, a decently long hike with a fair amount of elevation gain. Perhaps you’ve been there and have traversed that steep, dusty trail yourself. Before we left the village, my hiker friend sat at a table with me and several others who were new to the trail and talked us through the hike, letting us know what to expect and giving us the big picture of what we were about to do. Then we set out, with my friend leading and the rest of us following. My friend showed us how to do the camel step up steep parts of the trail to give our tired legs a brief rest mid-stride, and pointed out delicate wildflowers alongside the trail to demonstrate why we shouldn’t stray from that narrow line of dirt. We eventually made it up those many, many switchbacks to one of the most beautiful mountain lakes I have ever seen and came back down as slightly more experienced hikers than we had been when we first set out.

Yes, we probably could have figured out how to get up the trail and back in one piece without my friend’s guidance, but their deep knowledge of not only the trail but how to travel it in a way that limited the impact on the natural world around us and our own bodies was invaluable. Lessons that I have carried with me since that shape how I show up on a trail.

Perhaps some of us have also had friends who showed us how to hike a trail or helped us navigate some other new and unfamiliar path: a complex job search process, a medical intervention, the lunchroom on our first day of middle school. It is helpful to have someone who can point to a path through uncharted territory, someone who has traveled it before and can help us see beyond the first steps in front of us.

Sometimes, knowing where the path leads changes how we understand the steps we are being asked to take.

In today’s passage from Matthew’s gospel, Jesus and his disciples have started their journey to Jerusalem. The lessons they learned, healings they witnessed, and confrontations with the religious authorities all culminated in the conversation we heard last week in which Jesus asked his disciples who they thought he was. Peter’s confession that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of the living God led to a blessing and a commission for Peter – he was the rock upon which the church would be built. 

Now we hear hard words from Jesus that describe what being the Messiah actually means. He will suffer, he will be rejected, he’ll even be killed. What he is going to say and do will not make the higher-ups happy. He tells his disciples that the path he is taking will not look like success. Rather, it will look like failure. 

Of course, Jesus also mentioned resurrection, but Peter seemed to have missed this when he took Jesus aside and tried to convince him to commit to another path, one that wouldn’t hold all of the perils that Jesus illustrated. A less costly way to be the Messiah. 

An attractive consideration, which Jesus strongly rejected. He loudly and publicly rebuked Peter, calling him a Satan – an accuser, a tempter. One who detracts from the will of God. One whose vision is too small, who doesn’t see the full picture and cannot consider what’s possible. “Get behind me!” Jesus says.

Peter is a character who gets it so right at times and also gets it so wrong. One minute he correctly identifies Jesus and is given the awesome authority of leading the community gathered in Christ’s name and the next he is called a hindrance, a stumbling block, one who gets in the way of God’s purposes in the world. One who earnestly wants to follow Jesus and be his disciple, but also one who is starting to put together the pieces of what this means and asks for a different way of doing it, one that involves less sacrifice, less pain, less failure. Because it is only human to want these things, to be able to control the outcome, to want an easier path in life, especially for those we love, be it a person, a community, an institution. To use a trail metaphor, it’s cutting the switchbacks to save a few steps on a long, dusty trail. 

Cutting a switchback may save a few steps, but it damages the trail for everyone who follows. It tramples delicate plants and disrupts soil structures, doing harm that may be invisible to the person making the shortcut.

We can do something similar in our lives. In our attempts to protect ourselves or those we love from loss, uncertainty, or discomfort, we can miss the possibility of joy and connection beyond our carefully constructed safety bubbles. We can become so focused on controlling the outcome that we miss Christ’s call to follow him.

Because Jesus was renewing his call to Peter. Reminding him of his vocation as a disciple. “Get behind me” could mean “get out of my way.” And it also means get behind me in a physical sense, like standing behind someone in line or on a path, or like getting behind someone in support of them.

Follow me. Be my disciple. Jesus was reminding Peter of his place in the midst of things. Not as one who tries to put Jesus on a different path. Not as one who thinks he already knows the way. Not as one who tries to control the outcome. But as one who follows and is now being asked to deepen his discipleship by picking up his cross and losing his life for the sake of the world.

This is an invitation for all of us, as well. Jesus was about giving his life away in love for the sake of others. Which means that for we who call ourselves Jesus’ followers that’s what following him is about as well: learning to give our lives away in love for the sake of the world.

This is a radical claim. Following Jesus – walking the path of discipleship – brings us into uncomfortable places and situations where we can’t always see the ending. But it also is where we find fullness of life. It’s like hiking up a trail through a dense forest and reaching a mountain pass where the forest clears and a new landscape unfolds beyond us.

This new landscape is one that Jesus leads us into. As we follow his footsteps, we align  ourselves with those whom he called blessed – those who are poor, the ones who mourn, the peacemakers, the meek, all who hunger and thirst for righteousness. We share a table with outcasts and sinners. We admit our own vulnerability and need for God’s mercy. We work for the healing of our communities and world, whatever the cost. We follow Jesus to the foot of the cross and discover that the story does not end there, but continues on into the resurrected world that lies beyond, a world filled with God’s self-giving love that we have received and continue to offer in Christ’s name.

A few words of clarification: Jesus’ words are not a glorification of suffering or a call to seek it out for its own sake. Much of Jesus’ ministry was devoted to alleviating the suffering of the people and communities he encountered. Jesus’ words do speak to the reality that living the values of God’s reign on earth – compassion, justice, love, peace – may bump up against systems and powers that feel threatened by these things. And there are very real consequences to this, as we can see from history and perhaps our own experiences.

This also is not a justification of abuse or unwarranted suffering. “Take up your cross” or “this is your cross to bear” has been twisted too many times to justify violence, abuse, personal and communal tragedy, and other situations that limit the abundant life that we receive through Christ. We do experience suffering in our lives but it has not been placed upon us by God as a test of our faithfulness or discipleship.

Taking up our crosses is an invitation to follow Jesus into places where love asks something of us. It can take both ordinary and extraordinary forms. It can be showing up or speaking truth to power. It may mean risking a friendship or caring for someone when there’s nothing in it for us. It can be giving up convenience because another person’s flourishing matters more. It can be planting that native garden instead of a monoculture lawn to give life to the creatures around us. 

When we left for Holden Lake, I didn’t know the trail. I didn’t know where the switchbacks would take us or how many more there would be. But someone who knew the trail walked ahead of me. They knew where we were going. They knew when the trail was steep and when I needed to slow down. They knew what I couldn’t yet see.

Maybe that’s part of what it means to follow Jesus.

We don’t always know what the path will ask of us. We don’t know what we’ll lose along the way. We don’t know whether the thing we’re doing will look like success. But we know who walks ahead of us. And we know where the trail leads. To the cross and into resurrection. Amen.