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Scripture Sunday: Take Up Their Cross

2/25/2024

by Ashtyn Adams

Mark 8:31-38 (NRSV)
31 Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things." 34 He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. 36 For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? 37 Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? 38 Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."

It sounds absurd because really, it is, but I considered myself a Christian for 21 years before ever thinking about this passage. I was exposed to it in my introductory Christian ethics course in college, along with Matthew 25, when Jesus says he is found among the least of these, welcomed when, for example, the alien is welcomed or clothed when the prisoner is clothed. For an entire semester, I had to seriously think about whether I wanted this life, whether I wanted this God, because once you start to study Christianity it is more radical than you ever assumed, more risky than you would ever be comfortable with. The semester before, funnily enough, was when I took world religions and had weekly meals or field trips with people of different faiths. I discovered how I could love God quite well as a Jew or as a Muslim. To this day I am always learning from interreligious dialogue how to love God better; their voices are essential. However, there was a serious accounting that had to be done, because these religions, as beautiful and as much common ground as there may be, are also very different. Christianity places a very specific demand on its adherents, which we, especially in the climate crisis, have notoriously failed to do: to deny ourselves, pick up our cross, and follow Jesus.

When I first heard this passage, I immediately thought of Jesus' words in Matthew 11:28-30: “‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” The call to the cross sounded at odds with Jesus' words here, it did not sound like an easy yoke or light burden. I always assumed Jesus going to the cross was something he did for me, not something I also had to do to claim the name of Christ. So often when this passage is preached, people read it and laugh saying, “Oh foolish Peter!” and are quick to identify themselves as the would-be protagonists, happily accepting Jesus' words. But I know that I am Peter. I would be the one to say to Jesus, “No, why would you risk rejection by all these important people? Why would you go so far as to be humiliated on a Roman cross along with the other criminals? We have a movement going here, just keep teaching, Rabbi.” While there is a particular emphasis on convenience, consumption, and individuality in our American contemporary culture, sacrifice was considered to be just as foolish then as it sounds to us now.

Jesus fiercely responds to Peter’s rebuke, “Get behind me Satan!” There is an irony here because in the verses immediately preceding this section Peter is the one who correctly identifies Jesus’s identity. Jesus asks, “But who do you say that I am?” and Peter responds, “You are the Messiah.” In other gospel accounts, this is the moment that Jesus establishes the church on the rock that is Peter. We cannot miss that in Scripture the same person who rightly identifies Jesus, Peter, is in the next moment rebuked for not understanding the significance of this identification. When Jesus foretells his death, we learn the stakes of love in a world that privatizes the good. The abundant life Jesus says he has come to give is one of liberation for the poor and oppressed, dignity bestowed upon the lowly and abandoned, a party-like feast for all, especially the marginalized whom society has deemed ill-fit. If a Christian identification of Jesus as Lord neglects its sacrificial, cross-bearing nature, that with full force combats Empire domination and logic, then it is a misidentification set on human things. If Christ collapses into some sort of therapeutic, cheap feel-good-now message, then we are a hindrance to the Kingdom.

Within the Church always remains the potential to one minute be Peter and the next Satan. This is no clearer than now, when the Church and the individuals who make up the body of the Church are neglecting the call to pick up their cross in the Anthropocene. Our culture tells us that the damage being done is not our problem, that someone else will fix it, and that the Earth exists to serve our ends and not the other way around. Jesus says something different. Will we desire the flourishing of all creation if it means we must forfeit our convenience and comfortability? How will we commit to Christ’s vision of love as we destroy creation around us? In CJM’s 2024 Earth Day Sunday Resource, we see what this might look like regarding plastics. Some ways we can pick up our cross is to have a plastic free lent or advocate for our denominations or communions to completely divest from fossil fuel companies and petroleum companies, which are some of the largest producers of plastic products. The climate crisis will undoubtedly require sacrifice, and others may need to be uniquely incentivized. But Christians should not shy away from the demands that will be asked of us to heal our world, God's beloved creation. In fact, we should be leading the way, because the one whose name we claim has already demonstrated it for us. It is not easy, and it was never promised to be easy, but as I discern what my crosses are, and in my daily struggles to pick them up, I have realized that in bearing the cross for my siblings in creation, I do, unexpectedly, find an easy yoke: transcendent rest and beautiful intimacy with God.

Within the Church always remains the potential to one minute be Peter and the next Satan. This is no clearer than now, when the Church and the individuals who make up the body of the Church are neglecting the call to pick up their cross in the Anthropocene.

