Part 9 -- Discipleship Arm Dance: He Sent Them Out

  13 Pentecost 2013

Father Adam Trambley

August 18, 2013, St. John’s Sharon

The Discipleship Arm Dance – Part 8:

He sent them out.

Last week for the Discipleship Arm Dance.  Let’s all do it 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.

He sent them out.  One of the most common things Jesus does in scripture is send people out. 

The first thing we notice about Jesus’ sending people out, is that he sends them out in accordance with his purpose.  Jesus’ purpose was bringing people into the Kingdom of God that is coming near.  He teaching, his healing, his feeding, and his passion, death and resurrection all stemmed from this purpose.  When he sends people out he sends them to prepare people for Kingdom of God, in word and deed.

We remember the Great Commission, when Jesus, after his resurrection as he is about to ascend into heaven, tells his disciples to “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.”  (Note how this final instruction of Jesus commends his disciples and us to do much of what we have been talking about – baptizing, announcing his purpose, teaching everything needed to know, sending them out). 

Earlier, Jesus has told the seventy and the twelve to go and proclaim the good news that the Kingdom of God has come near.  They are to proclaim peace and heal the sick and cast out demons.  They are sent out to do what they have seen Jesus do and been taught by him to do.   We would assume that the four, Peter, Andrew, James, and John, who have experienced more of Jesus’ life and have been taught more closely by him, would be better prepared.  But everyone is sent out to do what they can to contribute to Jesus’ purpose.

We see Jesus sending all sorts of people out to do as much as they have experienced him doing, even if they are only prepared at that time to contribute to a single part of his overall purpose.  The list of those Jesus sends out is long, but here are some:

•  After casting a legion of demons out of the Gerasene demoniac, Jesus says, “Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you."
• The woman with a hemorrhage who has undergone physical and emotional hardship for twelve years is healed and told by Jesus, “Go in peace.”
• The woman caught in adultery is not judged by Jesus and has learned forgiveness from him and defeated the devil in the wilderness of her near-death experience.  Jesus sends her out, “Go, and sin no more.”
• Remember what Jesus says to the lawyer at the end of the Good Samaritan story? “Who was the neighbor to the man set upon by robbers?”  The lawyer has learned something from Jesus: “The one who showed mercy.”  Jesus sends him out saying, “Go and do likewise.”  Go and show mercy.
• Think about the resurrected Jesus coming out of the tomb.  Mary Magdalene sees him.  She is the first witness to the power of the resurrection which brings the Kingdom of God nearer to us than any other act in history.  After experiencing her risen Lord, Jesus immediately sends her out, “Go and tell my brothers that I’m going to my Father and your Father, my God and your God.”

What does this mean for us?  Jesus sending out his disciples means that we are sent out.  Jesus didn’t say,

“Stay right here and be as quiet as possible so nobody notices you.”  Nor did he say, “Build the nicest church possible, put out coffee and donuts and hope that someday someone shows up.”  No, he said, “Go.”  “Go make disciples of all nations.”  “Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation.”  “Go to all the cities and towns where I am going and heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, and cast out demons.”  The Kingdom of God is coming near, and our job is to go out and help people come into it.

Everything we do in here is designed to prepare us to go out there effectively.  The call of St. John’s, or any church is to help us work through all the steps leading up to “He sent them out.”  We are baptized and turn our lives over to God in this local church.  We commit to going forward into the new life God has in store for us.  We receive the Holy Spirit and encounter God’s love.  We are led into the wilderness where we can defeat the devil in our lives.  We discover our purpose and learn everything we need to know.  We learn how to choose others to assist us with our purpose.  We gather in church to do all of these essential and difficult things so that we can be sent out by Jesus to bring the good news to those outside of the church.   We are not here to take care of ourselves.  We worship God, care for people and grow as Christians to witness the coming Kingdom of God in the world.

