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What's this discipleship malarkey about? Trinity 4: Sunday 19th June 2005 Genesis 21.8-21 | Romans 6.1b-11 | Matthew 10-24-39 Abraham casts out Ishmael, God rescues him; sin brings death, Christ life; instructions to the disciples. I’ve always wondered: who buys sparrows, and why? Today’s gospel reading comes in three sections. There’s something about::
We start, as ever, with the scriptures: what did Jesus say to his first disciples, what sort of things were they to expect? When Jesus sent out his disciples it was to serve - to emulate Jesus the Master, the one who said he’d come to serve, not to be served. And he seems to have stressed the need for authenticity and honesty: what you say in public should be what you say in private. The motives of others will become plain; so will yours, so make sure that you’re starting from the right place: a consistent, serving nature. There’s something significant and deeply important for those who want to follow Jesus about being a servant and working under the Master. God's timing
Abraham hadn’t quite got the hang of being a servant and working under the authority of the Master. Abraham reminds us that waiting for God’s fulfilment is never easy - and Abraham ends up trying to force God’s hand. God had promised that Abraham would be the father of many nations - yet he and Sarah were was getting on in years and she was barren. So they decided to give God a helping hand by using Sarah’s maid Hagar as a surrogate mother... Things, as we see in today’s gospel, went pear shaped. God blessed Sarah with the miracle child Isaac, born in her old age, and the child Ishamel, born to Hagar became an embarrassment, so Abraham - not in his finest hour - sends them off to die in the desert. (In fact Abraham, the father of many nations, God’s friends, God’s chosen one, has many incidents which are not his finest hour... he is a flawed individual and some of his actions get him into a great deal of difficulty.) Waiting for the fulfilment of God’s promises is never an easy task: but trying to force God’s hand to achieve that fulfilment leads to second best and very often an associated bag load of problems. Being willing to let go of our agenda to embrace God’s is not easy.
Being a disciple means learning to accept God’s will and God’s timing. God’s time scale is not always the same as ours... We want everything done yesterday, God’s priorities are not always the same... The scriptures use two Greek words for time: chronos & kairos. Chronos is time that we are perhaps most familiar with: the time of day; the length of time an event takes; the passing of the seasons etc. Things to do with watches, calendars and birthdays! Kiaros is about God’s timing. It’s about the right thing at the right time. It’s about God’s will. It’s about the fulfilment of God’s promises, it’s about working with God and lining our will up with God’s. Waiting for the fulfilment of God’s promise is all about kiaros, rather than chronos. Living under God’s Royal Rule - in the kingdom of Heaven - is about learning to live under kiaros - and that is not always an easy option. Obedience In the gospel this morning there is a reminder that opposition will follow the disciple - it requires tremendous effort sometimes to do what you know to be right; and preaching the gospel, sharing the faith, living out the Good News (as we thought about last week) is very often not an activity which passes without opposition - and sometimes that opposition comes from within ourselves as we struggle to submit to God’s Royal Rule. When Religious [monks & nuns] take their profession usually the three things they embrace are poverty, chastity and obedience. Of those who I’ve spoken to the vast majority of them find poverty and chastity not too much of a problem... but obedience... well that’s another kettle of fish!
But the Good News about Abraham’s ill treatment of Hagar & Ishmael is two fold: first that God doesn’t give up on him or abandon him or considers choosing a better specimen... God is more faithful to Abraham than Abraham is to him; and secondly God’s divine mercy turns even mistaken attempts to force the promise into good. Disciple for life! (and beyond)
Being a disciple means being a learner or a student. And Jesus reminds his disciples - those who would follow him both then and today, that this is a life long experience. [“To infinity and beyond!”, if you’re familiar with Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story...]
There will not come a time when we know as much as our teacher, when we can
move on to another higher Master, or start gathering disciples round
ourselves. No matter how long we live, no matter how wise we become, or how
much knowledge we may acquire, we will still, always, be disciples of Jesus,
under the authority of Jesus. Jesus will still always be our Master. It also means that what happened to him will happen to us! If Jesus was unpopular, we can expect that too. If Jesus was given a cross to carry, we can expect that too. To walk in his footsteps means realising that there are nail marks in those footsteps.
(A story is told about an illegal gathering of Christians in communist
Russia. They had met to break bread and celebrate Jesus at a time when the
state was trying to stamp out Christianity. Suddenly the doors of the house
were flung open and three
“If anybody is not prepared to die for their faith, they will do well to leave now!” ...shouted one of the soldiers. At this half a dozen worshippers ran for the doors. After they had gone the soldiers put down their weapons. “Now we know we are amongst disciples!” ...they said and joined the startled worshippers. Being a Christian in the army was not easy and they knew that they were amongst trusted friends who would support their faith and pray for them.) One fit for life!
