What is the image in your head when you think about carrying your cross daily? What comes to mind?

I remember growing up watching movies like “The King of Kings” and “The Robe”. In typical Hollywood fashion, the passion scene was always the most vivid. A huge, heavy timber, such as only the iron men of today could lift, and even then with great difficulty, would be attached by ropes to the arms of Jesus. And then he would struggle, oh, so valiantly, to carry the heavy wood to the foot of Calvary, where the rest of the crucifixion would occur. In my imagination, that walk was always more difficult than the hanging on the cross. Jesus, heroically struggling to carry a railroad tie up the hill. It seemed like such a Herculean effort. And most likely it was.

It was out of that context that I have always heard the command in today’s gospel: “Whoever wishes to come after me, must deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me.” Cross carrying was heroic effort. The stuff of giants. The task of men and women much stronger than I.

But I wonder if that is the case for most of us. Certainly there are some whose crosses are a huge burden. The rare ones who suffer from painful disease, the parents of special children who spend their entire life raising their children who always remain children and the like. Cross carrying as heroic activity is always around us. But I wonder if for most of us, is cross-carrying a heroic, or non-heroic activity?

At a wedding reception last night, I got into an extended conversation with a student. Their spiritual life was not even close to what it had been in high school. It had been a gradual thing, a slow drifting away from practices of prayer and mass. Now that they were out of the habit of going to mass, it seemed so difficult to go back that first time, so hard to ‘come home’ to where they needed to be. As I thought about that conversation later that evening, it struck me they needed a lesson in ‘non-heroic cross carrying.’ They didn’t need to pick up the heavy cross and carry it all the way to Golgotha that day. What God was asking was for them to put down the books for an hour on Sunday evening to attend mass, even if it meant being a little behind in their homework. And then remembering to turn to Jesus in prayer at some point of the day. Because the heart of what Jesus is asking Peter/the disciples is to “follow me.”

In Matthew’s gospel, the Greek word translated as “Get behind me” is also the same word that appears in the next line – ‘take up your cross and follow me.’ What seems like a harsh rebuke is also an invitation to literally ‘get behind’ Jesus – to follow him more profoundly. In effect, what he says to Simon Peter is: “Stop whining and complaining and figuring things out. That’s my job. You just get yourself to the back of the line and continue to follow me. Take up the cross – the daily one, the ordinary cross of denying self – so as to live as I do.”

It is a truth that happily married couples discovered a long time ago. The secret to their faithfulness is not in the huge moments, but in the taking out of the trash and the cleaning of the dishes and the offering to pick up the kids when you are both tired. Ordinary cross-carrying. Doing the day in and day out things that are necessary to be faithful in the relationship.

As pastor, biggest switch in my following of Jesus seems to be the immediacy of presence to people wanting time. Carrying my cross is not heroic acts of suffering, but walking down the rectory steps and running into someone who wants my attention NOW and being 100% present. Putting aside whatever mission I was on to be attentive to them. Ahh, that’s cross carrying in normal Christianity. Ordinary cross carrying is parents in changing diapers; it’s a student’s choice to not do homework for a while so you can go to mass or talk to a roommate who is hurting. Ordinary cross carrying is listening to the same story from an aged parent as if it was the first time and not the 50th time.

“Whoever wishes to come after me, must deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me.” What does that look like in your life these days? Some of you here may be called to the heroic cross carrying this week. If so, then know of the support of this community around you. Like Simon the Cyrene, let us help you carry that burden. For most of us, though, I suspect it is the ordinary cross carrying we will be about. The forgetting of the self so as to live present to the other. Therefore, cultivate awareness of how Jesus is inviting you to ‘follow him’ in prayer, and then ask for generosity in spirit this week. So that when the opportunity to ‘follow Jesus’ comes, we’ll be right there to take up our cross…