The Rev. Neale L. Miller

Sermon for July 23, 2006

Lessons: Exodus 3:1-15/Matthew 16:21-28

Title: “You Can’t Be Serious!”

               Discipleship is a word that the church has appropriated, but it is not a word to which the church has exclusive rights.  Discipleship and followership (if there is such a word) are basically the same thing.  Discipleship is the commitment the disciple, the follower, makes to the one she hopes to learn from.  It is typically a commitment to which the disciple gives significant amounts of her time and energy.

              When the terms “disciple” or “discipleship” appear in Scripture they almost exclusively refer to the followers of Jesus, the twelve Jesus originally called to ministry, but also the expanding circle of anonymous persons the Lord’s message attracted.

              Mind you, it is really hard to get a read on what the Lord’s disciples actually did while he was in their midst.  Called out to be “fishers of people,” the gospels depict the disciples as occupying more of an observer’s, than a participant’s role, in Jesus’ ministry.  To be frank, the one or two times the disciples are depicted as actually acting, they for some reason or another come up short.  I’m thinking of an instance when some disciples of Jesus fail to heal a demonized person.  But, then, Jesus set no special prerequisites for the persons he called to his ministry.  The persons called were not expected to be in possession of great faith or refined pastoral skills.  Insofar as requirements were concerned the disciple’s vocation basically centered on following Jesus.  If that sounds open-ended it was probably experienced as such by Jesus’ disciples.  It was when Jesus got to specifics that the disciples began to feel the pressure of expectations.    

              The pressure of expectations could not have borne in on the lives of Jesus’ disciples with greater force than on that day when Jesus told his disciples the facts of life and death.

              The facts of life came quite easily to Peter.  He was the valedictorian in his class, the one who correctly saw Jesus for who he is, the rock upon whom Jesus would build his church.  Yet the Lord curses this same Peter as a disciple of Satan in this morning’s lesson.  You see, it was the facts of death that gave Peter trouble.  To identify Jesus as Messiah was one thing, to identify him, as suffering martyr was another.  Peter was not prepared to accept the fact that Jesus might occupy both of those roles.

              Disciple of the Messiah, well now, that has a ring to it, or had a ring to it for those Jews who lived their lives expecting the Messiah to turn up in their midst as a bright sun rising to greet a new day.  A magisterial figure, the Messiah was expected to come to earth and take charge.  He would settle scores with the enemies of God and re-establish the Jews in the place God had intended them to occupy from the beginning.  It was not difficult for the likes of Peter to imagine the upside in serving one who commanded Messiah-scale power and respect.  For those who associate closely with extraordinary people, and the Messiah would definitely have fit such a category for the Jew, there are any number of perks to enjoy.  Peter was only human; the allure of perks would have been as attractive to him as for any one of us.

              It was not the facts of life, the special opportunity to serve the Messiah that challenged Peter.  He felt totally at-ease with a discipleship gilded with special benefits and opportunities.  It was the facts of death that challenged Peter.

              How do you begin a conversation that you know will cause your best friends great pain and anguish?  Certainly Jesus must have anticipated the reception his words would receive.  No, it was not the perks, but the perils of discipleship, that served as the substance of Jesus’ remarks.

              Hard on acknowledging that he was the Messiah and according Peter special privileges as the very rock upon which the church would be built, Jesus opens the trapdoor to expose a deep chasm of darkness. Though our overall familiarity with Jesus’ story, his death and glorious resurrection, blunts the impact of the words we read in this morning’s lesson, his disciples enjoyed no such buffer.

              What did Jesus do ahead of time to prepare his disciples for what was to come?  How does one break the news that tragedy is eminent?  Matthew provides little detail as to how, or even if, Jesus prepared his disciples for the news he was bringing.  Instead Matthew gives us the rather terse, “From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hand of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”

              The announcement arcs on a breathtaking trajectory, “suffering, killed, third day be raised.”  I speak subjectively here, but I would speculate that the emotions of Jesus’ disciples probably stalled when the words suffering and killed were spoken.  Though heard, do you really think the “third day be raised” comment really registered for the disciples at all?

              The facts of life: Messiah, opportunity, power, and glory, these the disciples embraced with gusto.  The facts of death, on the other, the facts of death received the kind of reception one would expect them to receive, “God forbid it, Lord! [Peter proclaimed] This must never happen.”  The echo of Peter’s “no” must have been resounding: No! “You can’t be serious?”

