Oct 15 | Resistance Lectionary Part 16: Take up your cross

Today’s citation: Matthew 16:24-28

I get my hair cut at a trendy Kitsilano salon by a glorious ex-punk who is always full of questions about my work as a priest. She was raised Roman Catholic and is more than a little critical of the faith nowadays.

One day we started talking about the cringeworthy phrase “God helps those who help themselves.”

I laughed and said, “So many people in the world think that phrase is in the Bible.”

I looked up at her in the mirror and saw her eyes were big as dinner plates.

“It’s not?!”

For posterity, dear reader, no. It’s not. Anywhere.

Now the notion pops up in one or two narratives. There are quite a few trickster figures and resourceful folks who are blessed for their ingenuity. But it is far more common to find God blessing those who are cursed by their families or community. Think of Sarah, Hagar, or Hannah. Think of Mary Magdalene, beset by seven demons, or Zacchaeus, loathed for his profession. God’s blessing and comfort to the reviled and persecuted is one of the truly common threads running through Scripture. It’s important to note that not all of these figures are rewarded for their strong faith. It is enough that they are in distress, and uniquely marginalized.

We should not take this as license to live lives in squalor and agony. If we accept that for ourselves it is too easy to expect it of others, and to romanticize rather than stand in solidarity with the marginalized. But we should be compelled by the life of Christ and his disciples – sent out with nearly nothing, dependent on the communities to which they traveled – to spurn the toxic idea that success in life is measured in wealth or independence from others, that it is only earned through aggressiveness and political maneuvers, that it is better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven.

This is more than the tired trope that “money doesn’t buy happiness.” This is a call to be willing to ruin the dinner parties of the rich, a call to hold unpopular opinions, a call to associate with the embarrassing and the awkward.

What’s on the line is so much more important than a spot in heaven.

We are not called to perform good works for a future reward.

We are called to be good, because it is God’s desire for us.