Disciple = ?
First Congregational Church – Wauwatosa, Wisconsin
3rd Sunday after Epiphany – January 25, 2009
Rev. Steven A. Peay, Ph.D.
[texts: Jonah 3: 1-5. 10/1 Corinthians 7: 29-31/Mark 1: 14-20]

“And Jesus said to them, ‘Follow me…’”

Every Sunday it’s there on our order of worship, it’s there in the back of the hymnal, it’s there in those little cards we give out – our church’s covenant. How does it begin? “As followers of Jesus Christ, we commit ourselves….” I suppose the easiest way to say it is that we declare ourselves disciples, because a disciple, according to Webster’s is a follower, a pupil, one who engages in spreading the doctrines/teachings of another. What our church covenant is about is defining a relationship and, at its core, the relationship that we – you and I – are to have to Jesus is as followers, we’re disciples.

Now the question is – what does this mean? First of all, it means that we’ve listened, and listened deeply, to what God is asking of us in the teachings of Jesus and that we’ve answered the call. When God first called Jonah to go preach to Nineveh, Jonah resisted. We all know the story. Jonah ran away from God, but that’s not possible, and so he ended up captive in the “belly of a great fish.” Which, of course, could be a grand metaphor for the reality that when we resist God we end up in some pretty stinky situations! Jonah turns around his thinking – he repents (which is what the word means, to turn around) – and follows God’s call. Through him God turns the hearts of the people and something wonderful happens.

Jesus comes looking for people to share the wonder of the kingdom with and finds them, not in a yeshiva, not in a seminary, but out fishing. God works through the most ordinary means and so his Son calls these ordinary people to do something extraordinary, follow him, learn his way and then share it. This, too, takes repentance – a change of mind – and God takes these ordinary persons and does extraordinary things. Two thousand years later, we’re still considering what they did, how they followed and what they taught, all because they opened themselves to God and opened themselves to transformation, to being changed from the inside out. And not even all of the people wrestling with this are believers. There are people who are without faith who wrestle with the teaching of Jesus and the apostles. Why? Because these teachings place a call on us, they set something out in front of us.

What it means to be a disciple is, at root, about this change mind, change of heart, and subsequent change of life that hearing and answering God’s call entails. To be a disciple is not the task of just those of us who are the so-called “professional Christians.” No, it is the task of all of us who have heard the call of God in Jesus Christ that is meant to lead us to new life, new wholeness and a new orientation. John Shea, the story-teller and theologian, put it this way: “In different ways and under different circumstances, people sense life is not what Macbeth called it, ‘. . . a tale/Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,/Signifying nothing’ There is something afoot in the universe, and each person is called to cooperate with it.”

Shea goes on, “Rumi, the Sufi mystic and poet, puts this sentiment in the mouth of a master: ‘The Master said, “There is one thing in this world that must never be forgotten. If you were to forget everything else, but did not forget that, then there would be no cause to worry; whereas if you performed and remembered and did not forget every single thing, but forgot that one thing, then you would have done nothing whatsoever. It is just as if a king had sent you into a country to carry out a specified task. You go and perform a hundred other tasks, but if you have not performed that particular task on account of which you had gone to the country, it is as though you have performed nothing at all. So [each human being] has come into this world for a particular task, and that is [each one’s] purpose; if [one] does not perform it, then [that one] will have done nothing.” The “one thing,” -- Shea says -- to which everyone is called is to participate and mediate the creative energy of God in bringing about a better world or, in biblical terms, to restore creation.’ [p. 46-7]

Jesus come proclaiming that we’re to repent, to change our minds. Why? Because the kingdom of God is “at hand.” It’s here. Right now. Right here. Not down the road. Not a thousand years off. It’s here. The kingdom of God, the reign of God, with all of its possibilities and all of its demands is right here and right now. That’s what Christians keep forgetting time and time again. The kingdom isn’t coming, the kingdom is come. We prayed it already….”Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” How do we think it’s going to happen if it isn’t through us? Isn’t that the task of the follower, the disciple, to continue the work, to spread the teaching? Isn’t that the ultimate task of the Church, to continue the enfleshment of God which Jesus brought? Aren’t we – you and I – aren’t we, the Church, the “Body of Christ”?

Being a disciple, then, isn’t like joining a club or taking a class. Being a disciple is about a serious change of heart, mind, life, attitude that, in turn, makes life around us different than it was. The immediacy of the kingdom – which Paul is talking about in 1 Corinthians – means that we are at this already. If we get this, if we understand what it means to be a disciple and that the kingdom is come, then we’re at work living it out everyday – already. Not tomorrow, not when we have time, not even when it’s convenient, but not, at this moment, this moment which is shot full of the presence of God. Remember that one of my favorite poems is Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Browning and there is that section which, for me, says it all:

Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God:
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries,
And daub their natural faces unaware
More and more, from the first similitude.

