Carrying the cross

Lutheran, The, Mar 2005 by Persson, Lennart

It's not an efficient way to walk, but it's God's way

"We are running so fast, God, and we don't know how to slow down. We keep our calendars filled. We carry phones in the car and pager s in the purse. We constantly check our voice mail, our e-mail, and stay connected by fax and Internet. We are busy and yet not satisfied. We are moving faster, but we never catch up."

I was amazed one Sunday last July at how well this prayer of confession-printed in the bulletin of an ELCA congregation in Rapid City, S.D., where I was the guest preacher-connected with the message of my sermon. My visit was in connection with the regular home assignment for my wife, Carin, and myself, Swedish citizens who have served with the ELCA Division for Global Mission since 1970 in Indonesia, India and, now, Thailand. I've lived in Asia for almost 50 years and had planned to share some thoughts from an Asian background.

I've been much influenced by reading several books by Japanese theologian Kosuke Koyama, who points to the need to have time and take time with people. He titled one book Three Mile an Hour God (Orbis Books, 1980) meaning that God is walking with us and at the pace of walking. God doesn't rush past in a car or on an airplane. Jesus, too, walked with his disciples and the crowd.

Even after his resurrection we find Jesus walking with the disciples to Emmaus. Recall the scene from Luke's Gospel (24:13-32). The two disciples had no idea who this stranger walking with them, accompanying them, really was. They asked him to stay with them, and then: "When he was at the table with them, he took bread and blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him ...." In the sharing of the bread, they saw their true companion.

In the ELCA we talk about the model of accompaniment-walking together and sharing together-in our global mission work. A companion is someone with whom you share your bread-panis, Latin for "bread," and cum for "together."

Koyama points out in another book, No Handle on the Cross (Orbis Books, 1977), that we can't carry the cross like a business person carries a briefcase. We have to bend. It's a slow walk.

But contemporary society values speed: From fastfood to one-hour photo processing to instant messaging on e-mail, we expect quick responses. But God walks slowly and works slowly. God has time-the one thing we seem to lack but still crave.

In Praise of Slowness [Langsamhetens lov] is now a best-selling book in Sweden. The author, Swedish theology professor Ove Wikstrom, says the pace of modern life is too fast. We need time to listen, he emphasizes, to catch up with ourselves.

I get a bit scared, sometimes, with all the talk about efficiency and effectiveness in the ELCA. In a recent document on strategic planning, the words efficiency, effectiveness and reduction of inefficiencies are repeated. It may be something of an American ideal.

Carrying the cross is not an efficient way of walking. Yet three Gospel writers record Jesus' call for this: "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross [daily] and follow me" (Matthew 16:24, Mark 8:34 and Luke 9:23). Jesus calls us to be vulnerable, rather than efficient.

Do we have time to walk slowly with and listen to our neighbors who may be Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus or just ordinary nonchurched people? Only by sharing and caring and bearing each other's burdens can we become daring in witnessing to our faith in Christ, which gives us strength to continue in mission.

Persson is a lecturer of New Testament Studies, McGilvary Faculty of Theology, Payap University, Chiang Mai, Thailand.