THE FRUITFUL CROSS

Tuesday in Holy Week

The struggle against sin, once genuinely entered into, is fierce. There’s no let-up, no “time-off,” for the soul turning from its own selfishness to the Lord Christ. It’s a contest which will engage us for the rest of our lives.

But the contest is neither dark nor tiring. “My yoke is easy,” coaxes the Lord, “and My burden is light.” After a good, vigorous Lent, we might fairly accuse the Lord of using His words loosely. Fasting till we can feel it; almsgiving that makes a dent in our bank balance; praying whether we feel like it or not—this is “easy?” Struggling with sin until have “shuffled off this mortal coil” admittedly sounds less enticing than a Caribbean cruise. There are no doubt many who never consider crossing the threshold of a church door because of the invisible sign over the door: “Abandon all joy, ye who enter here.”

They have cause for feeling the way they do. I have been in many churches where there is a “forced” sense of camaraderie, where people laugh about things not really very funny, where “joy” is almost force-fed. Hymns are catchy, with a little marimba beat, there’s a purposeful intention to make parish programs compete with activities in the secular world, where every sermon has to have at least two jokes (safely and blandly drawn from books like Jokes Every Minister Can Tell). Of course, I’ve been in many parishes of the other kind, too, where visitors are greeted by long faces from the pews silently warning “don’t expect a kind word till you’ve earned it,” dreary Victorian dirges that cause one to look for the door before reaching the end of the second verse, and homilies that don’t challenge but congratulate. Neither is fun, neither is joyful because both are fake. The Gospel has been left safely in the lectionary.

Joy isn’t something we can produce. It’s a gift. It’s not the gift of a witty rector or clever curate (those things are good); it’s the fruit of prayer and penitence. Joy runs deep and clear, an underground fountain that bubbles and gurgles up to refresh the souls of those who know to drink from it. God gives His gifts freely where they’re sought, but His grace isn’t cheap.

Our parishes are always looking for programs. “What can we do to bring them in?” There’s a whole industry built around “church-building,” with books full of every evangelistic idea imaginable: “Cooking Your Way to a Large Congregation,” “Tag-Team Evangelism!” “Church Growth in 49 Easy-To-Follow Steps!” I’ll tell you what I’ve never seen: a program suggesting that, before a parish resorts to “get-large-quick” schemes, it concentrates of prayer and repentance to pave the way for whatever pleases the Lord (the titled Owner of the Church Catholic).

Jesus told us to follow Him. He didn’t say what we’d pass along the Way, only that we’d be carrying a Cross and at the End of the journey we’d be with Him and made like Him. What if His Church dared pick up its Cross?

The current scandals of the Roman Church aren’t sounding her death knell; they’re the Cross Christ has given her to carry in this generation—one she should embrace to heal not only herself, but the sins and sorrows of those wounded all around. Cagey lawyers will save archdiocesan properties, but is the Lord of the Poor arraigned with the bar? The pathetic character of the Anglican Churches, of whatever sort, can be embraced as gift, a Cross to bring men and women together to trudge after Jesus, their gazes fixed on Him instead of reputation and place; or they can continue bickering and backstabbing until the sanctuary floor looks like the body-clogged stage in the last scene of Hamlet. What would happen if the Roman Church truly embraced poverty and followed after Jesus in the highways and hedges? What would happen if she freed itself of her stacked bullion and Swiss accounts? If Anglican bishops, priests and deacons insisted on practicing real humility and charity (as their Lord commands), what would become of the sickening stench of the church’s rancor? What would happen if people came to church and found Jesus Christ not only in the Sacrament of the Altar but truly alive in the hearts of His people? If God’s One Holy Catholic Church was united in prayer and penitence, would there be any empty spaces in our pews? The crowds would be such that people wouldn’t fit in the aisles.

As long as our faith is our hobby, what we do on Sundays because we’re “religious,” the world not only tolerates us but thinks we’re probably worthwhile. Cicero was personally an agnostic but he was all in favor of people being “religious” and filling the temples. “Keeps ‘em in their place; keeps crime levels low.”

“My yoke is easy,” the Lord insists. “My burden is light.” Light compared to what?

Ah, now we’re getting somewhere! That’s what the Lord has been waiting for us to ask.

If I don’t follow Jesus, I sleep in Sundays, do what I want when I want (as long as it doesn’t get me into trouble), answer to nobody but myself (except my boss, my spouse, the people I want to impress, the people I owe money to, the people who owe money to me, and any repair/delivery or installation people who tell me to be available from 8 AM till 5 PM on whatever day is convenient for them), I’m the Master of My Own Fate (as long as I don’t get sick/fired/arrested/bamboozled or flim-flammed/shown up by somebody else/robbed/beaten/hit by a train—or die) and Captain of My Own Soul (as long as it’s a single-person dingy on a very pleasant day). Left to ourselves, we can be selfish (“independent”), grasping (“looking out for #1”), self-absorbed (“glamorous”), vengeful (“standing up for my rights”), gluttonous (“connoisseur” or “pig,” as desired), libertine (“open”) and lazy (“comfortable”)—and we call this freedom instead of slavery. “I can be myself!” we boast, thinking we’re “being ourselves” when we do whatever the next thing is that drifts past our consciousness.

Jesus says—“Be who I made you to be. Put my easy yoke on and break yours intolerably heavy one. You don’t even know who you are. You’re more than a collection of whims and random interests. I created you to be My friend.”

“Whoever serves Me,” Jesus told His disciples, “must follow Me.” To follow Him is to carry a Cross and this week, His way goes up Golgotha, to die. But Sunday, in the midnight darkness, His Light will blind the world—and turn it upside down. If you’ve followed Him to Golgotha, He will keep you close for that “Great, Gettin’ Up Mornin’.”