12
Pentecost 2013
Father Adam Trambley
August 1, 2013, St. John’s
Sharon
The Discipleship Arm Dance – Part
8:
He taught them everything they
needed to know
This
week we are going to continue working through the Discipleship Arm Dance. If you know it, join me:
Jesus
was baptized by John.
He came
up out of the water.
He
received the Holy Spirit.
He
heard the voice of God, “You are my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
He went
into the wilderness.
He
defeated the devil.
He came
out of the wilderness.
He
announced his purpose.
He
chose four others.
He
taught them everything they needed to know.
He sent
them out.
So far,
we’ve looked at the first nine steps, and after today there is only one more. We’ve talked about the surrender to God in
the context of a local church, and the need to step out into the life God has
in store with the support of the local church.
We’ve thought about the Holy Spirit coming down and filling us, and how
we can hear the voice of God tell us we are his beloved when we allow God to
come into our entire lives. We’ve looked
at what it means for Jesus, and for us, to go into the wilderness and defeat
the devil. We talked about Jesus’
purpose and how our purpose fits into his, and then about how he chose four
others to live life-on-life with. Today
we are going to look at “He taught them everything the needed to know.”
After
Jesus chooses Peter, James, John and Andrew on the seashore, he ministers to
the crowds then begins the Sermon on the Mount.
While not exhaustive, the Sermon on the Mount provides a pretty thorough
array of teachings on topics concerning how to live like the Kingdom of God is
at hand. We don’t have time to go into
it in great detail this morning.
(Perhaps, we can do another sermon series this fall with the Sermon on
the Mount Arm Dance. My favorite part
will be: “if someone slaps you on right cheek, offer your left.) But as a reminder, here are the high points:
- Blessed are the poor in spirit, and the meek, and the sorrowful, and those who are hungry and thirsty for righteousness, and the merciful, and the pure of heart, and the peacemakers, and those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, or suffer for the sake of Jesus because they will be living into the Kingdom of God.
- You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.
- Jesus has come to fulfill the law.
- Don’t murder or even be angry with your brothers and sisters, or call them scornful names.
- If you and another are fighting, leave your gifts at the altar and reconcile before offering the gift.
- Don’t commit adultery or even look lustfully at someone, and don’t get a divorce.
- Don’t swear oaths, even ones you will keep.
- Turn the other cheek.
- Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
- Don’t pray in a showy way.
- Pray the Lord’s Prayer.
- Don’t fast in a way that draws attention to yourself.
- Don’t collect earthly treasures, but heavenly ones. Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
- You cannot serve God and money.
- Don’t worry about your needs – God will take care of you. Seek first the Kingdom of God and all these things will be given you, as well (which would make a good song).
- Don’t judge or you will be judged. Take the log out of your own eye before you worry about the speck in your neighbors.
- Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened.
- Take the narrow gate that leads to life, not the broad road that leads to destruction.
- A tree is known by its fruit.
- Talk is cheap, but those who do the will of Jesus’ Father get into the Kingdom of God.
- The wise man builds his house upon the rock of Jesus’ words.
This
Sermon on the Mount isn’t everything Jesus taught those he chose, but it covers
a lot of ground and touches some delicate subjects: anger, sex, prayer, money,
judgment. Even for people who would want
to follow them, these teachings are difficult.
The only real way to teach them is to experience someone living them
out. After Jesus preached about these
matters, those closest to him saw how he lived them out in his daily life. They had a concrete example to strive after.
Imagine
learning to be salt and light from someone who spent every day helping people
find the seasoning and brightness of the Kingdom of God as he taught and healed
and went to parties and interacted with people.
Imagine
learning not to call others scornful names by watching Jesus interact with
people who annoyed him,
Imagine
learning lessons about purity in relationships by seeing how Jesus interacted
with the prostitutes who came to him. He
didn’t look them over, but looked them in the eyes, and by loving them instead
of wanting to use them, he transformed their lives.
And
these lessons are still taught in those same one-on-one ways, even today.
The
disciples learned about turning the other cheek as they watched Jesus accept
the tortures of his passion and death.
More recently, people who worked with and were trained by Martin Luther
King, Jr. learned similar lessons, as did the teammates of Jackie
Robinson. Both Jackie and Branch Rickey
had a strong Christian faith, which helped Jackie turn the other cheek to carry
out the call God had given him as the first black major league baseball player.
The
disciples traveled with Jesus, and they experienced seeking first the Kingdom
of God and letting God provide for them.
I also know that whatever small steps I make in not worrying about
tomorrow are almost exclusively due to other people whom I know that live
entirely trusting God. I need their
stories and example or I’m not getting it, no matter how often I read the
scripture passage.
The
disciples prayed the Lord’s Prayer along with Jesus. Many people today who regularly say it
learned it from their parents, saying it together before bed. Those people who memorized it before they
were old enough to pronounce the word “memorization” are often still able to
pray that prayer even when dementia or other difficulties set in decades later.
The
disciples saw Jesus choose to follow God’s path for his life instead of
focusing on a lucrative career in the building trades. Our imaginations are usually opened up enough
to think about the choices we have between God and money when we see someone we
know make a difficult choice not to take the best financial offer, but to work
where God is calling them, even if that is a different location, or a different
position or a different career.
Now
those of us who have been in churches for a while know the Sermon on the
Mount. Even if we aren’t always living
into it the way we would hope, we know what Jesus taught, and we have probably
encountered some people who have embodied it for us. But for many unchurched people, the Sermon
on the Mount is like nothing they have ever experienced before. Living
out Jesus’ teaching is the way into the Kingdom of God, and this Kingdom life
is exactly what God is calling people, including currently unchurched people,
into. Our job is to live this life out
ourselves, and then to show others how to live into it as we share our lives with
them.
In
established churches like St. John’s, we are used to passing on this life in
Christ to our children and our grandchildren.
Our challenge is to take it outside of our immediate families as we
choose four others and teach them everything they need to know. We aren’t going to be effective by finding
folks and sending them to the priest to get religion. But if we pray to find people, and keep our
eyes open, God will put people in our path for us to choose. We can bu y them a CD of inspiring Christian
music and good Bible that they can understand (and not just one that has been
sitting on a shelf in a church closet since the 1970’s) and start to read it
with them. We can bring them to church
and explain things to them and introduce them to people. And we can let them into our hearts and
homes so they see how we deal with anger and money and family and prayer and
everything else Jesus talked about. And
as that all happens they will learn about Jesus, as well, and maybe start living
their own lives in line with the values of the Kingdom of God.
Everyone
together:
Jesus
was baptized by John.
He came
up out of the water.
He
received the Holy Spirit.
He
heard the voice of God, “You are my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
He went
into the wilderness.
He
defeated the devil.
He came
out of the wilderness.
He
announced his purpose.
He
chose four others.
He
taught them everything they needed to know.
He sent
them out.
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