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Wallingford Presbyterian Church October 28, 2007 |
Rev. Deborah Sunoo |
“21st Century Discipleship:
Invited to Follow a God Who Is Odd”
(Luke 9:23-25, 46-48 and Matthew 5:1-12)
Anytime we approach the gospels, we’re entering unusual territory. After all, we live in a world that applauds those who seek greatness; Jesus turns the whole thing on its head and tells us to deny ourselves and take up our cross. We live in a world in which the meek are stomped on, peacemakers are considered foolishly naďve, and rejection isn’t exactly seen as a badge of honor. Jesus shakes things up, in the Sermon on the Mount, calling it all into question, challenging us to rethink our priorities and re-imagine our lives.
To follow this Jesus is going to take some effort. It isn’t second nature for us to do the things he asks of us, so we don’t have to dip our toes very far into the gospels to discover that the call to faithful discipleship can be hard to hear. Granted, Jesus preserves the freedom of those he calls; we can choose not to follow. But if we do answer the call and sign on for the journey, it can transform our lives in ways we’d never imagined.
Our Long Range Planning Team has over the last several months been considering the challenge of discipleship for our church family. Recognizing we all have responsibilities that pull us in numerous directions, but believing our congregation should really be devoting more attention to the spiritual growth of our members, they have asked us to zero in on what it means to be disciples of Jesus. When we returned from sabbatical, they greeted us with the challenge: “Help us understand discipleship.”
So discipleship is precisely what our small groups will be talking about this fall – as you wrestle with Shane Claiborne’s take on it, in his book, “The Irresistible Revolution.”
And discipleship will be the focus of our sermons over the next several weeks as well, specifically: what does it look like to be a disciple of Jesus here and now?
First, let’s get our terminology straight.
The word disciple generally means follower; here we’re talking specifically about followers of Jesus Christ. The Greek word for disciple, mathetes, is helpful in fleshing that out a bit – mathetes has the sense not only of an adherent or follower, but also of a pupil, or even an apprentice. In other words, disciples are those who are being taught or instructed, those who learn from the model or example of their teacher.
Since we’ll also have occasion along the way to discuss Chrisitan disciplines, let me be clear that I’m not talking about punishment. Rather, disciplines, in the Christian context, refer to specific actions that help us draw closer to the God revealed to us in Jesus. Since it takes practice to follow Christ faithfully - we are, after all, only apprentices - it’s helpful to think of disciplines as practices. Practices that help us grow as disciples include things like worship, prayer, study, Sabbath, stewardship of our possessions, stewardship of creation, and so on.
Related to these two words, disciple and discipline, is the word discipleship, which refers to the whole package - a decision to follow Jesus, and concrete choices we make in everyday life that flow from that decision. In other words, discipleship means actually living as a disciple, practicing disciplines or actions that distinguish us as Christ’s followers.
We need practice, because many of these disciplines fly in the face of what we are taught elsewhere. For instance, putting our Creator first in our lives, not only above ourselves but above our work, our possessions, even our families – that can be a real stretch. Not just believing but living as if all we have belongs to God is tough too; it’s so easy to get caught up in the hyper-consumerism of our culture. Prayer time gets crowded out by so many other urgent, in-our-face demands for our attention. And as for Sabbath? Taking a day away from our busy lives simply to rest in God’s presence can sound lovely, but ludicrous, in a world of go-go-go, 24/7, run-till-we-drop.
But here’s the key: as disciples of Jesus we need to question why these invitations strike us as strange, why these practices are so hard for us. Whose script are we living by, anyway, if not the one that invites worship and prayer and stewardship and rest? Are we living as if our primary allegiance is to our American culture, to the neglect of our deeper loyalty to the kingdom of God?
Anytime we start talking about discipleship we need to remember that all of this is meant to be a joyful response to God’s grace. We don’t do any of these things in order to earn our salvation, or merit God’s love. We do them because God’s amazing grace already has a hold on us, in spite of ourselves. You may have heard the expression, “God loves you, and there’s nothing you can do about it!” But what a gift that is, and hearts overflowing with thankfulness for such a gift can’t help but want to respond.
That said, it’s important to remember that we are invited, when we sign on as Christ’s followers, to so much more than business as usual. There’s far more to being a Christian than being a nice guy.