Being sent out can take a number of forms.  Some folks are just sent out of here.  As school starts, we know some of our college students are in this position.  They are being sent out to live as witnesses in new places and we aren’t going to see them here again regularly for a while, if ever.  They have had their preparation and it’s time to announce the Kingdom in other cities and towns.  Other people may move due to a job change or other reason, and they are sent with a commission to follow their particular aspect of Jesus’ purpose.

But for most of us, we are going to be back here next week – some of us even tomorrow.  We aren’t going anywhere, at least nowhere requiring a U.S. Post Office notification.  Our sending out has two components.  The first is to actually go outside the church to family members, friends, co-workers, neighbors, or whoever we meet and share the good news with them in word and deed.  Sometimes that is actually telling them the good news of what God has done for us (and we should all be doing that more than we are).  Other times sharing that good news means letting them experience God’s love, grace, power and life by meeting their needs in some way.  An important part of the individual purpose of every one of us is letting people know the good news that the Kingdom of God is at hand and preparing them to live as its citizens.

Once we have been out there proclaiming the Kingdom, we may also undertake God’s purpose in the church.  But we are called to do that by turning the church inside-out, if you will.  The church, even the physical church building, is doing its work not when we are focused on those of us already inside, but when we are focused outside.  We can’t ever do that if we aren’t living as disciples outside because we won’t know what the world needs.  But if we are connected outside, we can take our worship, we can take our buildings, we can take our programming, and we can make the church the place people from outside want to come to in order to experience life in the Kingdom of God.  If we are doing our work outside, then not only will we see fruit outside the church, but people will want to come here for lunch, and people will want to hold birthday parties here and learn guitar here and have AA meetings here, and people will want to encounter God in worship here.  People from outside will only want to be here, though, as we care less about what we want in favor of a Christ-like concern for what other people need.

Then, when people come here they, too, will learn how to be baptized and come up out of the water and receive the Holy Spirit and defeat the devil and find their purpose and choose others to pass that purpose on to and learn everything they need to know.  But that increase in disciples will only happen in an inside-out kind of church.

As soon as people experience something of the Kingdom in this inside-out church, they can share it.  We see people at the lunch after they have been served helping serve others by clearing tables.  People who have been prayed for and received healing start praying for other people.  Those who experience God’s presence in worship invite others into that presence by bringing them to worship, too.  Just like Jesus sent people out to share whatever they had learned, we too can send people out quickly to spread the Kingdom. 

Let’s face it, none of us ever fully understand God or are entirely living out a Kingdom lifestyle ourselves.  Each of us is doing the best we can, at least I hope so.  We can share what we know, and as we learn more, we share more completely.  And everyone we share the good news with can share what they know, even if they don’t end up coming to St. John’s or any other church, even if they don’t have a complete sense of Christian creeds or dogmas or even ethics, even if they wouldn’t really consider themselves Christians.  But they recognize the Kingdom of God breaking into their lives and they want to share it.  Then the Kingdom of God is built up in places we wouldn’t even have imagined.  And this spread of the Kingdom is what we are here for.  We worship God, care for people and grow as Christians to help the whole world know that the Kingdom of God is coming near. We succeed in that purpose not only as we go out, but as we send all manner of others out, as well.

If we ever forget what we are here for, we can pay attention to the last piece of our liturgy.  The deacon or priest says: “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord,” and the people all say, “Thanks be to God.”  We don’t say “Thanks be to God” because we are glad church is over, at least I hope not.  We say “Thanks be to God” as an affirmation to the call to go out and do what Jesus has sent us out to do.

So let’s do the Discipleship Arm Dance together, recognizing the commission given to us in the last line.

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.

Part 8 -- Discipleship Arm Dance: He Taught Them Everything They Needed To Know

  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,

frustrated him, hated him, made his ministry more difficult, and were, in fact, beneath him by almost every measure both human and theological, and watch him be both honest and loving to everyone, and, the gospels tell us, he never flipped anybody off in traffic.

