In the Name of the Living God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
I have always wondered what makes certain people do some of the wild and crazy things I’ve seen them doing. And I’m not talking about seeing a loved one on the five o’clock news for doing something shocking or finding out your teenage daughter has posted a wild and racy picture on Facebook. I’m talking about the equally amazing (and certainly wild) things that disciples of Jesus Christ have done (and continue to do) for the sake of the gospel and building up the Church.
And we have before us this morning two wild and astonishing readings (one from Genesis and one from St. Matthew’s gospel) that describe in vivid (some of us may say horrifying) detail what risks followers of God are willing to take in order to be genuine disciples.
In the case of Abraham we see an unshakable faith; one that trusted in God amidst the most unimaginable set of circumstances and a willingness to sacrifice even his own son, Isaac, in order to obey God. In St Matthew’s gospel Jesus tells us about another amazing thing that disciples are called to do: to be welcoming and to be welcomed.
The Revised Standard Version, from which I read, uses the word, “receive,” instead of welcome, but in Greek the word is closer to the way we use the word, “welcome.” And that word for “welcome” (or “receive”) is mentioned six times within two sentences. Jesus is talking about the power of hospitality, both in being hospitable and in receiving hospitality from others.
It’s worth noting that St. Matthew usually stresses the imperative of disciples being good hosts, but in this passage, he expands it, reminding us that in addition to serving others, we also need to be gracious guests, allowing others to serve us. This means that disciples of Jesus are those who, despite their pride, accept help from other disciples in times of need.
But, let me zoom back out for a moment and remind us that, although we’ve all heard these passages many times before, this isn’t what we might call light and frothy stuff we’re getting today; since last week, when we heard our Saviour say he came not to bring peace, we have been thrust into the deep end of the pool, having abandoned our swimmies all the way back on Trinity Sunday. Jesus, the sweet and cuddly teddy bear, is back on the shelf, and the Jesus who actually places demands on our lives is back in our midst.
Don’t miss the profundity of what has been proclaimed in our midst: Abraham was tested and was willing to sacrifice something he loved deeply – his own son – in order to follow God, and Jesus tells the disciples – and by extension, tells all of us who are his disciples today – that in order to follow Him we not only have to serve others, but we have to be served by others.
All of this is wild, counter-cultural stuff we’re talking about, folks! I’m not sure that I’m ready to think about sacrificing something I treasure deeply just to follow God (certainly not my son), and I think, generally speaking, that my pride and my ego might prevent me from receiving too much help from someone else – even if I really needed it. What about you?
Yet, if I am to be a disciple – if you are to be a disciple – we hear about two indispensable marks of genuine discipleship today – a willingness to sacrifice everything we fancy as precious in order to follow God and that genuine hospitality entails both offering and receiving it, especially when we’d rather not.
The real question, then, for us to ponder in this little homily lies in how do I – indeed, how do we – begin to align our hearts and souls – in other words, our wills – with the will of God in order to be better, more faithful disciples of Jesus Christ?
But by “better,” I must be quick to offer a word of caution. I’m not talking about receiving a merit badge, as if we were enrolling in the Boy Scouts. Better discipleship isn’t self-improvement, you see. In fact, “better,” in this instance, actually means the total abandonment of self and our own supposed self-sufficiency. It means going back to basics, back to what got us on the path to discipleship and faith in the first place.
You see, self-sufficiency and self-improvement schemes didn’t do a blessed thing for Abraham, they didn’t do a single thing for the first disciples and they won’t make a real difference for us either – except get in the way of actually becoming more faithful disciples. Trying harder is not what discipleship is about.
The faith that enabled the first disciples of Jesus to carry the gospel into a hostile world – and the faith that enables and empowers us to be better disciples even now– is a living faith that sprang up and burst forth as a result of encountering the power of the Living God revealed in the Risen Christ, particularly the Easter event.
Archbishop Michael Ramsey, the 100th Archbishop of Canterbury, believed that faith and discipleship never came first; they could only emerge, he argued, after encountering, wrestling with and experiencing what he often called the “Easter reality.” Much like being rear-ended unexpectedly while waiting at a traffic signal, he believed that neither faith nor discipleship were possible without a shocking, dynamic encounter with the Risen Jesus.
And he says it so well: “Easter is what says to us: have faith ! When things are very dark, when human possibilities are exhausted, when we are at the end of our tether
God acts. Easter defines for all the character of the Christian faith and discipleship: human weakness, divine power; I can’t, God can; I am weak, God is strong; I am a sinner, God forgives.” Now, that – and that alone – is what empowers and undergirds discipleship, my sisters and brothers, enabling and equipping us to do wild and crazy things for the sake of the Kingdom.
And this also means, for most of us, that the key to discipleship lies not in crafting big plans for Jesus, but in abandoning our present strategies and going back to square one, the root of our faith and the wellspring from which discipleship emerges. Yeah, you heard the preacher correctly: I said it. GIVE UP!
For only in giving up – giving up on our need to fix ourselves and fix all around us in the Name of Jesus – will we so-called followers of Jesus become full blown disciples, followers of the Way, doing wild and crazy things for the sake of the kingdom.
Fr. Capon, God rest his soul, gets it right, as usual: “Jesus came to raise the dead, not to improve the improvable, not to perfect the perfectible, not to teach the teachable, but to raise the dead.”
Jesus rose from the dead. He came to raise us from the dead. And it’s for us to let Him.
And then, being raised and falling in love all over again with the One who first loved us, will we truly become disciples, followers of Jesus, willing and able to risk it all for His sake, for His glory, and for His eternal purposes.
Then and only then will these seemingly wild and crazy readings begin to make perfect sense.
Sermon preached by the Rev. Charleston D. Wilson
The Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota, Florida
3rd Sunday after Pentecost
29 June 2014