« Why the Sabbath Day Anyway? | Main | “Whose is the Kingdom?” »
May 25, 2003
Who Qualifies for Discipleship to Jesus?
Who Qualifies for Discipleship to Jesus?
Psalm 18: 1-6, 16-19, 31-35 / Daniel 1: 1-9
Luke 6: 12-16
May 25th, 2003
Two weeks ago, as some of you know, I spent the weekend with fifteen people from our presbytery and two other presbyteries that were taking the Lay Pastor’s Training course. They were serious students.
I’d taught Church history for a number of years here at Purdue, so I was expecting that I would find a tug-o-war going on between them and me. You remember those student days in which all of us sometimes wondered how little we could do and still get a good grade. I had some wonderful students at Purdue, but few like these who bought every book I mentioned, and several had read them before coming to this weekend. I thought, here was something everyone could benefit from who wants to follow Jesus. The word for disciple in the Gospels, maqhthvı literally means “pupil.”
The place in the New Testament where the word Christian is used first, refers to people that Paul and Barnabas were teaching the faith. These “pupils” were first called Christians at Antioch.
In fact, it was not intended as a compliment to be called a Christian. Maybe it had a connotation in one way similar to our word “Geek.” A Geek is a computer genius. A Christian was a Jesus genius; we might say today, a Jesus freak. Only the word “Geek” is not a malicious term. It’s really sort of benevolent, a term of admiration for people who are really smart, who are a significant piece in the puzzle of modern life.
But to be called “Christian” was not a friendly thing. The other place in the New Testament where the word Christian is used, we read, “If any of you suffers as a Christian, do not consider it a disgrace, but glorify God because you bear this name.” It was intended as a disgrace to call someone a Christian, a follower of a crucified convict.
But the name Christian has stuck and changed from a disgrace to simply a category of religion. The name “pupil or learner or disciple” has been lost, except as the name of a denomination, “Disciples of Christ.” When you are asked your “religion,” do you say, “I am a disciple?” Probably you say, “I am a Christian.” Maybe a Presbyterian or Pentecostal. It is healthful to the practice of our faith to remember our earliest forbears were called “pupils of Jesus.” As Jordy Sparks reminded last week, to be called a Christian may be just like a bar code on a package. It’s a label. But to be a learner, that’s another thing. You’re doing something if you are a learner. You do not just exist with a bar code.
When we take the Lord’s Supper, I remind you of Jesus’ words, “Come unto me all who are weary and heavy laden . . . come, learn of me.” It is the same word. Come, be my pupil. Let me teach you. Teach what? Jesus wants to teach us meekness, gentleness of heart.
But there is another term we associate with Jesus’ twelve disciples. It’s the term “Apostle.” Jesus specially chose twelve men from all the many people who came to learn of Him and called them “Apostles.” Luke told us this morning, that after spending a night in prayer on the mountain, Jesus called his pupils to him and named twelve of them “Apostles.” Many of Jesus’ pupils went away disappointed that morning. “He didn’t choose me,” every woman pupil said when she went home. Maybe Mary Magdalene was in this group, and Salome—two women who were first to the empty grave on Easter morning. “He didn’t choose me,” many men said when they went home to very relieved wives and children. In a way it was a questionable honor to be an Apostle.
Apostle is a word that comes from the word that means “send away.” The word “disciple” and the word “apostle” do not mean the same thing. A disciple is one who is learning. An apostle is a disciple whom Jesus sends away.
Very many people came to Jesus to learn of him. But of these many, Jesus chose twelve to send out.
In the Gospel of Mark, we learn that Jesus chose these twelve men first “to be with Him.” To be Jesus’ special friend was to be marked, sent away, in order to proclaim the message He taught, and to have authority to cast out demons. When we read of Jesus’ expectations of these twelve men in the Gospel of Matthew, it sounds downright scary.
Don’t do it now, but perhaps when you get home, read Matthew 10, where this is laid out in grim detail.