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.  

Part 7 -- Discipleship Arm Dance: He Chose Four Others

  11 Pentecost 2013

Father Adam Trambley

August 4, 2013, St. John’s Sharon

The Discipleship Arm Dance – Part 7:

He chose four others.

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 eight steps, and we’re headed down the home stretch.  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, and just how we might win that victory.  We talked last week about Jesus’ purpose and how our purpose fits into his.  Today we are focusing on: “He chose four others.”

OK, so the first question on everybody’s minds is, “What do you mean, ‘He chose four others.’?  We know about Jesus choosing the twelve apostles.  We know about Jesus choosing the seventy and sending them out.  What’s with the four?” 

Not these four

Well, if you look at Matthew, chapter four, right after Jesus announces his purpose, he chooses four others.  He is walking along the seashore and there are Peter, Andrew, James and John.  He calls them and they follow him.  After they leave their nets, Jesus ministers to the crowds and begins the Sermon on the Mount.  So he chose four.  Certainly he later chose the twelve.  He chose the seventy.  He had one-hundred and twenty followers in the upper room at Pentecost.  He preached to, healed, and fed thousands at a time.  But the four were especially important because they were taught everything they needed to know not just through information, but also through life-on-life formation.  

Throughout Jesus’ ministry, these chosen four are with him, or at least three of them are.  At the Transfiguration, Peter, James and John are on the mountain with Jesus.  When he raises a young girl from the dead, Peter, James and John are in the house with him.  In Mark chapter 13 when Jesus is talking about the future of Jerusalem, Peter, James, John and Andrew are the four who are present. When he is in the Garden of Gethsemane, Peter, James and John are close by.  These four are the people who experience the most significant moments of Jesus’ life, so they learn not only the content he teaches, but what it means to live out that teaching.  Next week, we’ll look at the content.  Today, what’s important is how Jesus passed on that content. 

Jesus chose four others who could each live out his teaching in their own ways.  Even though they were sets of brothers, they had pretty different personalities.  Peter is most familiar to us.  He’s the brash one who isn’t afraid to step out in front and make a mistake.  If Jesus asks a question, Peter’s hand goes up.  If Jesus is outside the boat, Peter is going to walk on the water.  If everyone is thinking something, Peter will say it out loud. 

St. John (by Alanzo Cano)

Then we have John, who we know as the beloved disciple and the source of the fourth gospel and the letters of John and Revelation.  He’s the introspective poet and worship leader.   While Peter’s rallying the troops for a work day, John’s leading a contemplative prayer meeting before he writes some praise music.  He one of those people who is just blissfully happy being in love with Jesus. 

We know less about John’s older brother James.  He seems to have been more of the institutional sort, being interested in getting a good spot in Jesus’ kingdom and asking whether fire could be called down on a town that rejected them.   He was the first apostle martyred, and maybe Herod persecuted him because he was the one primarily responsible for organizing the early church and keeping it running. 

Finally, Andrew was the socializer, out and about.  Somehow he missed being present at the Transfiguration, but he was the one who knew the kid who brought five loaves and two fish to the picnic.  He was also the one who worked with Philip to bring the Greeks to Jesus right before the passion. 

Among themselves, these four made a small core community. Each of them readily took to parts of Jesus life and teaching, and each struggled with different pieces.  But together they could, and did, pass on everything Jesus taught them by how they lived their lives.

A hundred people, or even twelve, couldn’t be privy to all the problems and struggles Jesus’ faced.  He could only share that with a select few, not because he only wanted to choose four, but because there are only so many people at a time that one person can have an intense family kind of relationship with.  It’s hard to cry out to God about the trials you are facing in front of a dozen people, but a few key friends could be supportive.  Even Peter, James, and John needed further instruction about what they experienced on the Mount of Transfiguration, and Jesus could never have talked to Moses and Elijah with dozens of people present.   They would have built the booths before the conversation was over.  Even with the instruction he gave the twelve, and the authority he gave the seventy and the signs he gave the crowds, there were still things that he could only share with his three or four closest disciples -- not special secrets, but the living example of what he taught everyone else. 