Ashtyn Adams is a Seminary Intern at Creation Justice Ministries. Ashtyn earned her B.A. in Religion
from Pepperdine University and is currently pursuing a Master’s in Divinity at Duke University.

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Scripture Sunday: Saved Through Water

2/18/2024

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by Ashtyn Adams

1 Peter 3:18-22 (NRSV)
18 For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, 19 in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison 20 who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. 21 And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you--not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.

Imatatio Christi sums up the appeal of the book of 1 Peter, whose author writes to Christians experiencing social tensions in the northern half of Asia Minor. Roman society was hierarchical, much like our own, and the conversion of Gentiles to Christianity was threatening the Greco-Roman culture. Accusations were circling about the danger of Christians impairing such hierarchical relationships, causing fear particularly about women and slaves rebelling. This pseudonymous author, like Paul, is operating under the assumption that the end is near, with the utmost importance placed not immediately on re-ordering society, but on imitating Christ by doing good, living gently, and treating others with respect. The section highlighted by the lectionary supplies one of the motives for such living and is an interesting and rare interpretive move that draws a parallel between the flood narrative in Genesis and the sacrament of baptism. This parallel can be particularly potent for our current moment in the Anthropocene where we must think more deeply about water.

Just as the author of 1 Peter was situated in history, so are we. This highlighted text comes to us during the first Sunday of Lent, where we too are seeking Imitatio Christi, to follow the man who walks down a dark path to teach us something about love. Kate Bowler reflected this Ash Wednesday that lent “connects us with the great truth which is that we all end. And in our endings, we learn something about our beginnings, like the things for which we’re made.” The Lenten journey of endings and beginnings is, therefore, an extended rehearsal of our baptismal covenants where we are brought into a new relationship with our divine parent. Lent is the time to make commitments and sacrifices that help us remember and renew our vows about the lives we have been called to. Our treatment of water, for example, as a commodity instead of a precious gift from God to be protected and shared is one place we ought to start considering how we will re-work our commitments and sacrifices.

The author of 1 Peter adds a cosmic dimension to the work of Christ, who saves all, including the “spirits in prison,” a likely reference to the “sons of God” who corrupted human women and were destroyed in the flood in Genesis. During this flood, God seeks to rid the Earth of all the violence and wickedness, but saves Noah and his family, along with the animals which the author does not explicitly reference. This is the story where God makes a covenant with “every living creature,” which, as discussed in CJM’s latest episode of The Green Lectionary Podcast, is not superseded by any of the later covenants. Indeed, the author says that this Genesis story prefigured Christ’s work in baptism, which is no mere removal of dirt. If the waters of baptism are a type and image of the waters of the flood, where God rids evil to make a promise of loving kindness to creation, do we really understand what it means to be “saved through water”? What sort of thing have we committed ourselves to as Christians in this sacrament? I know that when I hear the words “saved through,” it's followed by the word “grace.” I don’t think the two are mutually exclusive, but I confess that I haven’t asked myself, “How does God use water?” And if imitation is the primary goal of this letter, then I must comparatively ask, “How do I use water?”

The looming water crisis expresses the obvious, that we don’t use water as God does. Where God uses water for the purposes of freedom, good, and salvation, we use water carelessly, and as the zone for our disregarded plastics. We have failed to realize that our covenant in baptism is not just between us and Jesus, but between all living things. We have failed to imitate God. And the act of imitation, as the second letter of Peter reveals, is to be partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). How far we must be from the Spirit.

The looming water crisis expresses the obvious, that we don’t use water as God does.

The reputation of Christians in the first century was radical. The reason we even have this letter of 1 Peter is because their way of life posed a threat to the current systems in place. Sure, the author may have had to urge his readers to honor the emperor, but what a problem to have. When looking at the environmental degradation unleashed today, most Christians do nothing different than the status quo. I pray our environmental practices, particularly with water this lent, will cause more of a disturbance to the larger practices around us. One can only hope we will need to be tamed because we have gone so far in imitating the God who saves through water.

Praised be You my Lord through Sister Water,
So useful, humble, precious and pure.
Canticle of Brother Sun and Sister Moon
St. Francis of Assisi

Ashtyn Adams is a Seminary Intern at Creation Justice Ministries. Ashtyn earned her B.A. in Religion
from Pepperdine University and is currently pursuing a Master’s in Divinity at Duke University.

