Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels." (Mark 8:34-38)
Although the phrase “take up your cross” for modern audiences has an obvious connotation with Christianity, the original audience to whom this comment was directed would have understood it as a reference to capital punishment for political rebels under the Roman Empire. The New Oxford Annotated Bible glosses the Gospel passage from this week’s lectionary thus:
“. . . the Romans used crucifixion as a gruesome means of terrorizing subject peoples by hanging rebels and agitators from crosses for several days until they suffocated to death. They required condemned provincials to carry the crossbeam on which they were about to be hung” (73 NT).
In this passage, Jesus, while inviting onlookers to join him and his disciples, warns them that, like he himself, they should be willing to “take up their cross.” He thus seems to equate discipleship with a commitment that transcends basic survival mechanisms: faith worth having is something for which one should be willing to risk life on earth. This is a teaching that is repeated in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Matthew 16:24-28 reads,
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
The wording in Luke 9:23 is almost identical:
Then he said to them all, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.’
The word “daily” seems to suggest that the sentence is intended as a metaphor, with the phrase “take up the cross” symbolizing willingness to undergo hardship on behalf of one’s faith. For the first-century audience, this symbol would specifically resonate within the political realm. Extended information on what kinds of people were crucified during this time period and why can be found in the Jewish Encyclopedia here:
Citing Aurelius Victor Cæsar among other sources, this article explains that, while “a Jewish court could not have passed a sentence of death by crucifixion without violating the Jewish law,” crucifixion was part of the Roman penal code. Although Roman citizens were exempt from this punishment, it was proscribed for
“piracy, highway robbery, assassination, forgery, false testimony, mutiny, high treason, rebellion (see Pauly-Wissowa, "Real-Encyc." s.v. "Crux"; Josephus, "B. J." v. 11, § 1). Soldiers that deserted to the enemy and slaves who denounced their masters ("delatio domini") were also punished by death on the cross.”
Recently I had a conversation about conflicts between religious morals and obligations imposed by one’s national citizenship. The Iraq war is an event that clearly has deeply divided American religious communities, with practitioners citing the values they have from their Christian faith to justify either supporting, or opposing, the war.
In an episode of the now-syndicated Boston Legal, a character refuses to pay taxes as an act of protest against the Iraq war. When she is prosecuted by the Federal Government, the show’s main lawyer defends her in court. An acquaintance argued that if one accepts the proposition that the Iraq war is unjust, whether according to international law or the personal moral convictions of an individuals, the act of paying taxes in effect causes you to contribute to a cause you find unjust, as taxes support US military operations.
Regardless of whether or not one believes that going to war in Iraq was morally justified, recent narratives about soldiers deserting citing “moral” beliefs raise important questions about the extent to which freedom of religion is permitted by the State. To name one example, Sgt. Ricky Clousing, a born-again Christian from Washington State trained as an interrogator, underwent a crisis of conscience after deployment in Iraq in the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal. An article posted on The American View describes Clousing’s dilemma thus:
"Sgt. Ricky Clousing went to war in Iraq because, he said, he believed he would simultaneously be serving his nation and serving God. But after more than four months on the streets of Baghdad and Mosul interrogating Iraqis rounded up by American troops, Sergeant Clousing said, he began to believe that he was serving neither.
He said he saw American soldiers shoot and kill an unarmed Iraqi teenager, and rode in an Army Humvee that sideswiped Iraqi cars and shot an old man’s sheep for fun — both incidents Sergeant Clousing reported to superiors. He said his work as an interrogator led him to conclude that the occupation was creating a cycle of anti-American resentment and violence. After months of soul-searching on his return to Fort Bragg, Sergeant Clousing, 24, failed to report for duty one day."
Clousing refused to leave the army on the pretense of claiming to be mentally unstable, homosexual, or a conscientious objector:
“(He) said he could not file for conscientious objector status because he could not honestly say he was opposed to all war. . . He tried to talk with his church friends in Washington. Some understood him, but others said he had to support the government because of a biblical injunction to ‘render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.’”
After deserting the army and turning himself in, Clousing was sentenced to three months in prison. Under the current Uniform Code of Military Justice, the maximum penalty for desertion during time of war is death. A video of Clousing explaining his reasons for desertion can be found here. According to Military.com, there were 4,698 army deserters from 2007 alone.
Narratives such as this one raise questions such as the following: should the United States allow soldiers to leave the army under the 1st Amendment ostensibly granting freedom of religion, if soldiers claim that participating in the military violates their religious beliefs? Readers with comments are welcome to share thoughts.
Lectionary readings for this week include Proverbs 1:20-33; Psalm 19; James 3:1-12; and Mark 8:27-38.
Photo source here.
--Elizabeth Fels
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