You are no doubt familiar with the Japanese word Kamikaze.
The Kamikazes were the suicide pilots in World War II who, at the
cost of their own lives, attacked Allied ships in the Pacific.
Some 1200 died in sinking 34 ships. The word Kamikaze in
Japanese means "divine wind" and recalls a typhoon in the year
1281 that crushed the invasion fleet mounted by the ambitious
Mongol emperor Kublai Khan in the wake of his conquest of China.
Six-hundred-plus years later, to wreck the US naval juggernaut,
the retreating Japanese tried to create another kamikaze - the
suicide bombers. The effort did not succeed, as we all know, but
the Kamikaze pilots will forever be remembered for their devotion
to duty and their willingness to make the supreme sacrifice in
defense of their land and their leader.(1)
What brings that to mind this morning is the passage we just
read which speaks of sacrifice, of self-denial, of losing one's
life to save it...almost a call for Christian Kamikazes, if we
might push the envelope a bit, who are willing to do ANYTHING,
even at the price of life, to follow Jesus. Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
himself a martyr to the faith, said, "When Christ calls a man, He
bids him come and die." On this Labor Day weekend, that is the
ultimate labor of love.
To be honest, these words of Jesus about self-denial, taking
up the cross, and losing life to save it have never been my
favorites. If I had my druthers, I would focus on texts like
"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten
son..." or "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want..." I
would prefer a warm, fuzzy kind of discipleship that only
required a child-like faith in God's supreme goodness and the
promise of eternity in the glories of paradise. Wouldn't anyone?
But the message of scripture is clear: the Lord has work for us
to do...a labor of love, yes, but labor nonetheless.
Costly too. In some societies, Christian discipleship may
well involve death - 2/3 of the Christians in the world live in
places that are actively hostile to the faith. In our society,
we may not face martyrdom, but the costs are there regardless.
One obvious cost is financial - you come to church and are
expected to give of what God has entrusted to your care. And not
just a dollar or two. God's people are expected to tithe - ten
percent. That is God's standard, not the church's. And on top
of that are all the other worthy causes which deserve our help.
Discipleship can get expensive.
You are expected to give time. Public worship, and on
Sunday, too - the one day each week that we might count as
belonging to just us - and EVERY WEEK has a Sunday. Wow! Jesus
talked about visiting the sick, feeding the hungry, clothing the
naked, and doing it as if we were doing it for him. That takes
time, often time we might rather be spending in other pursuits.
Our talents are on call as well. Can you teach? Then your
Sunday School needs you and ought to have you. Can you sing?
Then your church choir needs you and ought to have you. Can you
dream dreams in the name of Jesus and catch a vision of creative
ministries for the church of the future? Then your church
leadership needs you and ought to have you. This list could be
endless. Whatever your God-given talent might be, it is not
yours to hold on to - it has been entrusted to you to share, even
though that might be hard work and might well involve personal
sacrifice.
I admit, I still wish discipleship did not have to be quite
so demanding. In the words of one old Texan, "The problem with
the Christian life is that it's so daily."(2) Indeed. But perhaps
this is all by divine design. Perhaps this work is simply
preparation for the glory that awaits us. There is a remarkable
lesson in a true story about a butterfly:
A family brought in two cocoons that were about to hatch.
They watched as the first one began to open and the butterfly
inside squeezed very slowly and painfully through a tiny hole
that it chewed in one end of the cocoon. After lying exhausted
for about ten minutes following its agonizing emergence, the
butterfly finally flew out the open window on its beautiful new
wings.
The family decided to help the second butterfly so that it
would not have to go through such an excruciating ordeal. So, as
it began to emerge, they carefully sliced open the cocoon with a
razor blade, doing the equivalent of a Caesarean section. The
second butterfly never did sprout wings, and in about ten
minutes, instead of flying away, it quietly died.
The family asked a biologist friend to explain what had
happened. The scientist said that the difficult struggle to
emerge from the small hole actually pushes liquids from deep
inside the butterfly's body cavity into tiny capillaries in the
wings where they hardened to complete the healthy and beautiful
adult butterfly. The lesson? WITHOUT THE STRUGGLE, THERE ARE NO
WINGS.(3)
Hmm.
For what it is worth, we ALL go about the "wing-development
process" incorrectly sometimes. As you may have noted when we
read our scripture lesson, we covered a good deal more material
than just this part about sacrifice and self-denial. As Matthew
lays it out for us, first we have this conversation between Jesus
and the Twelve concerning the divine identity - Peter pipes up,
"You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God." Then Jesus
offers a wonderful compliment: "Blessed are you, Simon, son of
Jonah." He calls him a ROCK, a solid foundation for the church.
Ta Da! Then we read of Jesus letting the disciples in on what
was about to take place, Peter saying, "Never, Lord!" and the
Master responding, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a STUMBLING
BLOCK." Woops. Peter goes from rock to block from one paragraph
to the next. I personally find that comforting, because I know I
do the same thing myself. You too?
One more thing. If taking up our cross does not have a
sense of purpose and joy, then we ARE doing it wrong. The Lord
is NOT calling for pious masochists. As one commentator has it,
Self-denial is not part of our culture's image of the
'good life.' But neither is...Jesus' call for denying
oneself to be understood as asceticism or as self-hate.
Just as Jesus' call to discipleship is not a joining in
the cultural infatuation with self-esteem, neither is
it the opposite. Nor is the self-denial to which Jesus
calls the opposite of self-fulfillment. Just giving up
things will not make one Christian; it will only make
one empty. What is difficult for our culture to
understand, indeed what it cannot understand on its own
terms, is an orientation to one's life that is not
focused on self at all...(4)
Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in his wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of his glory and grace.(5)
The glory of our faith is this: we have not been left alone
to struggle with our feeble attempts at discipleship, even though
it may be a labor of love. We have help...the help of the one
who promises to be with us, even when we try and try and try but
never seem to get it right, even when our best efforts come to
naught, even in the valley of darkest shadows. He said, "I am
with you always." And now he invites us to come and be nourished
for the journey.
Amen!
1. Bible Illustrator for Windows, diskette, (Hiawatha, IO: Parsons Technology, 1994)
2. Our Daily Bread, February 12, 1997
3. Steve Souther, Winfield, KS via PresbyNet, SERMONSHOP 1996 08 11, #74, 8/9/96
4. Eugene Boring, "Matthew," New Interpreter's Bible, CD-ROM edition, (Nashville:
Abingdon, 2002)
5. Helen H. Lemmel, 1922
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