Clarence Jordan, translator of the Cotton Patch Gospel and founder of the Koinonia Farm, writes in today’s reading of God making Himself expendable. Jesus came into the world that the world might be saved. This salvation happened because Jesus was willing to take the world’s sins upon Himself and die for them. Jesus was willing and we as human beings were willing to let Him die for our sins. Jordan then challenges the church, as the body of Christ, to take on the same mission as Christ:

The reason that the world is so terribly neurotic today is that it no longer has a sin-bearer. The Church doesn’t want to bear the sins of the world. We don’t want to be anybody’s dumping ground. We don’t want to have them throwing their dirty dishwater on us. And the world has no scapegoat; it has no sin-bearer.

The church as a “dumping ground” is not a popular moniker at all. But in Jordan’s sense maybe it should be one. Christ demonstrated his love for us in while we are all sinners He died for us (Romans 5:8). The church then as the Body of Christ, the on earth representation of the character and person of Christ, should offer the same thing that we might give our lives to take on the sinful lives of others. The Church is not the savior, that is Christ, the Church must present Christ in all His fullness. The Church calls in sinners to dump their sins on Christ and that Christ is found among His body, the Church. Luke 9:23-25 is Christ calling on His disciples to deny themselves of their selfish ambitions and to follow the path of the cross. This path will always deal with sins, ours and others. The denial is dealing with our sins, the cross is following God’s will and that cross offers forgiveness for all our sins and the sins of others. We follow Christ and share Christ, the Lord of love and forgiveness.