What is a Disciple?
Sermon given September 4, 2022
Texts: Philemon 1:1-21, Luke 14:25-33
One of my clergy friends mentioned once in Bible study, “We talk about all these words as if everyone knows what they mean, but we don’t actually define them.” She was talking of the word mercy, a word that could very easily have its own sermon, especially since we so often confuse it with pity, but I am bound to the lectionary texts, what they call out to me, and as I looked over the texts for this month, I found these big words staring at me and asking for a response. Disciple, sinner, righteousness, wealth. So I invite you into this series on the Big Words, knowing that these are hardly the ultimate or the last words we will address and talk about as we move through our lectionary cycle together.
Today’s Gospel grabs at me and makes me wonder what it means to be a disciple. It’s a bit jarring. I look at it and I wonder how I’m really doing at this whole thing anyway. I’m not going to hate my family. I’m not going to get rid of all my possessions unless absolutely necessary. I’m certainly not going to ask you to do things I’m not willing to do myself. So what is at the heart of this message? Can I be a disciple if I’m not like the person Jesus describes here?
The term disciple in Christianity is pretty easily defined as a follower of Jesus, but what does it mean to actually follow? There is a cost, but is it the same today as it was back then? In our Gospel lesson, Jesus was heading towards Jerusalem and his eventual crucifixion. He was calling people to come after him, to hold onto his teachings and to carry them to the rest of the world. They couldn’t expect a nice home life, they were going to be constantly on the road. In fact, they would be on the road so much, it would seem to outsiders that they hated their families. They wouldn’t live up to their familial expectations. Many would be seen as deadbeat parents and children. They couldn’t expect to have many possessions, in fact it’s easier to travel with none. They couldn’t put family first, they couldn’t put possessions first, they had to follow the lead of God. Out of this commitment, the Apostles spread the message of Christ into the entire area surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, including Egypt and Ethiopia in Northern Africa. They may have even made it to India, where St. Thomas Church is purported to have been started by the Apostle Thomas in the year 52 AD. The book of Acts shares some of the travel itinerary of Paul, but he was far from the only one to have lengthy journeys that took him far away from his home. Many of the apostles traveled extensively, saw their family little, and were killed by the state for their efforts. I see in our Gospel text today the inspiration that drove them forward on the hardest of nights. They had counted the costs and found their missions to be worth it.
Those whom these disciples spread the gospel to also left families behind. They no longer followed the same religion or had the same customs. They developed a new family of faith, new households built on different rules. This too, was seen as almost like hating their family. They didn’t live up to familial expectations either. They shared their possessions, they held things in common. Their possessions flowed from one to another throughout their community as they shared with each other.They knew that they faced hardship and calamity, so they stripped themselves of anything that could hold them back. Marriage was not a sin, but Paul treated it as an accommodation for those who couldn’t be celebate like he was. Family wasn’t the center of their lives. Their stuff was communally shared, not individually held. Everything was God’s and they were willing to be killed for the community. Many were. Their deaths were used for entertainment purposes in the Roman Empire.
What they did, how they upheld the faith in the midst of persecution is awe inspiring to me. They are the reason we’re Christians today, they upheld the faith. Yet still, I’m not sure if what they did is the path forward for the Church today. We’re not oppressed by the state, we’re embraced. We don’t have to leave our families, we can stay in our communities and spread God’s love to each other. In fact, the Protestant Reformation really put family life at the heart of many Christian communities.Luther removed the role of celibacy in the Church. It was no longer seen as a calling. Clergy didn’t have to set aside family ties in order to serve. They could serve and raise children. They were encouraged to do so. The communities they lived in and that we live in mostly profess a Christian faith. That creates a different environment for disciples than existed in Jesus’ day.
We also don’t hold all our possessions in common. We work together and help each other out, but our stuff is separate. I don’t think this is all bad. Once people become largely stationary, in separate dwellings connected to one community and one place, they pick up stuff. We’re nesting creatures, we build up households, and we’re sentimental creatures, objects can have great meaning to us. We collect stuff. It’s part of who we are. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, just as long as the stuff doesn’t become our lives. We always have to be willing to give things up if needed, but we also aren’t meant to be homeless and stuff-less for Jesus.
So what does it mean to be a disciple today?
I think we do have to give some things up. I think there are sacrifices we make. Because if we are disciples, if we are followers of Jesus, we don’t put nationality first. We don’t put political parties first. We put God first. We use the filters of our race, gender, sexuality, class, and any other distinction to help us understand our unique relationships with God, but we are ultimately defined as beloved children of God.
This is why the letter to Philemon is important. Paul writes to Philemon asking him to free his slave, Onesimus, so that he might be a brother to him and Paul. Onesimus was sent to Paul while he was in prison for a time to help out, and was supposed to return to Philemon. But while with Paul, Onesimus became a disciple. He devoted his life to Jesus. Paul, rather than taking a hard line with Philemon, wrote a letter of persuasion. He wanted Philemon to consent to giving up his slave, and to embrace equal partnership with Onesimus as fellow disciples of Christ. Paul pushes for this in his letter, though I wish he had gone a bit further.
