“Discipleship by the Lakeside:  Go!”

First Congregational United Church of Christ

July 31, 2011

The Rev. Sharyl B. Peterson

 

Scripture Readings:  Deuteronomy 30: 11-16; Isaiah 58 (portions); Luke 9: 57-62

 

Today, we come to the end of our month-long reflection on discipleship.  During this month of July, we have reflected together each week on what it means to be a disciple of Jesus (hint:  it means a “learner” from Jesus) and each week we have reflected on a different aspect of discipleship, a different “requirement” if you will, to be a real disciple of Jesus. 

            And each week, we have found, the “bar” for being a disciple has been raised higher and higher.  Today, the bar is at the top of the pole.  Today, we consider the fact that it’s not enough to simply hear our call (as we discussed the first week); it’s not enough to expand the invitation into radical hospitality (week two); it’s not enough to listen and hear (our third week); it’s not even enough to trust Jesus, to trust God (last week’s focus) – although every one of those things is profoundly important.  Today we hear: if we don’t do something – if we don’t act on what we learn from Jesus, if we don’t go where His teachings send us – we cannot really be His disciples.

            One of the themes throughout this series has been the fact that being “faithful,” being a disciple, is not, and never has been, solely a matter of what we believe, not simply a matter of what ideas we have about God, or about Jesus, not simply a matter of whether we believe the “right stuff” that the church as a historical institution tells us we are supposed to believe. 

            The truth is, if Jesus himself had simply been an observant Jew who really, really, really believed in Yahweh (God), and that was all He did, He would never have been heard of again after His death.  Instead, the reason we do remember Him – the reason that Jesus and His teachings changed the world – is because of what He did. 

            And what He did came directly from His deep understandings of Scripture, and from His deep relationship with God.  For example, we know that Jesus knew the teachings of the Torah – the Jewish law.  And so we can guess with fair certainty that the exhortation we heard a few minutes ago from the book of Deuteronomy would have been as familiar to Him as John 3:16 is to most of us. 

            And he would have known this passage in part because it sums up everything that goes before it.  In the collection of books we call the Old Testament, after laying out the 613 mitzvot (commandments) in the earlier books of the Torah, in this passage the Scripture-writer sums it all up, gives us readers the bottom line of faith.  Speaking with God’s voice, the writer says:  “See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity.  If you obey the command-ments of the LORD your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the LORD your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live … and the LORD your God will bless you … “

            Loving God.  Walking in God’s ways.  Observing God’s commandments.  Those are not exhortations on what to believe … they are exhortations on how to act. 

            And Jesus would have known the book of Isaiah as well as He knew Torah, that prophetic book from which our second reading comes today.  Again, summing up pages of exhortations about how we are to live as faithful people, the prophet says this:  "This is the kind of (piety I want (says the Lord)):  to break the chains of injustice, get rid of exploitation in the workplace, free the oppressed, cancel debts.   What I'm interested in seeing you do is: sharing your food with the hungry, inviting the homeless poor into your homes, putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad, being available to your own families.”
            Break the chains of injustice.  Get rid of exploitation of other people.  Free people who are oppressed.  Cancel debts.  Feed the hungry.  Clothe the naked.  Be available to others. 

            When we hear Jesus quote Torah or quote the prophets in the books we call the Gospels, these are the very kinds of passages he quotes.  These are the things he considers most important in being disciples, in being faithful.  Not what we think – not even what we feel – but how we behave.  How we live.  How we treat others.  Jesus himself didn’t seem to care much at all about what His would-be disciples believed.  But he cared a lot about how they acted. 

            And he did not appear to have had any illusions that acting like a disciple – hearing, inviting, trusting, and doing in disciple-like ways – was going to be a piece of cake for anyone.  Jesus didn’t seem to have any pie-in-the-sky notions about how hard it would be to really be His disciple, to really live faithfully.  Today’s story from Luke’s Gospel is one of the many stories where we see Him clearly pointing out some of the hardships that His disciples are going to face. 

            In this particular story, Jesus is walking along a road, presumably with a group of followers, and a man comes up to him, asking to become his disciple.  The man says, “I will go with you, wherever you go.”  I am yours, O Lord.  I have heard Your voice.  Where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge.

            Jesus, ever the realist, asks him “(Yes, but) Are you ready to rough it?  We’re not staying in the best (hotels), you know.”  Jesus might also have added – since this event takes place as Jesus and His followers are heading toward Jerusalem, where Jesus will be killed – “we’re not living in the safest of circumstances, either, you know.” 

            Jesus is not rejecting the man as a potential disciple, but he is challenging the man’s understanding of what discipleship really meant.  Jesus understood the kinds of real sacrifices that discipleship involves.  He understood that discipleship means giving up our comfort, so that others may be comfortable, giving up our wants and wishes, so that God’s yearnings may be achieved instead, perhaps even giving up our very lives – or at least, our very egos.  Still naïve, this would-be disciple blithely says, “sure, Jesus, no problem.”  I’m with you all the way.  And perhaps we can imagine Jesus shaking His head, wondering how long this one would last.

And then another man comes up to Him, apparently a likely-looking candidate for discipleship, because Jesus invites him to be a disciple:  “Follow me.”  And we can assume the man says “yes” to the invitation, but then … he pauses and say, well, there is just one tiny problem.  You see, Jesus, my father has just died, and I need to be excused for a couple of days so I can go and make arrangements for his funeral. 

