Reflections on "Crosses We Wear: Into the Circle"

“Crosses We Wear: Into the Circle” Sept 120, 2020, SAPC, Denton; Dr. Richard B. Culp;  Matthew 1:18-25; Galatians 4: 1-7

Matthew 1: 18-25

Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah[a] took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. 20 But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

23 

“Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,

    and they shall name him Emmanuel,”

which means, “God is with us.” 24 When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, 25 but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son;[b] and he named him Jesus.

Introduction:  This week the cross I wear is one given to me by First Presbyterian Church, Troy, OH on the occasion of my 20th anniversary of ordination.   Made from clay found in Miami county, the county where the church I served resided, the county in which we engaged in ministry.

I also have two other crosses given to me that are made from nails taken out of old barns that were being torn down in the county in OH where we lived (one was from a barn in a county nearby).

Wear them - several images; when I think of someone taking clay from the ground to shape a cross, I am reminded of images of God like God taking mud and breathing life into humanity and shaping us, or God the potter who molds and gives shapes to our lives.  Likewise, the barn nails remind me of the hands that held the nails and the hammer to build the barn and I think about the hands of God that hold us and shape us.

But, the fundament truth these crosses that were made from elements of the county in which I lived in Ohio is that God is a God of incarnation - that is, God chooses to join us in our lives wherever we are.

In fact, as we know from the person of Jesus of Christ and as we read in the Gospel of Matthew, God sends Christ and calls him Emmanuel, which means “God is with us.”

Move 1:  When we hear the name Emmanuel, we are reminded that the way God chooses to engage us is by sending Jesus to find us where we are.

a.  As some of you know, I referee soccer.  It’s been a little strange refereeing since Covid-19.  The game is played basically the same, but the logistics are different.

1.  For example, no more captions meeting before the game and tossing a coin to see who gets to choose side or ball.  Instead, the visiting team gets to decide, and off we go.  No shaking hands after the game - each team just shouts, “good game,” or something like that to the other team.

2.  Some interesting logistics dealing with parents and spectators.

3. Some fields only allow one spectator per player.

4. Here in Denton at North Lakes park, they have do an interesting on the sidelines where the spectators sit.

5.  They have circles painted in white running up the sideline.

6.  Each family unit (whether one person or four persons) an be in the circle, but it is six feet away from the next circle.  

7.  No moving from circle to circle.  

8.  you and your family are alone in your circle.  

9.   Sort of interesting, bizarre scene on the sidelines.

b. the incarnation means God sends Jesus into your circle.

1. You may be in your separate circle, but you are not alone.

2.  Emmanuel is not just a name or title for the Son of God, but a description of what he does - he comes to be with us.

3.  If you hear nothing else this morning, hear this:  You are never alone because God has chosen to be with you.

5. Paul can write with certainty to the Romans that nothing will separate from the love of God we discover in Christ Jesus, because he knows the God of incarnation who sent Christ to join us in the human endeavor.   

c.    We see this connectedness in the life Jesus lived among us.

1.  He lived a human life.  Frankly, I’m not sure we ever know quite what to do with that truth.

2.  I saw a Peanuts cartoon strip several years ago:  Linus and Charlie brown are eating sandwiches while Lucy looks on.  Linus says, ”Charlie Brown,  hands are fascinating things.  I like my hands! I think I have nice hands!  My hands seem to have a lot of character.  These are hands which may someday accomplish great things ... These are hands which may someday do marvelous works.  They may build mighty bridges or heal the sick, or hit home runs, or write soul-searching novels!  These
are hands which may someday change the course of human destiny!"
 

Lucy, looking at Linus' hands, says: "They've got jelly on them."  

3. We can make all sorts of theological assertions we can make about God, and Christ - but, the bottom line - Jesus came and live among, got jelly on his hands because he is with us.

Move 2:  Jesus joins with us in our humanity, but in his, we see the new humanity. 

a.  Jesus does not become like humans in the way we see ourselves. 

