TAKING UP THE CROSS II

And, how does this all fit with being a Christian? ...I know I have been chosen, through no merit of my own. I know that he will not leave me alone. I think I have tried to get God to let me alone, but it hasn't worked. The cross we take up is not about some suffering or affliction we must bear (like being gay). The cross we take up is our relationship with Jesus Christ. It is that commitment to him, to follow him. to try to live like him. As someone describes himself on another blog: "I don't have the guts to follow Jesus; the best I can do is settle for being a Christian."

Dear Piggo:

How I wish we could agree; that would be too good to be true, though, wouldn’t it? Well, we do OK in the first sentence or two: we have been chosen, we could not find a place deep or dark enough to hide from him. BUT...

EVERYone has a cross to bear, and we are all called to take up the one that comes our way. The cross we take up is ours alone, and it is our destiny; it is also our shame and our pride. I am NOT saying that we must suffer quietly under the burden of being gay, although now that the love “that dared not speak its name” famously will not shut up, it might not be a bad idea; what I AM saying is that whatever shame and oppression is given us, we are given the option of taking it up and bearing it to Golgotha ourselves, not as slaves but of our own free will, just walking the walk. The relationship with Jesus Christ follows because he never lets anyone carry a cross alone – even HE had Simon of Cyrene to pitch in, so we know we have to welcome him into our degradation and humiliation and suffering, where he is completely at home, however embarrassed we may be about it — he was here long before we were. And if he had not seen all the rotten fruit that the human heart could bear while with us on earth, he descended to hell upon his death and made its acquaintance there. Now if Christ is promised as present in suffering and hell, how can we not look for him when we see our very loves and lives threatened? He is waiting for us to see that he is there by our side already, as soon as we stop inflicting pain on others and take up our own pain to carry it toward our own end. Taking up our own cross is always public and political, and always leads to a death; it is a prospect you can face [well, a prospect I can face] only if you [I] know that death is not the end.

I had a blinding illumination in church the other day: not only is my coming out the cross I must carry wherever it leads, but that it is Christ himself who is calling me to name myself in truth and let that truth set me free, cross and all. Not myself calling out to a long-denied “self”, though God knows that is part of the equation, no, it is Christ who calls me to wholeness and truth. I don't know when I can say any of this to my wife; she has no need of salt in fresh wounds. But bearing the cross is public, political, and PENITENTIAL. It is only when we “take on”, ie, forgive, the sins of the world, that bearing the cross gains meaning. Because it is acknowledgement that it is not for us to blame others, but to accept the state of things along with whatever measure of responsibility for the state of things is ours, along with it. If Jesus’ incarnation was about taking on the form of a slave [that’s us, guys], how can we follow in his footsteps if we hope to do so in pride?

Since I believe that pride was the sin of Lucifer, I have always found “gay pride” a mixed bag; how about gay humility, gay patience, gay loving-kindness – surely the plague years have shown us all, have shown the other 93-97%, what that can mean. But pride in putting Tab A in Slot C? In what way is Slot C better than Slot B? IMHO, “gay pride” is only a hangover and mirror-image of gay shame. Let us get past both of them into a human future. There was a joke going around the clergy here: if going to church makes you a Christian, does standing in the garage make you a car? Well, no. To whatever extent we are able, we have to embody Christ in our time or risk being vomited forth from his mouth.