“Earth’s crammed with heave….” And what a disciple knows, the Christ follower knows is when it’s time to take off the shoes. Knows that everywhere we look is the presence of God.

To come to this point is to, dare I say it, make a commitment and that is not something people, especially now, undertake easily. Commitment also implies the willingness to take a risk, to open one’s self to what God has for us. It is what Kierkegaard says, about a “leap of faith.” Those original disciples were called to leave the things that were most familiar, most comforting to them – and, no, Jesus wasn’t offering a better salary package though, as a friend of mine used to say, “the retirement benefits were heavenly.” The call touched them and opened them to a reality greater than anything they’d ever experienced. That reality, that touch, made everything else they had known pale by comparison and so they got up, left their nets and followed. They went through change, through hard times, and they grew and matured into the people God called them to be. The twentieth century French spiritual writer Michel Quoist wrote this, which speaks to the point:

People today no longer want to make lifelong commitments. This is a serious failure. An adult is someone who can put a lot of thought into what he’s doing, with or without outside help, and who is capable of making a definitive choice whether it is on an occupation or another person. Faithfulness is then the ability to stick with his choice, the will to fight for it, and turn any obstacles into positive elements in his chosen path.

Unfaithfulness is a disease afflicting both the individual and society. Society throws the individual into new experiences which are never brought to any conclusion. Unfaithfulness is to be put off by any obstacles; weakness is man’s downfall. Constantly uprooted, he can never reach maturity and bear fruit. (“With Open Heart”, translated by Collette Copeland, Gill and Macmillan, 1983, page 117)

We live in a world that is in desperate need of a new sense of commitment, of a new ability to commit. The experiences we’re going through right now with the economy speak to us of new priorities, determining what are the things that really matter and on what, in what do we place value. Sometimes these things come our way precisely so that we can reassess what is important and live toward those things. More and more what we’re seeing is that it is not so much what we have that matters, but who we are and the relationships we build that give life its real value and its lustre. Jonah wasn’t called to things. Jesus didn’t call the disciples to things. Paul didn’t exhort the Churches he helped to gather to focus on things. Rather, in each case what we see is the call of God to relationship and that, at core, is what being in covenant, being a Church is about.

Last Sunday I was encouraged and delighted at the way in which we conducted our Church’s annual meeting. Normally, it’s something we shove off to an afternoon and evening and a handful of people come to it. Last week we made it an extension of our worship – as it should be – and discussion was lively, respectful, even loving. We did the Church’s “business” and did it in a way that was appropriate. That said, I would be less than honest if I do not tell you that I was also disappointed. Why? Because while we discussed well and worked well and even made appropriate decisions, it was as if we went from opening to God in worship to only looking at ourselves. Our meeting turned from seeking what God is about and what God would have us do, to what could we do and what can we afford? If we leave it there, then we have limited God to the size of our pocket books – and if that’s the case, we’re in real trouble.

Dear ones, my beloved sisters and brothers in Christ, discipleship isn’t about what we can manage, what we can afford or what we can do. Discipleship is not about the bottom line. Discipleship is opening ourselves to the risk of the immediacy of God’s kingdom. Discipleship is becoming a follower and discovering that there is more to this world, more to ourselves, more than we can imagine to this world in which we live – “Earth’s crammed with heaven, ” after all. A disciple isn’t picking berries, but has been lost in the wonder that God is here. Being a disciple means looking not at what we can do, but at what can do through us, with us, in us. After all, God took a less-than-societally-acceptable group heard Jesus, followed him and changed the world. Not because they could do it, because they weren’t even very good fishermen.

Think about Peter, talk about the original screw-up, he couldn’t get it right. He kept sticking his foot in his mouth. Finally it comes to the end, what does he do? He denies Jesus not once, not twice, but three times. And then later on, after the Resurrection when Jesus confronts him about it, Peter tries to get out of and gets irritated because Jesus asks him, “Do you love me?” What happened? God used him. That’s my point. If Peter had been left to his own devices, well, God help us, we would never have heard the message. If Jonah had been left to his own devices, based on what Jonah could do, Nineveh would have been destroyed. But when God gets involved, something happens. I’m simply asking us, as followers of Jesus Christ, to be open to God.

A disciple, then, equals a follower. One who is open to hear the voice of Jesus in every situation saying, “Follow me.” We identify ourselves as “followers of Jesus Christ,” my question is – are we living like it? Because that is the bottom line – how, then, shall we live? If we are followers of Jesus Christ, how then shall we live?