What he would do is take three or four couples at a time and they would all travel to a drive-in kind of state park campsite. For that first evening, there was teaching all sorts of wilderness survival skills. How to build a fire, what you can eat, bear repelling strategies, how to make a shelter, etc. They would comfortably camp at the drive-in site for the evening. But then in the morning, he would take each couple to a different spot in the nearby wilderness of the mountains. Marco would give them a bag of very basic and random stuff - shoelaces, gummi bears, a knife, a tin of matches. Then he would leave them there, and return in 24 hours. The couples had to ‘make it work’ for overnight and then some with almost nothing but each other, a gps beacon tracker, and what they had learned. The next day Marco would then pick them up, hopefully at the same spot, and the couples would come back to the drive in camp site to feast and debrief the experience.
I asked him, so what are the results like? He said, I don’t have any real data, and it was chosen by people who are adventurous and/or intentional about their relationship... but the outcome looks like a stop light. About 1/3 come out of the experience saying we got this - ring that bell- green light! Another third come out really clear that they have serious issues and that they should hit the brakes - red lights. And the other third were yellow lights; folks who said - we can see our difficulties more clearly, and we need to work on such things sooner rather than later.
I tell you this story because I think the intention of the premarital extreme adventure and what Jesus is asking all of us today is essentially the same. Are you ready for this? Adoration and idealism and traditions are terrific, but discipleship with Jesus takes so much more than adrenaline and good intentions. Yes, it is a light yoke, a wholehearted resurrection joy. AND It is also a reckoning with humility and a struggle with doubt. God knows how easily we pollyanna the problems, and give up when the moral demands of our commitment to a just and healthy society make us uncomfortable. This question is asked both of the disciples, and of every generation of the Jesus movement since then. Are we prepared to follow Jesus to Jerusalem?
Two of the statements Jesus offers us today are hardly rare sage wisdom. Should you make a plan before you build a building? Yes. Should you count the costs before launching a mission? Yes. The other two statements, however, are dangling the loss of all security through the rejection of your family system, AND suggesting that living in a righteous community in Jesus’ name is to bear the shame of being convicted like a criminal.
I don’t think that Jesus is predicting his fate. His being the perfect love of God made flesh was so against the grain, that it was nearly inevitable that he would be slain by human sin and injustice. Each day of his life in this world was terribly unsafe - much like the lives of so many of the most vulnerable. Manipulatively shameful and excruciating, crucifixion was a regular atrocity in the Roman Empire. The disciples would have known exactly how extreme the example is, well before Holy Week. This lesson whispers to all of us - Is there something that you need to learn - or let go of - before the next stage of your journey with Jesus to and through the cross?
The statement to carry the cross is not a prescription to endure or inflict any type of abuse. Nor is it a trivial inconvenience. That extreme premarital adventure was rather like hyperbole in action. Hyperbole is over exaggerating and intensifying a statement to make the deeper point. The reality of the relationships that Marco's guests were exploring were more complicated than those 40 hours In the wilderness. Our discipleship and lifelong formation Into a life that is the shape of Jesus’ life is a much longer and much more of a multi-hued journey than the striking impact of his gruesome question today. I trust that part of what he is saying is hyperbole: intense exaggeration to make the point.
But I also know from the beginnings of the Jesus movement right down to this day people have chosen Faithfulness and servant leadership that cost them everything. We are in a wilderness, but we are not alone. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are pushing us, are present with us as we pursue new directions to do something creative, truthful, and holy with the sacred Trinity, One God, who is as close as a potter to clay, and a weaver to her cloth.
In the life of the church and the community of disciples, there are moments that resemble that extreme pre-marital adventure. Thank goodness we have the Spirit of God as our guide and are knit together with love and wit and given a bag of Good News. So to rephrase the question Jesus is asking - Who will we be and where will we follow Jesus from here?
September 8, 2019
Grace Episcopal Church
Pemberton, New Jersey
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