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Scripture Sunday: Down the Mountain

2/11/2024

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by Ashtyn Adams

Mark 9:2-9 (NRSV)
2 Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, 3 and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. 4 And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. 5 Then Peter said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." 6 He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. 7 Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, "This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!" 8 Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus. 9 As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

I started reading this week's lectionary text feeling like an outsider: what on earth is going on here (are even still ‘on earth’)? I re-read Mark’s first eight chapters and the rest of the ninth, but this transfiguration episode felt just as bizarre, just as “out of nowhere.” I guess the uneasy feelings put me in good company with the disciples, who “did not know what to say.” Peter being Peter speaks the first words though, following his impulse all the way through: “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." Peter did not fully understand the mystery in front of him, but he saw that whatever it was, it was good. He desired nothing but to stay put, to be with God in the fullness of his glory. I started to think about how often this is my desire too: I travel up the coast to Big Sur and think to myself, “Wow, this is beautiful. God’s beauty and power are on rich display. I don’t want to move”; or, I sit around a table with fellow seminarians talking about Julian of Norwhich’s theology and I think, “It is good for me to be here. I'll just dwell in the academy forever.”

These intense moments of awe and glimpses of divine glory are necessary. Although Peter says, “It is good for us to be here,” Jesus is the one who desires Peter’s presence first. Jesus is the one who takes the disciples up the mountain. Jesus chooses to bring them into this holy moment, having them bear witness and receive assurance that this is indeed the Beloved Son. Sometimes we forget God’s desire for us. God’s desire for us to see God as God truly is. Creation is certainly one way the divine delights in transforming themselves, as Bernard of Clairvaux says. It makes me wonder what sort of moments of transfiguration generations lose as we quite literally remove mountaintops for coal mining. Damage to creation limits divine demonstration and ultimately is a significant loss of intimate interaction with God.

Damage to creation limits divine demonstration and ultimately is a significant loss of intimate interaction with God.

Jesus does send the disciples back down the mountain though. We don’t experience divine glory for ourselves, but to be sent back into the world. Pope Francis captures the point quite well, and more explicitly involves the third person of the trinity: “To put it simply: the Holy Spirit bothers us. Because he moves us, he makes us walk, he pushes the Church to go forward. And we are like Peter at the Transfiguration: 'Ah, how wonderful it is to be here like this, all together!' ... But don't bother us. We want the Holy Spirit to doze off ... we want to domesticate the Holy Spirit. And that's no good. because he is God, he is that wind which comes and goes and you don't know where. He is the power of God, he is the one who gives us consolation and strength to move forward. But: to move forward! And this bothers us. It's so much nicer to be comfortable.” Indeed, this is always the hard realization, that, despite what we are so often told, faith is never privatized. In this liturgical season of Epiphany we are celebrating the manifold “manifestations” of who God is: starting as the baby migrant in a manger, closing as the glorified and transfigured Son of Man. Now, we head into the season of Lent, heading down the mountaintop into harsher realities.

The disciples are explicitly told to listen to Jesus as they re-enter the masses and head down the mountain. It is a simple, but difficult task. God gives them, like he so often gives us, a foretaste of the Kingdom, of everlasting life. The challenge is to remember and see that the beautiful transfigured Christ is the Christ who claims to be present in the lowly, the least of these, the places of affliction. Can we carry our mountaintop experiences of God’s beauty into the valleys before us? Where is God’s voice calling us to move in the creation? How are we to surrender our comforts and desires to stay put? Jesus likes to keep us on our toes and is determined to stretch our limited imaginations, which we so desperately need in the Anthropocene. We are not outsiders to this strange scene, but likewise receive the invitation to come, see the Good, and be empowered as lights to the world.

Ashtyn Adams is a Seminary Intern at Creation Justice Ministries. Ashtyn earned her B.A. in Religion
from Pepperdine University and is currently pursuing a Master’s in Divinity at Duke University.

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Scripture Sunday: Lives of Praise

2/4/2024

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by Ashtyn Adams

Psalm 147:1-11, 20c (CEB)
1 Praise the Lord!
Because it is good to sing praise to our God!
Because it is a pleasure to make beautiful praise!
2 The Lord rebuilds Jerusalem, gathering up Israel’s exiles.
3 God heals the brokenhearted
and bandages their wounds.
4 God counts the stars by number,
giving each one a name.
5 Our Lord is great and so strong!
God’s knowledge can’t be grasped!
6 The Lord helps the poor,
but throws the wicked down on the dirt!
7 Sing to the Lord with thanks;
sing praises to our God with a lyre!
8 God covers the skies with clouds;
God makes rain for the earth;
God makes the mountains sprout green grass.
9 God gives food to the animals--
even to the baby ravens when they cry out.
10 God doesn’t prize the strength of a horse;
God doesn’t treasure the legs of a runner.
11 No. The Lord treasures the people
who honor him,
the people who wait for his faithful love.
20 Praise the Lord!