1. We see all our flaws and shortcomings, which are a far cry from the goodness in which God created us.

2.  Instead, Jesus is humanity in all its goodness, the type of person we aspire to be, what humanity looks like in all its created goodness that has not been dragged down by sin.

b.  Jesus is the new creation God calls us to be.

1.  As Paul shares with the Galatians, when Christ comes and joins with us, we are redeemed and are no longer enslaved.

2. We are freed to become new creations no longer bound by the law and sin, but free to all the possibilities God has for us.

3.  In Christ, we see those possibilities lived out perfectly and hear our call to join with him.

Move 3:  As followers of Christ, we are called to grow into those new possibilities.

a.  We remember that when Jesus initiates his ministry, he stands up in the synagogue where he grew up and reads a passage from the prophet Isaiah.

1. Jesus announces that he has arrived  “To bring good news to the poor; to proclaim release to the captives; recovery of sight to the blind; to let the oppressed go free,

and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4: 18-19).

2. How is Jesus going to do these things - by living among the people; by reaching out and touching and healing; by talking to the people; by joining with them and loving them.

b.  As followers of Christ, we are called to incarnational ministry.

1.  Reader’s Digest “Small Wonders” Ann Gilbert:  There is a story about a young mother who was trying to help her four-year-old daughter not be afraid of the dark.  Each evening at bedtime, the mom and did everything they could think of to lay their daughter’s fears to rest.  “You’re going to be just fine,” they would tell her.  “Mommy and daddy are right in the next room; and besides that, God is right here in your room with you, taking care of you.”  One night after this bedtime ritual, the mother was awakened in the middle of the night by a tap on the shoulder.  Her daughter’s familiar voice said, “I know God is there with me, but I need somebody with skin.”

2.  Our call to ministry is to be there with skin on as God’s presence in peoples’ lives.

3.  .  Our Daily Bread continues to be one of the great example of incarnational ministry in which this congregation engages.

2.  it began when a few people looked around the community in which we live and noticed there were people who were hungry.

3.  OUr Daily bread developed out of a dire to feed the people, connect with them, and be there with them

3.  Our Daily Bread feeds people whom you see in the city, right here this portion of the city.

4.  Joins with them on issues of hunger, housing, employment…

c.  Our Daily Bread is now in the process of moving forward with an incredible opportunity to expand its ministry by moving to a new facility.

1. St. Andrew will continue to support Our Daily Bread, but we will have space and time and resources freed up when we no longer house Our Daily Bread.

2. Challenge for us to envision what new ministries God is calling the congregation fo St. Andrew.

3.  As you reflect on that in the coming months, as our leadership ponders “What is next?”  I hope we lay claim to God’s call to incarnational ministry.

4.  Where do we see ourselves joining with others, being there with them in their situation and doing ministry?

5. The God who sends “Emmanuel” to be with us, sends us to be Emmanuel in the world.

Conclusion: Finish with an image from  Martin Luther’s Christmas Day 1530 sermon.

He told the nativity story, in which he portrayed the world as a darkened stage illumined by a solitary pinprick of brilliant light, the Christ-child, who has come to live among us.  Emmanuel, by name.

After telling the story of the incarnation, he suddenly shifts from storyteller and announces to those gathered.

“And if this story is true—and it is the truth—then let everything else go.”

 Let everything else go and “take up Christ’s cross and follow him”

 A cross of incarnational ministry.

Reflections on "The Crosses We Wear: Unconditional Love"

This sermon began our fall preachings series, "Crosses We Wear."  Each week the sermon will share the story of one of the crosses the pastors wear in worship.  this first sermon introduced the idea and then reflected on the theme of God's unconditional love for us.

 “Crosses We Wear: Unconditional Love” Sept 13, 2020, SAPC, Denton; Dr. Richard B. Culp; Romans 12: 9-21; Matthew 26: 21-28

Romans 12: 9-21  Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; 10 love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. 11 Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. 12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.

14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16 Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. 17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. 18 If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 19 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” 20 No, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Introduction:  We begin our fall preaching series on crosses we wear.