People were enslaved in the Roman Empire for economic reasons, it wasn’t a fully inherited position, though cycles of poverty easily trap children into the same economic conditions as their parents and children were sold into slavery to help pay parents’ debts. But technically no one was born a slave. They weren’t given that role because of their skin color or their nationality. They were slaves because they owed debts they couldn’t repay. They worked to pay back their owners and there was the possibility of freedom. Now, this system was abused and exploited. It downgraded people to the status of someone’s property, but that was the distinction between this slavery and that which was practiced in the United States. Onesimus owed a debt to Philemon. Paul writes that if Onesimus has harmed Philemon or owes Philemon any money, charge it to Paul’s account. He’s taking on that which enslaved Onesimus. There is no burden that should keep Onesimus enslaved. Paul is saying that because Onesimus is a follower of Christ, he is free. His debts are repaid. He calls on Philemon, as a follower of Christ, to release him, to let him go. It is Philemon’s decision, but there is a clear answer that Paul wants. Philemon was asked to give up ownership of another for the sake of Christ. That was the cost of his discipleship.
The Christian Church recognized this moment, it upheld this moment for centuries. Christians could not hold other Christians as slaves. This was the teaching up until the Church became intertwined in the quest for world domination, in taking other people's lands for themselves, and in subjugating others and controlling them. Then liberative acts became spiritualized, things that happened in heaven, not on earth. The act of conversion became a tool of control. On earth, there could be slavery, but in heaven all were free. Slowly, the Church gave up their beliefs so that a practice of perpetual enslavement of Christians could happen. They put economics and power ahead of following Jesus. Now I know and believe just saying Christians can’t enslave other Christians isn’t enough. No one should be enslaved. I think that is the conclusion the Church was being led towards through Paul’s ministry, but Paul made accommodations that had lasting detriments. He didn’t know his personal letters would become scripture and his accommodations would become his shame. He didn’t know the atrocities that would be done to others using his words as an excuse. I think he expected the Church to recognize that we are all connected, that the image of everyone linked together as the body of Christ would expand out to help us see everyone, Christian or not, as connected and worthy of dignity, but that didn’t happen. We categorized and dehumanized people to our shame. We have not always been good disciples. The Church chose the path of domination rather than of Jesus. The effects of this decision can still be felt today. As a recent Tweet observed, almost no one would readily identify Christianity with love.
But I take comfort in the fact that the first disciples weren’t all that great at being disciples either. When Jesus in our Gospel today told people to carry their cross with him, only a handful actually did that. There were a few faithful women who were willing to stand alongside Jesus as he was crucified. The apostles deserted him. It seemed as though everything was ending. There was stillness, the quiet of Holy Saturday, when Jesus was dead. The movement had died. God lost. But that was not the end of the story. Because out of the gloom, a light shone. The stone rolled away. The grave clothes were folded and set aside. Jesus rose. God rose. Hope rose. In the deepest and darkest times, Christ rises from the grave again.
We are living into a new resurrection moment. During the early days of the pandemic, as much as we tried to keep things going and not admit it, we were in Holy Saturday. So much of what the Church was used to, so much of what created meaning and built people up was dead. We Zoomed and we prayed and we hoped, but the Lenten season extended well past its liturgical limits. Those moments deeply restructured the hearts and lives of us all, clergy included. There was a mass exodus and shift in congregations, both of clergy and laity, as we struggled to figure out what we were really about, where we were really going, what our defining mission was. It certainly changed me. If Church was just getting people in the same room for worship on Sundays, I was out. If it was just music or chatting over bad coffee, I needed more. I needed a mission I could plug into, a ministry bigger than the walls of the parish. I needed that grounding in Christ that shared deep love and embraced human dignity. I needed to recommit myself to Jesus and live in his Movement. We, individually and as a Church, are redefining who we are, what we do, and why we do it. This is a deeply holy and hard moment.
In this moment, we are being asked to determine the costs: Are we to be Jesus admirers or Jesus followers?
Disciples remember and hold before them the resurrected Jesus who lives among us. We follow him. We won’t always be perfect, in fact, I hope perfection is not our goal. I hope we aim to be real. I love giving ourselves space to be messy, to figure things out, to throw our ideas at the wall and see what sticks. That’s part of living the Gospel in our day and age. We’re figuring out how to be in an authentic relationship with ourselves, our God, and our neighbors. That’s what this is all about. That’s why I stuck it out.
I have begun to believe that prayer is the ultimate key to discipleship. I believed in prayer before, but now it feels more vital to my life. I need it now more than ever. Because it’s only in that connection that we can move forward. I’ve seen the difference prayer makes in my ministry. I give it all over to God, I problem solve with God, and I find new ideas and new inspiration. I find myself making better decisions and giving up some things simply because God and I talked about it. God’s teaching me to trust. God invites us to live into the dreams God has for us, both individually and communally. God and I have been dreaming about the Church as it could be, a cooperative movement where all are valued and play their part. I dream of us growing together, being formed by the Holy Spirit and vibrating with the power of God. I see the oppressed being cared for, the hungry fed, cycles of poverty being broken open and those trapped by debt going free. I see the beauty of connection beyond our walls, beyond the borders of this congregation, so all in our area may know that they are a part of us even if they aren’t a member, that they are in our hearts and minds, they matter. I see this vision, first as what already exists at St. John’s, and expanding more into what will be in the future. Prayer connects me to you. It connects me to God. It connects me to strangers. It is through our relationship with God, through our connections with God, that we find the way, interpreting the Gospel for our times. The resurrected Jesus shows us the way. We follow him. We know that we are able to bear our crosses because we’ve seen Jesus come out the other side.
Discipleship will cost us. I’m not sure what the toll will be. It’s different for everyone. But in the end, there is a new resurrected life that makes it all worth it. There is freedom and hope and dignity in the arms of our Savior. We can hold onto and follow the one who shows us the way. Amen.