              Peter’s purely predictable response did not, of course, gain a sympathetic hearing from Jesus.  Instead, the words “you are a stumbling block” and “Satan” come issuing forth.  So, this was Peter and the other disciples’ introduction to “the cost of discipleship.”

              Presumably Peter came to the table with at least some background in the cost of discipleship.  But how much did he really know?  His concept of discipleship, “followership,” was several lashes of the whip, several nails in the flesh short of what Jesus was taking about.

              What did Peter know about the cost of discipleship?  Of course, we must credit him with knowing something.  Scripture tells us that Peter responded to Jesus’ call leaving everything to follow him.  But in his travels with Jesus what personal exertions had he ever made?  Oh yes, he had fulfilled Jesus’ expectations along the line, but without much heavy lifting.  When, however, Jesus began to talk about some heavy lifting, “deny yourselves and take up your cross, Peter reared back, declaring, in so many words, “You can’t be serious?”

              The cost of discipleship was not a new concept for Peter.  He had made some sacrifices that he might string along with Jesus.  But did he fully comprehend the degree of sacrifice that came with discipleship, even before the Lord placed self-denial and personal suffering on the table?

              You don’t have to hang out in a Christian community for very long before you hear some mention made of the cost of discipleship.  It is the kind of language you appropriate simply by affiliating with a church.  It is the kind of language Jesus used at several junctures in his ministry.  It is language you and I use without really thinking very much about what the language means. 

We may know the concept, but what do we really know about the cost of discipleship.  We, who have seldom, if ever, been forced to defend our faith, let alone be ostracized or imprisoned for practicing it.  What do we know about the cost of discipleship?  We, who have never lost a job, or been excluded from a club on the grounds of our religious faith.  What do we know about the cost of discipleship?  We, who have made the same financial contribution to the church these last five years.  What do we know about the cost of discipleship?  We, who enjoy worship and the other services the church provides, without making any real personal efforts to learn what the faith and the church are about.

              Cost of discipleship?  “You can’t be serious?” What is the cost of following Jesus?  I experience no personal inconvenience whatsoever in my walk with the Lord.

              I would never diminish the thrust of Jesus teaching on self-denial and cross-bearing by suggesting that preaching a sermon, greeting at the door, singing in the choir, or tithing to the church fulfills one’s Christian obligation.  But I would suggest that these are some of the ways we demonstrate that this label, Christian, we wear has personal significance.

              To his none-too-receptive disciples Jesus exposed a reality that was at best repulsive.  No, suffering and death didn’t square with their notions of discipleship.  Self-denial and cross-bearing were no more appealing to them than they are to us.  When we contemplate inconvenience or suffering, we shrink back: “Lord, you can’t be serious.”  Yet can we practice any form of Christianity worthy of the name without somehow honoring the core teaching of the faith?

              Yes, we are expected to DO something to demonstrate our Christian convictions.  That may not occasion the sort of self-denial or cross-bearing that will radically alter our lives, but to excuse ourselves from any effort because we are not called to make a great one is unacceptable to the Lord, and ruinous for the church.

              Suffering, involving self-denial and personal trauma, is the price we pay for living in a sinful world.  While Jesus was no less repelled by that reality than we are, he saw more clearly than we shall ever see, that sin is no less powerful an adversary because we choose to ignore it.

              Suffer?  Die?  You can’t be serious?  There must be a less demanding, more expedient way to deal with the sins of the world.  If it was the less demanding, the more expedient way that Jesus sought he could have chosen it.  But the fact is Jesus didn’t choose it.  He suffered and he died. 

              I just finished reading a biography of Winston Churchill.  Churchill was among the first to appreciate the threat Adolph Hitler posed to world peace.  It was the thirties, and many wanted to diminish the significance of the Nazi threat even though the growth of the Nazi was machine was widely reported.  Many were eager to negotiate with Hitler, to appease him if necessary.  Others thought a treaty might keep him at bay.  Still others chose to ignore the threat he posed all together.

              Churchill, a comparatively low ranking government official when Hitler seized control of the German government, used any venue he was offered to gain a hearing.  He issued strident calls of alarm.  For his efforts he was condemned as a warmonger and derided as a light-weight who should keep his opinions to himself.