 Actually, we will have two preaching series because we will take a break from crosses to focus on stewardship for a few weeks in the middle and then return to crosses. 

The sermon grows out of people asking over the years what the different crosses that I wear and Lisa wears in worship mean.  Or how I decide which one to wear on any given Sunday.  So, this fall, we will share some of the stories surrounding the crosses we wear.

We ministers are not the only ones to wear crosses, of course.  On any given day, as we look at people we can see crosses on necklaces, crosses on bracelets, crosses on t-shirts, crosses as tattoos.  All sorts of different crosses, and I suspect all sorts of different meanings associated with the crosses.

For followers of Christ, of course, the crosses point us to the empty cross.

The empty cross symbolizes both the love of God that we discover in Christ dying for us and the power of God to resurrect.

I invite you over the coming weeks to notice the crosses you wear or the crosses you see others wear.  

And when you notice them, reflect on the God to whom those crosses point, the God who invites you to bear the cross or discipleship.

Move 1:  When I left seminary to begin my internship as an Intern Associate Pastor (IAP was the acronym the church used for their intern), I knew I had a lot to learn, but I was pretty sure I knew a few things.

For instance, I knew that I would not wear a robe when I assisted in worship or even preached.  I had preached a few times in churches around Austin, and decided that it was false advertising for me as an intern to wear a robe in worship - someone might think I was actually a minister.

I also knew that I would never wear one of those crosses ministers wear 

had seen too many big ole crosses that seemed more about intimidation and power than representing the crucified one.  

I arrived at First Presbyterian Church, Pasadena, TX, a young, idealistic intern committed to transparency.

On the second day of the internship, my supervisor calls me into his office.  He goes over the bulletin and what my responsibilities would be in worship each week.  I was something like his 20th intern, so this was old hat to him.

after discussing the order of worship, he tells me, “there is a robe on the back of your door that you can wear in worship.”

I immediately told him that I was not going to wear a robe during my internship, that it would be false advertising, and so on.  

He looked at me and said, “the robe you will wear in worship each week is on the back of your door.

Two days in, and I was now a robe wearer.

that Friday, a man named John (his nickname was “big John” because he was a big guy, a former principal and school administrator.  He looked like the football coach he had once been.  In his hands, gnarled from arthritis, he carried a box.  

He opened the box and it contained about five wooden crosses.  He said, “I don’t know you at all, but pick a cross to wear in worship.  I made each of those crosses.  when you wear it, remember that you are our intern, and we support you and love you even before we know you because you are now ours.”

In that moment I became a cross wearer and a robe wearer.  It was quite a week.

Move 2:  We love and support you because you are ours.

Whenever I wear this cross, I am reminded of the God who loves me, loves us, because we are God’s.

a.  At the core of our relationship with God is God’s unconditional love for us.

1.  God creates us out of love.

2. God calls us into relationship out of love.

3. God calls us to love others.

b. The love God chooses is not conditional.

1. God does not love us if we do this or that.

2. God does not set up a hierarchy of love where some are really loved; some sort of loved; and some barely loved.

3.  love some more than others.

3.   God’s chooses to love us with unbounded love;

with extravagant love

with unconditional love.

4.  Take the love a parent feels the first time he or she holds their newborn baby, multiply it again and again, and we get a glimpse of God’s unconditional love for us.

c.  Miroslav Volf, the professor of theology at Princeton Seminary, shares an  “old Jewish story about creation, God decided to create the world, then foresaw all the sin that human beings would commit against God and each other.  The only way god could continue was to decide to forgive the world before creating it.  Strange as it may seem, the commitment to forgive comes before creation.  Similarly, the commitment to forgive comes before marriage vows.” (Christian Century, June 5-12, 2002)

1.  Even before creating, God chose to love.  

2.  unconditional love marked by forgiveness.

3.  If you ever wonder if you are loved, take a breath, and remember that God created you out of love; God created you to love.

4. A colleague tells this story about her 5 yr. old granddaughter doing a church service) There were two sermons in her service "because learning about God is so  important."  The first sermon was "God loves us.  If God didn't love us, God would not have made us.  So God must love us because God made us.”