Last week, my professor Dr. Winner challenged me with these words: “we often assume that redemption is easy for God.” She wrote them in her book Wearing God, where she outlines the overlooked ways we meet the divine. In Isaiah 42:14, one such overlooked image appears, when God says, “I’ve kept still for a very long time. I’ve been silent and restrained myself. Like a woman in labor I will moan; I will pant, I will gasp.” Isaiah uses three different verbs for words relating to breath because breath signals the active participation of a woman in labor. God does not fight the pain but works from within the pain. Shortly before, Isaiah also says to his audience, “Sing to the Lord a new song.” Music is often key to finding any sort of relief to women in labor. When we praise God, we offer such music; we participate in and support God in birthing newness of life. After reading Dr. Winner's research and insights, I thought to myself, “I will never look at liturgy the same.”

Here, the lectionary presents us with one liturgy, a praise psalm. It, at first glance, paints a picture that does imply easy redemption, listing out God’s impressive resume, cheering: “Our Lord is great and so strong!” In all honesty, it initially felt quite presumptuous. Is God really healing the brokenhearted, the marginalized facing the cruelties of climate change? Are the wicked being thrown into the dirt, the companies who are the biggest GHG contributors? Does God hear the baby animals on the brink of extinction? I wondered, where on Earth is the triumph declared in this psalm for us today?

However, after sitting with this psalm for a few days, I could swim a little deeper in its depth. It struck me that these words of praise come from the place of wounds. They are not the sayings of a North American, middle-class, white woman like myself. These are the echoes of exiles who understand complexity with the land, who have a deeply intimate relationship with creation. They have lost, and, now, returning from exile, they have found. God is rebuilding Jerusalem as the opening line discloses to us, whispering to contemporary readers a reminder that redemption is not a one-time, one-and-done act for God either. So, how do we, strangers and enemies to our own lands, reach reconciliation and rebuilding?

Key to this psalm is an exaltation of strength that finds resonance with Isaiah's image of God as a laboring woman: “God doesn’t prize the strength of a horse; God doesn’t treasure the legs of a runner. No. The Lord treasures the people who honor him, the people who wait for his faithful love.” No, the Psalmist implores, we must not assume our definition of strength is God’s definition of strength. We cannot think God treasures mighty speed when it is stiff, shaky legs that birth new life. No wonder the Lord, like a mother in labor, treasures those who patiently wait with her, who honor her with song. What a gift we can give to our common Creator, to the one whom we love. Indeed, as the Psalmist proclaims, what “pleasure" to have a role in something so beautiful.

We cannot think God treasures mighty speed when it is stiff, shaky legs that birth new life.

The implied flip side of the psalm though is dishonor, the hindrance we can also inflict on God. Whether we are comfortable with it or not, as Dr. Ellen Davis reminds us, vulnerability is the condition that enables covenant. God loves because God is vulnerable to our words and actions. In the Anthropocene, it is nearly impossible to say that our lives are “beautiful praise,” that our praise is “fitting” to the God who loves to "make the mountains sprout with green grass." Instead of aiding God’s movement in sprouting grass, we dishonor creation, a source of divine delight and a site of divine display. One particular and frequent way we do this is through our plastic consumption. As stated in CJM’s Earth Day Resource, not only does plastic surround our food and pollute our soil, but there are even traces of it found in breast milk. What if we were to think about these as microplastics in God’s breast? Might this uncomfortable image, certainly foreign to Scripture, awaken us to the damage we are inflicting on the created order? Might we take more seriously our midwifing role, faithfully acting, eagerly waiting for restoration? These questions are very different from the ones I entered the text with. The living God whom I meet in Scripture has a funny way of turning our presumptions and expectations on their head. I hope and pray we can all better learn to "praise the Lord!"

Ashtyn Adams is a Seminary Intern at Creation Justice Ministries. Ashtyn earned her B.A. in Religion
from Pepperdine University and is currently pursuing a Master’s in Divinity at Duke University.

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Scripture Sunday: Take Up Their Cross

Scripture Sunday: Saved Through Water

Scripture Sunday: Down the Mountain

Scripture Sunday: Lives of Praise

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