              The citizens of England with good reason feared the consequences of war, the suffering and death that would surely come.  As Hitler made his move there were many persons in England and across Europe who essentially said, “wait, we have choices.”  War is not inevitable.  History would vindicate Churchill, proving that England’s survival would only come at great costs.  No choices were available.

              “You can’t be serious, Lord?”  The cost of discipleship prompts such questions.  We would like to have our discipleship on the cheap.  Take us, as we are, where we are, Lord.  But it just doesn’t work that way.  There is no discipleship absent some cost to maintain it.  It is through people who willingly stepped up and accepted the cost of discipleship that the church as built, and it is through such people that it is maintained.  Suffering and death may not be the price tag placed on our discipleship, but there is a price tag.  By surrendering to crucifixion Jesus paid that price.  Jesus willingly died for your sins and mine.  Our charge as people who bear his name is to acknowledge that fact, and turn our lives into a thank offering to celebrate his abounding grace.  Amen.

PRAYER

              How great you are, O Christ, and how willingly to set aside all the trappings and prerogatives that your greatness conferred in order to take human flesh, eat, sleep and work in the rhythms we know so well.  How willing you were to submit to the vagaries of life, and ultimately surrender yourself to men who mocked and executed you. 

              O Christ, who entered life in order to redeem it, we are a church of doctrines and creeds that attempt in the best human fashion to elaborate on all matters pertaining to you humanity and divinity, yet we possess but modest means to explain your enduring appeal across the ages, to explain why women and men still heed your call, “come, follow me.”

              Into this place where we gather today you have come, O Christ, your call still extended to the people you died to redeem.  Through the inspiration of your Holy Spirit may each person here today experience the freedom that redemption was meant to confer, and in that freedom may this church ever commit itself to your mission priorities, O Lord.

              O God, few of us have great risk tolerance in the investments we make, fewer still have great risk tolerance in following your Son, Jesus Christ.  The cost of discipleship is for most of us an alien concept.  We have read about the risks taken and dangers faced by your disciples, but those realities often appear too remote from our reality to register as real.  Help us be clear about what you require.

              Where we turn away from responsibility and reject the obligations that come with discipleship, there be, O God, to brace us and prepare us to serve.  Where our zeal to know you, to read your Word, to pray, and to worship has been blunted, there be, O God, to encourage us and challenge us. Where time pressures burden us and we resent the demands that church work imposes, grant us clearer vision of how our efforts serve the upbuilding of the church.  And where our gifts go unutilized open our field of vision to new opportunities.

              Never out of your heart, O God, is the suffering your children are forced to endure. You bear the weight of human grief and despair with us.  You mourn our foolish ways, our callous disregard for human life.  In your mercy free us from the tyranny of the terrorist, the bigot, and the assassin. Into the darkness that is Lebanon, Israel, Iraq and Afghanistan shed your pure light that those who live in darkness may find consolation and hope amid the rubble they currently face. Be with those who would broker peace, representatives of the United Nations and our own secretary of state.

              Lord, the worshiping congregation goes by many names, “body of Christ,” “the people of God,” “the baptized,” and many more.  Among the names we use to describe ourselves is family.  We praise you, O God, for this church family and the signs of Christian life that are so abundant here.

We praise you that this familiar worship space and the precious memories it evokes of baptisms, ordinations, declarations of personal faith, services of remembrance and thanksgiving, and marriages. On this occasion, O Lord, we mark the 60th wedding anniversary of two of your very faithful servants, Henry and Norma Haydel.  Married in the Carrollton church 60 years ago, their commitment to their church family has remained as secure and strong, as their marriage covenant. We thank you for these friends whose commitment to Christian living has enriched this fellowship for many, many years. Bless them as they have blessed this congregation. By your grace, may this special celebration of 60 years of marriage be for them, their family, and friends, a time to live abundantly, and to create yet more wonderful, enduring memories.  

              O Spirit, intercessor, intercede for us before the throne of God.  Be our advocate, praying with us and for us, that we may not only embrace the name “Christian,” but embrace the identity as well.  This we pray in the strong name of Jesus, our brother and our redeemer, who taught us when praying to say…