The second sermon was "sometimes we are naughty but God still loves us.  Remember that." 

Her final words were "Go in peace because God loves you.”

5. When you see a cross, remember the God who loves you unconditionally.

Move 3:  while I concur with the two points the young preacher made, I would adjust her final words.

Instead of “Go in peace because God loves you,” I would say, “god in peace and love others as God loves you.”

a.  That, of course, is the great challenge for those of us who know God’s love  - How do we show unconditional love.

1.  As the Apostle Paul tries to figure out how to live in response to God’s unconditional love, he does not make it easy on us.

2.  As he describes discipleship in his letter to the Romans, he sets the bar very high.

3. Some of what Paul calls us to do come easily:  Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 

4. Some sound like a good idea -  Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God;

5. But some are difficult, seemingly impossible:  Bless those who persecute you; No, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink;  21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

b.  not easy, but Paul does not let us off the hook.

1.  if we look at this section, There are, depending on the English translation one is using, upwards of 30 imperatives in this reading. 

2.  Scholars look at this list of exhortations and suggest they are not specific to a particular issue going on in Rome, but a general expectation of what it means to follow Christ.

In other words, we cannot dismiss these words as only talking about a specific context in Rome  (Mary Hinkle Shore, Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, Columbia, S.C.l http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1060).

they call us as disciples of Christ to a new way of life - a way of life shaped by the God of unconditional love.

3. Saying God loves me, or God loves us, is not the end, but the beginning point of how we are to live our lives.

4.  We live in a world where division and discord abound.  Racism, the pandemic, political differences all work to separate and divide us.

When we engage people we look for clues to see what type of person they are so we know what we can say or do.

Or, we barrel ahead sharing our views and daring them to disagree.

When we wear the cross, so to speak, and lay claim to God’s unconditional love for us, we also bear the cross, that is, we are called to share that unconditional love.  

4.  And then we get a glimpse of the cross, which points us to the God who loves us unconditionally and calls us to love others in the same way.

b.  Biblical scholars also point out that all the verbal forms in this part of the letter are plural. 

1. The words are a window on what life in Christ looks like in community. 

2. As one biblical scholar notes, we might imagine Paul saying with his syntax, "Don't try this alone.” (Mary Hinkle Shore, Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, Columbia, S.C.l http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1060)

2.  our task as the church is to provide support as we each try to love unconditionally, and to be a place that shows God’s unconditional love.

3. While I was gone, I participated in a webinar on preaching during Advent.  One the issues the presenters noted was that Advent follows the presidential election by just a few weeks.

4.  As we move forward in this divisive, traumatic time in our world, what are we, as ST. Andrew the body of Christ doing?

5.  St. Andrew - our shield has the cross embedded in it.  Each Sunday we see the cross on our beautiful stained glass window;  our letterhead contains the cross; our t-shirts display the cross.

6.  We are summoned and sent by the cross which reveals God’s unconditional love.

7. How are we living into that cross?

Conclusion:  Jesus tells his disciples “take up my cross and follow me”

 Take up the cross of unconditional love

Our fall preaching series is "Crosses We Wear." The entry into each sermon is the story behind the different crosses that we pastors wear each week in worship.  This is the third sermon, and it is based on the broken crosses I have (had) in my collection of crosses.

 “Crosses We Wear: Broken Crosses” Sept 17, 2020, SAPC, Denton; Dr. Richard B. Culp; Ephesians 2: 1-10; Psalm 107: 1-3; 17-22

Ephesians 2: 1-10  You were dead through the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. 3 All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. 4 But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us 5 even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ[a]—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— 9 not the result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

Introduction:  I am sure most of you would find it hard to believe since I keep my desk in y office so neat and tidy, that I used to have a problem with where I kept my crosses.

Before I had too many crosses to wear, I kept them in a coffee mug on my desk.  Easy to find on Sunday mornings, of course, but sometimes the crosses did not quite make it back into the coffee mug. 