Far more to faithful discipleship, too, than simply making correct statements about what Christians believe. In fact, orthodoxy, a set of right doctrines, isn’t even a prerequisite for discipleship. Think about it - the original 12 come across most days like they would flunk a Theology 101 exam! I love the way the Cotton Patch Gospel captures one of those moments, the part where Jesus asks them: “Who do people say that I am?” They all look to Peter, who’s supposed to be the team leader. And all Peter can manage to do is stammer… “Who do people say that you are?” “Who do people say that you are? “Who do people say that you are?” … “We covered this, didn’t we?”
Yet Peter, and all the rest, kept on following. They found Jesus so compelling that they dumped their fishing nets and left the accounting office at the height of tax season just to hang with this guy.
So while there are many things we want Christians to be able to say with confidence about the God revealed to us in Jesus, let’s not lose sight of the fact that Jesus himself was awfully big on action. Often fairly dramatic action. Think about it – in the gospels, when Jesus calls his followers, they are called to ‘leave’ and follow … to ‘turn’ and follow … to ‘give away’ and follow… even to ‘reject’ and follow.
So if we look around and see ourselves living essentially the same life as our non-Christian neighbors, what evidence is there that we are actually following Christ? William Willimon and Stanley Hauerwas remind us that as “people who follow a God who is odd,” we should expect to stand out.[1] Ted Foote and Alex Thornburg invite us to embrace our “eccentricity” as Christian disciples.[2] Walter Bruggemann even compares the situation of 21st century American Christians to that of Israelites in exile, reminding us that we reside in a land not really our own.
All of which is to say that disciples are not born; they must be made. And it’s the responsibility of church communities like our own to help make them. As Willimon puts it, “to be a Christian means gradually, Sunday after Sunday, to be subsumed into another story, a different account of where we have come from and where we are going, a story that is called ‘gospel.’ You are properly called a ‘Christian’ when it’s obvious that the story told in Scripture is your story above all other stories that the world tries to impose upon you, and the God who is rendered in scripture is the God who has got you.”[3]
Dan Baumgartner, pastor of Bethany Presbyterian Church here in Seattle, addressed the issue of discipleship in a recent church newsletter. He longs, he says:
…for the church in America to cease being satisfied with shallow nods towards faith while doggedly pursuing the same things everyone else does.
To follow Jesus in his day often meant moving directly against the culture…Yet today we so often act as though living and succeeding in our society is the same as following Jesus.
Shane Claiborne says much the same thing in The Irresistible Revolution, which many of you will be reading shortly. He puts it this way:
If you ask most people what Christians believe, they can tell you, ‘Christians believe that Jesus is God’s Son and that Jesus rose from the dead.’ But if you ask the average person how Christians live, they are struck silent. We have not shown the world another way of doing life. Christians pretty much live like everyone else; they just sprinkle a little Jesus in along the way.
It’s really not a very big leap from the gospels to the most radical acts of faithfulness, and this book we’ve selected for our small groups raises provocative questions about how far we ought to take the whole discipleship thing. But while we may or may not be called to live out our faith in exactly the way the author has, certainly we are each called to cultivate our relationship with God through practice. Through action. Through concrete choices in our daily lives, some of which really ought to leave us standing out from those around us.
But perhaps the most important question, in the end, is why does discipleship matter?
It matters because Jesus invites it – “Come, follow me,” he says at the beginning of his ministry.
And it matters because Jesus commands it – “Go, make disciples,” he says, as he signs off at the end of the gospel story.
And in case we have any confusion about what it will mean to follow him, he spells it out for us in between. If you want to know what discipleship means, simply read through the gospels looking for Jesus’ direct instructions. They’re not hard to find.
So let’s encourage one another, over these next several weeks, to dip more than a toe into the deep waters of the gospels. Let’s challenge one another not to be content with business as usual, with “a little Jesus sprinkled in.” Let’s wrestle with difficult biblical texts, consider the powerful testimonies of other 21st century disciples, and really hear the invitation to let our faith infuse our entire lives.
We’ll do our part from the pulpit. We invite you to do your part in your reading and small group discussions. So that by the end of next month every one of you is well equipped to respond to that same challenge the Long Range Planning Team put to us.
We look forward to hearing you articulate for yourselves what discipleship is all about. Amen.