We will never “out grow” Christianity. We will change, we will develop, our opinions, our lifestyle, our spirituality will develop, grow, deepen, change... if we’re feeling dissatisfied, or cramped, or unfulfilled that is probably our dissatisfaction with the stage of faith we’re in. Our children both get grotty when they’re just about to move into a new stage of development - whether that’s a new level of understanding, more integrated social skills, physical co-ordination, language development etc. - they are frustrated with the old way of doing things, or seeing the world and are eager to move on and explore.
The more we understand our lives as growing developing entities, the more we realise what it means to be a learner, a student, a disciple, the more we’ll explore the riches that God is calling us to as our relationship develops with him. There are such great treasures waiting for us to explore: in the scriptures; in the rich pattern of the Church’s year; in the spirituality that wants us to use all the senses, gifts and skills God has blessed us with, in the integration of knowing and loving ourselves as we get to know and love others; in the freedom that comes from obedience to God; in the writing and thinking of older wiser Christians who have trod the path of Christ before us. In fact there is so much to explore the question is often one of bewilderment: where do we start? Two suggestions... If you’re wondering that I have two suggestions. They may seem simplistic; but as with so much about the Christian faith it’s the DOING which is the difficult bit...
And the second simple suggestion is: join a house group! We have five groups in existence at the moment - I’d love for us to have to start some more! I say with some confidence that every member of a house group has found it helpful. (show of hands: how many in groups? how many would recommend a group?)
So if we’re serious about being followers, about being disciples, about realising that Jesus is our boss, our Master, our Lord, then we are committing ourselves to seeking his will - not ours - and to doing it.
We shouldn’t expect it to be easy, but we do need to realise that there are
many resources to help us: and a huge number of those important resources
are sitting around us this morning!
Fr Andrew J Perry
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After last week’s gospel, when we thought specifically about why we share
the faith, I’d like us to think a little this morning about being a
disciple; of the attitude we are to have, of what we can expect, of some of
the resources there are to help our discipleship.
As we look to the Old Testament reading we can see an example of somebody
who wasn’t quite so sure that God could deliver his promise, so he decided
to give God a helping hand.
Learning to depend on God, trusting God for his timing and fulfilment of the
divine will is not easy. Jesus taught his followers to pray “thy kingdom
come, thy will be done...” and when he struggled in the garden of Gethsemane
that the hour of the passion might pass from him he too had to wrestle until
he eventually came to ask that God’s will be done, not his...
Us
Human Beings have a tendency to think that the world revolves around
ourselves... I make my decisions, not somebody else. I’m independent,
accountable to nobody. OK, I may not be an island (as John Done pointed
out), and other people may be important to me, but we are encouraged to look
after Number one first, and often at the expense of others... so following
Christ, being obedient to him, doesn’t always come easily...
Being a disciple of Christ, following Jesus, in one sense means you have
arrived! You don’t need to search around looking for the next spiritual
guru: all you need for the rest of your days is here in Jesus.
armed
soldiers came in, pointing their weapons at the gatherers. 
We’ve been thinking in the confirmation classes about how being a disciple
is a longer than life long experience.. we may never know all the answers,
but the faith will allow us to grow and develop and reach our potential as
human beings made in the image of God.
Sometime we loose that as adults. We think that we’ve arrived, that there’s
nothing left to learn, or that it’ll be too uncomfortable to change.
My first simple suggestion is come to church each week! As you commit to
joining your brothers and sisters you really begin to get a feel for how the
Church’s year pans out. We follow themes through in the scriptures, we have
periods where we think about different aspects of the life of Christ and how
we can live as disciples. We grow in worship, different aspects of the rich
liturgy we enjoy strike us at different times, we learn to pray alongside
others (which in turn enriches our individual prayers). We interact with
others and see different models of discipleship in our brothers and sisters.
We learn that God smiles on us, that God actually wants to bless us, not
bind us or restrict us or say ‘no’ all the time... we encourage one another
by joining together. We learn to share our joys and our sorrows, we get
support, we can offer support... by committing ourselves to regular worship
week by week we commit ourselves to changing, to growing and to
discipleship. It is fond, popular rubbish to think that you can be a
Christian without going to Church!
It is within the context of a small group that you can ask questions, voice
doubts and concerns, learn and share; support and grow. Most of the groups
meet once a fortnight: some in the evenings, others during the day. They all
do different things: some study a book of the bible, some look at themes,
some take topics, some follow courses or books or tapes etc. But all of them
aim to help disciples to be disciples. All of them realise that following
Jesus isn’t always easy or plain sailing. All of them know that it helps to
share with our Christian family who can support and uphold us when life goes
pear shaped. All of them know of the rich treasures available to the growing
disciple. Non of them would claim to have arrived, or know all the answers;
but all of them would claim that their faith is growing, that the tiny flame
of their joy and peace are constantly being fanned into flame...