As I acquired more crosses, I added a second coffee mug.  But then, the problem.  the more delicate crosses would break.

The first one I broke was a beautiful green, glassy looking stone cross a member had brought back from South America for me.  it broke into a couple of pieces, I glued it back together, then the glue didn’t hold, then it broke into lots of pieces.  It was beyond repair.

If you look at the cross I am now, you would probably notice two things.  One, it clearly has a break across the bottom part of the cross.  When it broke into two pieces, I had learned my lesson about gluing and reusing, so I just left the two pieces alone so as not to damage it more.

The couple who had given the cross to me noticed that I never wore it, so they asked.  I sheepishly told them what happened; the husband, a handyman, took the two pieces, glued them back together, and soldered metal around the edges so I would not break it again.

When I wear this cross, I always notice the crack and am reminded of our brokenness, but I also see and feel the metal ending and remember that our brokenness can be overcome, indeed in Christ God had chosen to overwhelm our brokenness with steadfast love and faithfulness.

Move 1: As we heard the words of Psalm 107, we heard a recitation of this pattern of brokenness and God’s redemption.

a.  After the introductory section in which the Psalmist calls those who have been redeemed by God (that’s us folks) to give thanks to God, the psalm breaks into sections that share the same pattern.

1.   A description of human brokenness:  people who are hungry, thirsty, and faint in the wilderness;  prisoners in darkness and gloom who had turned away from God; the sick and distressed; those caught in a storm on the sea; those brought low through oppression, trouble and sorrow - we could perhaps fill in some more sections with the brokenness we see and feel.

2. Following the description of brokenness is a recitation of how God has redeemed those people from their brokenness by God’s steadfast faithfulness.  

3. As the Psalmist uses the Hebrew word for ‘steadfast faithfulness,” we remember that this same word is how the covenant between God and Israel is described (http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2490; Scott Shauf Associate Professor of Religion, Gardner-Webb University Boiling Springs, North Carolina)

4. God’s steadfast faithfulness not only redeems us from our brokenness, but is the fundamental basis for our relationship with God.

b.  The Letter to Ephesians that we read this morning points us to the God who lived out this steadfast faithfulness by sending Christ to redeem us.

1.  We who are dead because of our sinfulness are saved by God’s grace.

2.  In other words, we who are broken beyond repair, so it seems, are redeemed, that is repaired, by God.

3.  If you are a Greek grammarian, you might find it interesting to note the “you have been saved by grace,” is a passive, perfect, periphrastic, participle (quadruples P).

4.  If you do not care about Greek grammar, you will still want to know that means we are totally passive and God is the one who acts all on God’s own to save us.

5. And, it tells us that God has been doing this, is doing this, and will be doing this (http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=262; Richard Carlson,

Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg

Gettysburg, Pa.)

5. Our brokenness is not healed by anything we do, but by the God who loves us, whose love will not go away.

Move 2:  Imagine what it might be like to have our brokenness healed.

a.  In her book Unbroken, author Laura Hillenbrand tells the story of Lt. Louis Zamperini, whose plane went down in the Pacific during WWII.  He survived the crash, along with two others, and floated in the Pacific for almost two months before landing on a Japanese occupied island.  Then, he was held captive and tortured in a Japanese prison camp.  

Before his crash, he had been an Olympic caliber runner.  As he was tortured, his body was literally broken, as was his spirit.

He survives both brutal experiences and returns home after WWII.  He marries and is working, but his life is slowly falling apart.  The nightmares will not stop, and they are dominated by images of the most brutal of the Japanese prison guards.  Zamperini turns to drinking.  He has no tolerance for his brokenness, no belief it will change, the best he can do is find distractions from it, like drinking to forget.

When things had gotten so bad there seemed to be no hope, a Billy Graham crusade came to CA.  Zamperini's wife and friends begged him to go to hear Billy Graham.  He finally relents and sits on the back row of the tent and listen to Graham's sermon.  Then, when Graham moves to prayer and a chance to give your life to Christ, Zamperini gets up and flees from the tent.  He is full of anger and rehearsing his life and all the awful experiences he has had.   

