“Take up your cross and follow me.”
I want to talk about what our crosses are in life, what other people’s crosses are, and how we can help each other carry the cross. We’re given a really simple example at the end of the gospel today where Jesus says, “Whoever even gives a drink of water to one of these little ones.” Think about that. That’s a simple gesture to give somebody a drink of water, and I think it’s very simple for us because we have water flowing everywhere. Water in our houses, we have water in the church, everywhere you go, there’s water. But in Jesus’ time, it was very hard to come by, so it was a great act to give somebody a gift of water. I was thinking about how we might experience that in our American culture, and the only thing I could think about was marathons.
Has anybody ever run a marathon before? Wow, 3, 4, 5, 6, that’s amazing, 7, 8. I’ve only run a 5K, which was enough for me. But when you’re running a marathon and as you’re running, there are always tables with the water stand where they have those little cups of water they give you. They’re trained to do two things. One is to give you a cup of water, and the second is to cheer you on, saying, “Keep going, keep going, you got this.” Give you a cup of water and cheer you on.
I think in life, and when we experience our crosses, we sometimes need a little encouragement. Yet, we so rarely experience that. When other people are struggling with the cross, all they need sometimes is just a little bit of encouragement. Why don’t we do it? Why don’t we encourage one another? I think that we’re all running our own marathon. This life that we experience is a marathon. Anyone that’s run a marathon before, you know there’s some point in the marathon where you get to the end, you’re almost there, and then, all of a sudden, you hit the wall. You’ve heard that phrase, and you hit the wall? That’s where you have to make a decision. Keep running past the wall.
I want to talk about crosses. When Jesus says, “Take up your cross and follow me,” that means martyrdom. That means that we’re going to be disciples of Jesus, so much so that we are willing to die for our faith. But there are other crosses that we experience in life. These are the sufferings that we experience in life. They can be physical, emotional, spiritual, or social. I want to talk about those sufferings for a little bit. If I were to name all these, I’m not going to ask you to raise your hands, but I bet, as I name these, there are people here that are probably struggling with that. I think about the physical struggle. Anyone who has chronic pain, who has been suffering for maybe years. Maybe somebody has some physical disability that they’ve struggled with all their life, maybe even from childhood. Maybe it’s a struggle of being physically weak and unable to do the things you once did. Nobody’s old in this parish, but it could be a struggle to get old and realize that we have the burden of life.
Those are physical struggles that we have. We also have mental struggles. Many of us here probably struggle with depression or anxiety, or bipolar. Things that we struggle with mentally and just aren’t able to work ourselves out of. Other people look and say, “Just get up and go to work. Do what you’re supposed to do.” It can be so debilitating. There could be all these mental crosses that we have. There are also social crosses. Social crosses could be anything from not feeling like you fit in anywhere feeling lonely; it could be being a widow or a widower. It could be going through a divorce. It could be just your children going off to college or school. Maybe you’ve lost a child. We have these that can be crossed in our lives as well. Then there are spiritual crosses. In our lives, we experience spiritual difficulties. We are running this race, as St. Paul would say. We are constantly fighting the enemy, trying to drag and wear us down and prevent us from carrying our cross.
I want you to think about your own cross. There’s always a tendency with our cross to say, “I want to trade mine. Can I trade mine with you?” Every one of us probably wants to get rid of the cross that we have and the cross that we bear. What makes it easier to bear is to do what Jesus did when He knelt down in the Garden of Gethsemane. He said, “Father if it be your will, let this pass from me, but only if it be your will.” What if you and I did that in the same way with Jesus? Whatever our cross is, if we said, “God, if it’s possible to remove this cross, but only if it’s your will.” What if God told you, “I want to give you a cross. You’re not going to understand it right now in your life; you might never understand it until eternal life in heaven.” If He were to say to you, “Would you be willing to carry this cross for me? Would you be willing to carry this cross not only for your salvation but the salvation of the world?” I think it’s easy to say yes to that once you truly know that God is working through that.
Now other people. What do we do to help other people that are suffering? Knowing that they go through some of the same things, these same addictions.
Alcoholism, drug addiction, sexual addiction. It could be a same-sex attraction. It could be a whole variety of things. How do we help people that are going through that? How do we give them that little cup of water? It’s encouragement. The slightest encouragement can help somebody carry their cross. I think it’s usually written on people’s faces when they struggle. A lot of times, we can see it on their face. Those can be when you say to them, “Hey, what’s going on? Are you doing okay? Your drink of water for them could be a moment of listening and then a moment of encouragement. People are starving for encouragement. All we have to do is give them a little. I think the other thing is to realize that everyone is carrying a cross. Everyone is fighting a battle. Everyone is running a marathon that we know nothing about. We need to treat each other with that reality. If we’re struggling with somebody, realize they are fighting a battle. They’re carrying a cross. They’re running a marathon. Give them a little encouragement and offer them a little glass of water.
As we celebrate this Eucharist today, we come here not only to receive the body of Christ into us but to go out into the world and share Christ with others. Mother Teresa said, “The greatest poverty in the West is our spiritual life.” We can go out to the world and offer them Jesus, to become Jesus for them. We have a great new ministry here; it’s called Ask. The idea of the Just Ask ministry is that anyone can ask them for anything they might need, and this group of people will try to help them figure it out and provide the resources.
As I come to the end of the homily, I want you to close your eyes for a moment. I want you to think about what your cross is. What cross do you want to get rid of so bad but haven’t been able to? And I want you to imagine God the Father looking at you with great love as He did with Jesus and asking you, “Will you carry this cross for me.” You can say to Him, “Father, I don’t want to, but if this is the way for my salvation and the world’s salvation, I will.” As we carry our own cross, remember that others are carrying their cross and that we can give them a simple glass of water, just a little encouragement in their life as we journey as we run this marathon to our heavenly kingdom.