            This was not an unreasonable request.  The man’s father had just died, and according to Jewish tradition, burial must take place the same day as the death.  Making sure that happened was a sacred obligation, especially to one’s parents, and especially for a Jewish son.  And yet Jesus refuses the request.  He says, somewhat harshly, “First things first.  Your business is life, not death.  And life is urgent:  Announce God’s kingdom!”  He is telling the man that service to God – actively working to help bring about God’s kingdom here on earth – needs to be a disciple’s first priority.   And we can imagine that man asking, or at least thinking (as we do), You mean, it needs to be more important than my business?  Yes, Jesus says.  You mean, it really needs to be more important than my family?  Yes, Jesus says.  You mean, it really needs to be more important than me and my needs?  Yes, Jesus says.

            And then, the story says, someone else approaches Jesus, and says, “I’m ready to follow you, Master … (I want to be your disciple) … but first I need you to excuse me (for a little bit) while I get things straightened out at home.”  Again, not a totally unreasonable request.  Maybe the man wanted to say good-bye to his family.  Maybe there were some bills that needed paying before he left.  Maybe he had to find someone to water his fields, or feed his livestock, while he was away.  Yet again Jesus refuses the request, saying curtly:  “No procrastination.  No backward looks.  You can’t put God’s kingdom off until tomorrow.  Seize the day.”

            Although His responses may sound harsh, Jesus is being as clear as He can possibly be about the importance of discipleship.  He tells that man and He tells us that if we’re looking backward, we can’t look forward.  He is telling that man (and us) that the call to discipleship needs to be “first things first,” needs to be set above everything else in our lives. 

            Now, some of you may be wondering, why was Jesus so emphatic about doing over believing?  And the simplest answer is, it is because that emphasis was at the very core of His Jewish faith tradition.  All of those 613 commandments that make up the religious law in Judaism  include commandments about how to do everything from cooking dinner to disciplining children to purchasing a new donkey.  The faithful person doesn’t believe in Judaism.  The faithful person lives Judaism.  And so, as a faithful Jew, Jesus could not believe in faith without action.

            To go another layer deeper, Jesus’ emphasis on doing – on going – also makes common sense.  A person can “believe that God cares about the widows and orphans” until the cows come home – without changing anything.  It is only when that person – only when we – the people of faith – help provide housing for the orphans, pensions for the widows, that the world is transformed a little more into what Jesus calls the kingdom of God. 

Quite honestly, from everything I read in the Bible, I don’t think Jesus cared a bit – and I don’t think God cares a bit – whether or not we believe that Jesus was born to a woman who was a virgin in the 21^st-century sense of virginity, or whether or not we believe that Jesus either did not have – or did have – brothers and sisters.  I do think Jesus cared deeply – and I think God cares deeply – about whether or not we treat each other with respect, whether we look after “the least of these,” whether we continue to work for justice for every one of God’s children.  Because our actions are where the faith-rubber meets the road.

            And to move yet one layer deeper, I can’t help but wonder whether Jesus – given that he understood a great deal about human behavior – may have been so insistent about this “action thing,” because He understood that our actions directly influence our beliefs.  

            Many of us believe that our behavior starts with the way we think, and our beliefs then move us to action.  And often, that is true.  We think our Mom will like us better if we act in a certain way, and so we do.  We think cooking is boring, and so we order take-out instead. Interestingly, though, there is a boat-load of scientific data that show that just as often, the very reverse happens.  That is, we act in some way, and that action changes our beliefs, changes our way of thinking.

            To use a concrete modern-day example, suppose you’re thinking about buying a new car.  You get on your computer, and do all the comparisons, and test-drive all the models, and finally get down to choosing between a Toyota Corolla and a Ford Focus.  Now, at the point when you sit down at the salesperson’s desk to write a sales contract, you still believe that both cars are both about the same degree of “good,”  even if you like the color – or the CD-player – better on one than on the other. 

            But once you sign on the dotted line, and the vehicle becomes yours, the model that you purchased suddenly increases significantly in “perceived value” (that is, your ideas or perceptions about its value) (which is good, because if it’s a brand-new car, it’s about to suddenly decrease in economic value).  Once you’ve actually bought the car, you start finding all kinds of reasons that the Toyota – or the Ford – that you purchased actually is the better model.  You’ve changed your beliefs to match your actions. 

Contemporary psychological studies of things like car purchases (as well as appliance purchases, clothing purchases, even grocery-purchases) have shown, over and over, what Jesus may well have known .  That if his followers would act compassionately toward others, (regardless of what they thought) they would grow more compassionate hearts.  That if his disciples would take his teachings on sharing what they had with others to heart, and start sharing what they had with others (again, regardless of what they thought), they would grow more generous.  Sometimes it takes bringing the kingdom about that lets us believe the kingdom is possible.

            And that, perhaps, is why, alongside His faith tradition, and common sense, Jesus called them – and calls us – to “go.”  Because if we stay where we are, in the places where we’re comfortable, and don’t take risks, and don’t actually do any of the things He tells us to do (no matter how much we may believe they’re the right things to do), nothing changes.  We don’t.  The world doesn’t. 

And if Jesus calls His followers – if He calls us – to be anything – to do anything – it is to be agents of change.  It is to do whatever we can do – large or small – to transform the little piece of the planet where we live into a place that is more whole, and more holy, more just, and more loving – for all of God’s beloved children.  It is to go – and do – and bring about – the kingdom of God, here and now, in this place and this time.

            And so, after a month (or more) of reflecting on these things, I invite us to conclude today with our own affirmation of faith.  I’ll supply the sentence-beginning, and you fill in the rest (preferably, but not necessarily, out loud). 

            Jesus says, “I am calling you,” and we say: ________________.  Jesus says, “Invite everyone to God’s table,” and we say: ________________.  Jesus says, “Listen – and hear – what I’m trying to teach you,” and we say ________________.  Jesus says “Trust – trust God – your Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer,” and we say: ________________.  Jesus says, “Go.”  “Go.”  And we say ________________________.  May we make it so.  Amen.