His wife wants him to go back to hear Billy Graham again.  She pesters him until he agrees to go.  But he only agrees to stay for the sermon.  He tells her he will leave when they get to the prayer part with the silence and the invitation to give their lives to Christ.

Again, the sermon evokes all sorts of thoughts and lots of anger in Zamperini.  The sermon ends and Graham invites them into a time of pray and commitment.  

Zamperini gets up to leave.  Graham notices the movement and announces that no one should leave at this point.  They need quiet and stillness while they pray.  

This causes Zamperini to hurriedly push his way down the row to flee.  He gets to the aisle and before he can leave, something overtakes him.  He has a flashback to his time on the raft when he promised God that if God would help him survive, he will live his life for God forever.

In that moment, he changes.  He lays claim to the love Christ has for him that Graham had just preached to them.  He sees himself not as a broken person who had had been beaten down by fighting for survival on a raft or by the Japanese prison guards.  He suddenly sees himself as someone Christ loves.

He goes home and empties all the alcohol from his liquor cabinet.  He never has another nightmare again.  

His changes life reveals what he can be when he is not bound by his brokenness (This part of the story is found on pages 370-376 of Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand, NY:Random House, 2010).

 

b.    We know brokenness in our lives.

1.  We see it and experience it on a corporate level as we look to our world and see all the divisiveness, the anger, the hatred, the acting out both in our own country and across the world.

2.  We know brokenness in our personal lives as well.  

3. You can fill in the blank with your own challenges, both physically and spiritually.  

4.  Part of the human condition is brokenness.

c.  But, into our lives of brokenness comes the God of love and mercy, again and again.

1.  God does not leave us alone in our brokenness.  

2.  God continually moves toward us in faithfulness, offering healing and redemption.

Move 3: From our brokenness, we find healing and new life.

a.   If you come into my office and look behind one of the doors, you will see a strip of wood mounted on the wall with pegs on which my crosses now hang.

1. the guy who soldered my cross made it for me (I moved it with me to St. Andrew) so that I would have a new way of storing my crosses so I would not break them again.

2.  It has worked well.  No broken crosses in quite a few years.

b.  the God who redeems calls us to a new way of life, a way of life marked by the goodness in which we were made.

1.  created for good works.

2. Called to live into that goodness despite the brokenness we have experienced.

3.  As I mentioned about the cross I am wearing, you can see the crack and the brokenness.

4. Like the resurrected Christ who still shows his wounds, we do not erase our brokenness as if it never happened.  

5.  But we move beyond our brokenness through God’s redeeming power.

c.  I attended University Presbyterian Church just off the campus of Trinity University while I was in school there.

they had sort of ugly looking cross that hung on their chancel.  In fact, they have a tradition that when a member moves to another place, they give them a hand-carved cross modeled on the cross that hangs in the chancel to go with them.

The cross hanging in the chancel, goes back to the early days of the church.  In fact, it goes back to the first day some worshipers met to start University Presbyterian Church.

they obviously did not have a building, so they had permission to meet at Northrup Hall, one of the first buildings of the brand new campus for Trinity University.

the worshippers arrived on Sunday morning and were met by the construction supervisor who informed them that the building was not yet ready for people to come inside.  They could not worship there.

 Those gathered decided to worship anyway.  So they set up chairs, and someone noticed in a scrap heap some lumber being thrown away.  They found a hammer and nails and put together a cross with these jagged-edged pieces of wood and placed it at the front of the worship space.

the cross stayed with them.  They told the story of how out fo the scrap pile two pieces of wood were taken; one of the pieces represented the brokenness of the world;  one of the pieces represented the cross on which Christ was crucified to redeem the world’s brokenness.

Each week the cross hangs in worship as a call to remember that God has healed their brokenness and sends them into the world (Lib Mc Gregor, Pastor, UPC, San Antonio told this story on 3/9/08 in her sermon).

Conclusion:

Christ calls us to carry his cross and follow him.

it is a broken cross that has been redeemed.