So there is a distinction between a pupil of Jesus and an Apostle. Each of the first twelve Apostles began as a learner of Jesus. Only one of the Apostles, the greatest of all, was not first a disciple of Jesus. This was the Apostle Paul. Paul had a private tutorial from Jesus—AFTER Jesus called him to be an apostle. In Galatians we read of a three-year period in his life in Arabia when he went through a sort of seminary in Arabia and Damascus. When we take the Lord’s Supper, we remember that Paul said, “I received of the Lord what I delivered unto you.” So, Paul too was a learner before he did the work of an apostle.
Of himself Paul said, “I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God.” Paul may very well have been among the Pharisees who criticized Jesus for healing on the Sabbath. He doesn’t tell us, but he may have been in Caiaphas’ judgment hall when Jesus was arraigned and condemned to death. For sure we know that Paul (then called Saul) was there when Jesus’ followers were tormented after Jesus ascended to be with His heavenly Father. Those who stoned Stephen, the first Christian martyr, lay their clothes at Paul’s feet.
Paul saw the kinds of people who came to learn of Jesus. He wrote to early learners of Jesus in the congregation in Corinth, “ Look around, you don’t see many wise by human standards, not many powerful, not many of noble birth.” The cluster of men that Jesus chose as Apostles were like this to start with uneducated, ordinary, humble men. It has to be this way for those who come to learn of Jesus.
Because when we come to Jesus to learn of Him, we have to park our wisdom at the door, park our power, park our pedigree, and join the weak and heavy-laden. Jesus welcomes the wise too, and the powerful, and the people of noble heritage, but what He has to teach doesn’t find any of these qualifications an asset. If you’re impressed with yourself, your learning curve of Jesus will be steep.
This is part of the delight of the Church, where side by side we find the well-educated and the uneducated, the voters and the politicians, the aristocrats and the poor—all only learners of Jesus, if they have caught on at all to this faith of which we speak. How good it is to learn of Jesus. How good it is to be with people who still want to learn of Him.
This is the reason we should have a strong Sunday School and clusters of Bible study in the church. Worship and learning are the most important parts of life for a Christian. Our purpose as a congregation is to provide for this need.
Let’s think a bit more of the distinction between apostles and disciples.
We think of the Twelve Apostles as the most honorable cluster ever assembled in the story of the Church. Imagine being remembered throughout history as one of the original Twelve—all except Judas Iscariot, of course! Here was the extension of the twelve tribes of Israel, twelve heads of the extension of the Kingdom of God on earth. It’s for good reason we don’t know what tribe any of the twelve were from except the Apostle Paul. It no longer mattered because the wall was broken that separated Jews and Gentiles. Ironically Paul knew he was from Benjamin, a tribe almost extinguished in a civil war with the other tribes of Israel.
Here were the twelve pillars standing on the Foundation of Jesus Himself, who was the Rock-solid foundation of God’s plan for salvation. The Twelve were like the steel beams bolted onto the Foundation of the Church. Their purpose was to offer the world salvation, the most-needed gift of our Creator.
Spreading the message of salvation was the most important enterprise ever begun in human history. It took special people, special because they were NOT SPECIAL PEOPLE—to begin it all. If they thought they were special, it wouldn’t have worked.
I’m not sure everyone even in the Church sees it that way now—the importance of salvation. Salvation may not be important for people who think they are important to talk about. Because we think of “salvation” as something “religious.” Talk about boring! How very little “salvation” may have to do with what we think of as religion. Salvation is the fulfillment of what it is to be a person. Salvation is inner healing, reconciliation with God and people. Salvation is to achieve what every great person is really after—to be all we can possibly be, which begins and ends inside of us. The problem for many of us is figuring out what being all we can be means, and looking for it mostly outside of ourselves.
Our idea of greatness mostly has to do with wealth, with being well known, and power of some kind, some influence. The salvation of our souls, the definition of the purpose for which we were born—something we rarely think about--seems too remote to qualify as a great enterprise. Heaven can wait.
We are fascinated with great enterprises now that are possible to a wealthy and powerful nation. The World Trade Center will be rebuilt stronger and more stunningly beautiful than the towers that fell on September 11th, 2001. I see the Purdue campus displaying the results of massive financial resources. We will rise further in stature among the great universities of the world. But then I think of other enterprises people have achieved that we call great.
