08/30/2026
On August 30, 2026, we shared a service with the Lord of Love Lutheran and the Galena United Methodist Churches. I don't currently have access to that video, but I will post it when I do. Meanwhile, here's the text of the sermon:
Carl Boaz is a pastor who is also a certified instructor for a class called “Parent Effectiveness Training.” One of components of that class is a section on learning how to communicate more competently with your children. That section of the class begins by describing the major obstacles to good communication with children. They label those obstacles “The Dirty Dozen.”
The Dirty Dozen are typical responses parents give their children, which unintentionally or not, tend to short circuit communication, especially when the child is trying to share his or her emotions with their parent. The first example they provide in the class is a four-year old boy walking with dad across the street when a big dog appears out of nowhere. Here’s how Boaz describes that situation:
“The little boy, as he grips dad’s hand tighter, says, ‘Will the doggy bite?’ Now that isn’t a question like where is the nearest phone...he wasn’t really asking for information about the nature of this breed of dog but trying to find reassurance of his safety. When a parent can understand what is underneath such a statement or question, that parent has gone a long way toward good communication with children.
“The Dirty Dozen contains many types of responses that you would expect...like: condemnation, sarcasm, or diversion (where you try to change the subject). […] These dozen blocks have something in common: they all have the effect of denying the emotion of the child or at least denying the strength of the emotion.”
Surely we’ve all seen these conversation killers in action or perhaps even used them ourselves. One of the most powerful examples I ever experienced came when I was in seminary, working as a one-month intern in the chaplain’s office of Lutheran Hospital in Lacrosse.
I was called to minister to a couple whose 6- or 8-month old baby was about to be removed from their custody by the state. The father had physically abused his child so badly that the little baby lay in a hospital crib with all four limbs strung up in traction. One glimpse at woeful condition of that poor child and your stomach turned at the results of what one person could do to another. It made you sick and it made you angry.
But I couldn’t give into those feelings because my job was to minister to those parents as the consequences of that father’s actions were about to fall down on both of them. The mother was simply inconsolable, overwhelmed by tears. She couldn’t communicate at all. So I focused on the father — the very person whose lack of self-control had caused this terrible situation.
I tried several times to engage him in a conversation about his feelings concerning what was about to happen. But each time he deflected, changing the subject to — of all things — his opinion on what was the best biblical translation. Clearly he wasn’t ready to deal with the reality of the impending consequences of his actions. Later that year, I experienced a similar thing in the congregation I served as student pastor.
Around 2 am, I got a call that one of the elderly members of the church had collapsed in his bathroom and had been taken to the emergency room. His wife wanted me to come right away. So I threw on some clothes and rushed over to the hospital in the next town.
I found 6-8 members of the family in the waiting room and led them in a prayer for the medical personnel to assist Clinton to make a full recovery. Midway through that prayer, I could hear someone enter the room, but they respectfully said nothing until I finished praying. Then it turned out to be the doctor who announced to the group that Clinton had died.
I was to only one in the room to be surprised by that since it turned out that Clinton had actually died in that bathroom, but the family was hoping against hope that the doctors could revive him somehow. However, they hadn’t told any of that to me because they were all so deeply in denial.
A similar thing happened when my brother’s wife, Mimi, succumbed to the effects of her long-term Multiple Sclerosis. The doctor pronounced her dead in their home and then an ambulance came to take her body away. I was 20 minutes into a phone conversation with my brother about this when he had to put me on hold to take another call from call waiting.
That proved to be the hospital calling, telling him that the EMT in the back of the ambulance had refused to accept her death so he managed to revive her. The problem was that she was brain dead. So all he did was to restart her body, meaning that my brother and his two kids had to spend two more emotionally-wrenching days in a hospital room watching her slowly die all over again. And it was all due to a stranger’s denial of reality.
I provided all these examples to give you a richer understanding of the depth of denial Peter was experiencing when Jesus starting talking about suffering and dying, immediately after he had verbally patted Peter on the back for recognizing that Jesus was the Messiah.
The contrast between the glory of being a student of the long-awaited Messiah and the ignominious fate Jesus was describing for himself proved to be far too great for Peter. So he instantly grasped onto the power of the Dirty Dozen in an attempt to shut down even the very thought of Jesus’ suffering. Peter simply couldn’t handle that, especially after seeing all the miracles Jesus had performed in his presence and listening to Jesus’ amazing teachings.
To quote Boaz again, “[Jesus] wasn’t just stating a fact...he was sharing the agony of his heart! He now was ready to share that awful truth with the people who cared the most about him. Now he just needed to hear back from them that they understood and cared. He just needed to have them actively listening and supporting him through the release of emotions that he needed to share. But it didn’t happen that way, did it? Once again, the power of evil has corrupted the ability of the human psyche to respond in compassion.
“Compassion is one of those great English words that conveys so much more than the way we ordinarily use it. Passion, meaning ‘suffering’ and com, meaning ‘with’...suffering with someone else. Being right there with them...lending the strength of the person to the friend in need. That is what compassion really means. Peter was being asked to be compassionate to Jesus...to be with him in the suffering.”
