An Autumn Morning Meditation by the Rev. Tyrone Fowlkes

The Rev. Tyrone Fowlkes, rector of St. Mark's, Raleigh, recently shared an autumn morning meditation and graciously recorded it to share with you. It may look like a video, but it's actually an audio recording, so we encourage you to close your eyes and listen.

An Autumn Morning Meditation on Luke 9:23-25
By the Rev. Tyrone Fowlkes, Rector St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Raleigh
Prepared for Diocesan Council MeetingOctober 15, 2020

Jesus said to them, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves? (Luke 9:23-25)

For most of us, it is around this time of the year that life begins to take on a different tenor. We feel the cooling temperatures outside and the fallen leaves that begin flooding the yard. We may be gleaning the last fruits of the spring and summer growing season from our gardens. And as the vines and plants wither away, we may also sense that everything in creation once more begins a slow steady decline. The chill of life sets in.

I know most clergy are already trying to wrap their minds around what face and shape, All Saints Day and Advent and even Christmas Eve will have this year under COVID. And we’re already experiencing from our parishioners some weird combination of lament and grief alongside a strange denial that refuses to accept that the holidays will have to be different this year. Things just won’t be the same.

And all of us, I suspect, despite our various roles and vocation begin each day with a heavy dose of the surreal: An unimaginable state of affairs where across America a thousand of her citizens are dying each day from COVID—millions unemployed—and millions more fearful that we’ll soon start tearing each other apart amid this highly polarized and racialized climate.

This autumn chill is oppressive. It’s not hard to conceive then how the words of a social outcast who died under the weight of oppression might still resonate with us today. Jesus said, “If you want to be one of my followers, then deny yourself—your instincts, your natural tendencies, your defaults and your safety zones. Deny all of that. And if you’re going to come with me, then know that it is I who will lead—not you. I’m the one who’s in the driver’s seat—not you. Therefore, take up your cross and follow.”

I’ve always found this to be the most haunting of Jesus’ sayings. Because he offers the invitation to something new and unimaginable with one hand and with the other hand, he gives us an out.

It’s the power of that 2-letter word if. If you want to become my followers. Meaning, of course, that we may choose not to follow.

Jesus knows that some of us are not willing to follow him—especially if it means letting go of all the safety nets and the care kits and the bag of tricks or treats that have served us for so long.

And so, here we are in this very strange time, for likely the first time in our lives, when we have to reconcile that the patterns and the traditions along with the expectations that have been on auto pilot for so long no longer hold up.

What is All Saints without the grand processions?

What is Convention without the shared meals and warm hugs?

What is Christmas without the singing of carols?

Questions we can only live into if we choose.

There is a cost and reward to following Jesus.The cost is in giving up the past: Letting go of things and leaving them behind. The cost is in taking up our cross. Taking up our cross doesn’t mean getting up and facing the day even though we’re mad at our spouse or hungover or fearful or appalled at our politicians or the condition of our communities.

Taking up our cross means understanding that we, even despite the craziness of our time, have been given a work to perform, in this time, amid this new reality. And we are wise to get on with the business of discovering and discerning what that is.

And herein lies the reward: We get to be new people.The reward is in actually finding ourselves. In letting go of the past and allowing ourselves to be made new, again and again.

And we can even begin this day anew by leaning into its potential and remaining hopeful. Perhaps not being who we want to be but being who God wants us to be.

As I sit in my home office and look out the window—down below are two daycare facilities, one on each corner. When I’m working during the day, I’ll often just crack the window so I can listen to the children playing on the playground or moving from building to building with the sounds of glee and excitement that only children possess.

I’ve learned to mark and hallow their gifts and their sounds as the sign of something new. A reminder that there’s always something positive to anticipate. Something still worth longing for even if I can’t fully grasp it today.

On the best of days, I receive it all as but a sign that Jesus is still leading me. Jesus is still in the driver’s seat. And I’m no longer haunted by what has been or what might have been.And I learn to accept what will be.

And so, this autumn morning, while the morning grass glistens with a cool coat of dew, let us listen to that part of our soul which yearn for the presence of the living Jesus—that mark of Jesus that is heard, seen and felt everywhere. And let us lean into this gift where we inherently come to know that there is something in this life and in the cross that we carry that will nestle us in to the very heart of Jesus himself. Amen.