World conquest was the project of Alexander whom we call “the Great” and he succeeded. His empire spread as far East as India. He made the Greek language the language of civilized culture. And all this in a very short time. But where is Alexander’s empire now? How many students at our universities, much less our seminaries, bother with the Greek language? Immediately after he died, Alexander’s five generals fought among themselves and divided the empire. Within a little more than 300 years the Romans overwhelmed the last remnants of Alexander’s fragmented empire.
Where is the Roman Empire now? It’s a dusty detail in history books. Where is Britain’s great empire now, that once boasted that the sun never set on the Empire? Maybe you’ve forgotten that once Portugal had an empire.
But look at the project Jesus began, using twelve men of questionable credentials—fishermen first, a tax collector, and a revolutionary among them! What has become of Jesus’ project—extending salvation to the world? You and I are here this morning because we think salvation is important.
Every rich person on his deathbed must be overwhelmed with how useless his riches are about to become. The Indianapolis 500 would lose its luster quickly or not be run on Sunday if race fans thought they were on the edge of death instead of on the edge of their seats. Salvation is more important than vast learning that instantly dissipates the moment the heart stops beating and the brain dies, and is eclipsed with the next generation’s research. Salvation is eternal life, life to the maximum, lived in relationship with our Creator and one another—in beauty, justice, affection, generosity--unendingly.
You and I are here today because Jesus chose twelve learners to send away with the message of salvation. The message of salvation is something to be learned today as it was in Jesus’ day. Throngs of needy people, rich and poor, learned and unlearned, Pharisees and tax collectors, came to learn of Jesus, who was meek and lowly of heart, and they found rest for their souls. Twelve modestly “qualified” people spread this word to others. Over the course of nearly two thousand years this message has been passed on to people who were hungry to learn—to wannabe disciples, pupils, learners of Jesus.
Who qualifies to be a disciple of Jesus? We’re not asking, “Who qualifies to be sent away, an apostle, but who qualifies to be a learner, a disciple? “
In the Gospels two different pictures are given to us of how the earliest disciples connected to Jesus. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus chooses them, asking them to drop everything to follow Him. And they do.
But in John’s Gospel, Jesus’ disciples seek for Him first. Followers of John the Baptist heard their teacher describe Jesus as the Lamb of God. They then went after this Lamb of God. Jesus saw them following and said, “What are you looking for?” They asked, “Where are you staying?” Jesus said, “Come and see.” The first of these was Andrew, who called his brother, Peter, to come and see. In John’s Gospel Jesus first asked Phillip to follow Him. And Phillip invited Nathaniel, who was skeptical of Jesus because He came from Nazareth.
Andrew and Peter first went to learn from John the Baptist because they were hungry for his message. I imagine they were like I was more than forty years ago when I desperately wanted life to make sense. And so I prayed, “O Jesus, if there is any sense to this Gospel, let it make sense to me. I want to follow You, but don’t know how.” And I became a learner. I am still a learner. And if you have come to the conclusion that you need something money can’t buy, that education at the university can’t teach, and that being well known can’t satisfy, you’re a candidate to learn of Jesus—that is, to be a disciple.
If you are heavy-laden inside, Jesus says, “Come, learn of me.” That is, “Come, become my pupil, my disciple. I will teach you where to find rest.” It takes a lifetime. Few if any of us will become apostles. But all of us qualify to come and learn of Jesus, that is, to be Jesus’ disciple. Some think this means they can stay forever in kindergarten. Some aspire to nothing more than baby steps, toddling far behind Jesus. That is their loss. Come, join, and never leave the ranks of disciples. I invite you, come, learn of Jesus.
Let us pray. Thank you, Lord God, for the kind invitation of your son, Jesus, “Come, learn of me.” Give us the wisdom to be satisfied with nothing less than learning the best—Jesus. We pray in His name. Amen.
Stuart D. Robertson
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, Indiana
Posted by faithpres at May 25, 2003 09:30 AM