In this instance, Jesus wasn’t taking his usual role as the one who was always self-confident and utterly in control of any situation. Instead, he was wrestling emotionally with the thought of all the pain and trauma he was about to face. He was trying to open his heart to the disciples about his fears and perhaps even his temptation to turn away from the looming cross.
But Peter and the rest of the disciples were not ready to listen to any of that. If Jesus could feel those things in spite of all of his incredible power, what hope was there for any of them? So Peter immediately replied, effectively trying to block and deny the validity of Jesus’ emotion.
I’m sure Jesus heard and understood the love and respect for Jesus that Peter was expressing by his misguided words. And I believe in any other situation Jesus would have focused on those qualities to try to guide Peter into a new and more complete understanding of Jesus’ mission.
But in this instance, Jesus was running out of time. The end of his life was rapidly approaching and he had to do whatever he could to prepare his disciples for the tragic days ahead. So when Peter tried to deflect from the pain in Jesus’ words, Jesus refused to do what most Americans do when someone is not ready or willing to listen to the torments plaguing their hearts. In our culture, people pretend it was nothing and become quiet.
But that’s far from what Jesus did. Instead, he heard echoes of the temptations he had faced in the wilderness at the beginning of his ministry. So looking beyond Peter to the real source of those words, Jesus said, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
I don’t believe Jesus was identifying Peter with Satan, although I’m sure Peter would have heard it that way. And that had to cut him deeply, especially since he had only been trying to express his love for Jesus. In essence, Jesus was saying, “Peter, quit talking for once and simply listen. Your assumptions are all wrong. Let me teach you why.”
But beyond that, Jesus didn’t want Peter’s flattering words to start eating into his determination to continue on the the highly difficult path that God had chosen for him. His role as Messiah was not to continue playing the well-loved celebrity healer and teacher. Instead, it was to remain obedient to God, regardless of the consequences.
Then Jesus added that being a Christian means being willing to follow Jesus wherever he may go, even into the unpredictable and dangerous areas of life. We’re used to thinking that Jesus was speaking metaphorically when he said, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” But Jesus’ initial followers certainly never took that saying in anything other than a literal manner.
They all knew exactly what a crucifixion was. When Jesus was a boy of about 11, a man named Judas the Galilean led a rebellion against Rome. He raided the Roman armory at Sepphoris in the hopes of starting an armed revolution. Sepphoris was a town only four miles from Nazareth. The Roman response that fledgling rebellion was both swift and brutal.
Sepphoris was burned to the ground and most of its residents were sold into slavery. All except for 2,000 captured male rebels who were crucified on crosses posted in lengthy rows along the roadside. That was intended to serve as a dreadful warning to any others who might be tempted to rebel.
The sheer number of crucifixion victims in that incident made it exceptional; nevertheless, the Romans used crucifixion as a common punishment for a variety of crimes in ancient Israel. By design, crucifixion was both terrifying and very public, so no one who ever witnessed a crucifixion would ever understand it as a metaphor.
Instead, it was a straight-up threat. Jesus was saying, “If you truly want to follow me, you’ll have to be prepared to endure the very worst human beings can do to you for the sake of being loyal to God.”
And, in fact, many of his followers would have to do just that. This was such an important message for Jesus, that it is quoted five times in the gospel records. That’s a sign of the importance that both Jesus and the early church placed on it.
W. M. Clow once wrote that “we are conscripted to carry a burden which is the inevitable load that life lays on every [one]; but a cross is somebody else’s burden or the suffering which we choose to endure for Christ’s truth.” Extending that idea, Jesus adds this unusual promise, “For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
There we have it. That’s the real meaning of life. We have been granted life by God in order to give our lives away in order to keep them. As one commentator put it, “The Christian must realize that he [or she] is given life, not to keep it for [themselves] but to spend it for others, not to husband its flame, but to burn [themselves] out for Christ and for [others].”
My father once wrote, “Christ knew that the demands of his kingdom ran counter to the rampaging forces of evil; that victory will not come easily, but will be the achievement of centuries of dedicated efforts; that unless his followers are committed unconditionally, victory will belong to the forces of evil. So he said again and again: ‘If anyone wants to come with me, he must forget himself, carry his cross, and follow me.’ There are no easy terms. Halfhearted sacrifices are not enough. It must be all or nothing.
“[…] For people who live only for themselves life shrinks and finally even withers. But for those who give generously to help other people in Christ’s name life grows ever richer. Lose yourself in big things outside yourself and you will find yourself. The more you give, the more you receive from life.”
That’s the true meaning of life — we grow by giving of ourselves in the pursuit of loving God and loving our neighbors.
As another author put it, “Are you ready to follow the Master wherever he leads you? May I suggest that whenever you make yourself available to that friend or neighbor or loved one [who] is suffering...whenever you offer true compassion by refusing to deny the strength or the validity of their emotion but to go with them through it […] that is what taking up your cross and following Jesus is all about!” Amen.