Then those four passed it on to others, probably choosing a few close friends they lived with, as well as the crowds they taught.  We don’t have written down a lot of what the disciples did, but traditional tells us that Peter passed on what he knew to John Mark, who wrote the second gospel.  We can assume the others had similar core followers, as well.  We know that Barnabas chose Paul to work with, and Paul later chose folks like Silas and Timothy and Titus, who chose others themselves and taught them everything they needed to know. 

Now this may seem counter-intuitive to the spread of the Gospel.  We think of making an impact with huge numbers at a time.  Church, to be considered successful during our times, has generally involved programs with significant attendance and large crowds.  And certainly there is a time and place for big events.  Even Jesus fed and preached to thousands of people on certain occasions.

But if our focus is on helping unchurched people become Christian, or even helping previously nominal Christians begin to live their whole lives for God, then the big events aren’t enough.  The only way to help people live for Christ in all aspects of their lives is to allow them to experience how we live for Christ in all aspects of our lives and to ask questions along the way.  What does it look like to live in a Christian family?  How does a Christian deal with money?  Or work? Or anger? Or sex? Or fear?  How does a Christian incorporate prayer and worship into their lives?  While all of these questions could be answered intellectually in a very long new members’ class, none of them are really going to take root until a person sees someone they respect, someone who cares for them, someone who take the time to be with them, someone who is living out their Christian values and helping that new believer along. 

Of course, this approach is going to take more than a chat at coffee hour every other Sunday morning.  This step really means choosing up to four people and making them part of your life on a regular basis.  After we have given ourselves over to God and defeated the devil in our life and know our purpose, we are ready to look for people in the non-church parts of our lives and choose them.  Maybe we know people who are in a financial mess.  Maybe we know people whose families are falling apart.  Maybe we know people who are desperately searching for meaning and not finding it.  We can choose those people and let them know we have a better way and teach them what they need to know, even if they don’t start out going to church and even if they have never expressed the slightest interest in the God or the Jesus they were previously told about – a Jesus who didn’t have followers that loved them enough to help them get their lives back together. 

Now choosing four others isn’t about finding people whose business you want to get into and tell them what to do.  Instead, we are looking for people who we can take the risk to love enough to invite into our lives and see a better way of living than they know now.  Then, slowly, over a couple of years, they can learn not only what Jesus said, but how to put those teachings into practice.  And, by the way, as we show them, we’ll live out Jesus’ teachings better ourselves.

One of the beauties of this approach is that it allows for multiplication, which is much more powerful than addition.  The traditional approach of a church that isn’t growing is to get as many people to come together to hear from an expert.  Then everyone goes home and does what they can on their own.  Maybe two people, who are friends that both attended, talk about what they heard.  Certainly there are times and places for classes and forums, usually to strengthen and develop current disciples.  But by choosing four others and teaching them what they need to know, every active Christian can pass on how they live a Christian life to one to four others over a couple of years.  Then, once those people have gotten it, they can go choose four others themselves.  And so on.  Within three years, if everyone in church choses four others, the church more than doubles.  (In fact, the church is multiplying in exactly this way in parts of Asia where churches are using this model.)  Even if just a small group of leaders decided to try to make disciples this way, the church is going to grow exponentially pretty quickly.  Five brave Christians this year going out and choosing a few others leads to fifteen new disciples in three years, fifty in six years, and over two-hundred in ten years.  Those who are chosen and learn everything they need to know don’t just become church attenders, but are people living Christian lives who are ready to choose others as well.  

Following Jesus’ life-on-life formation offers powerful possibilities, and is the only way that the church can hope to grow at the same rate as the population is growing.  Note, too, that many of the non-Christians we choose will be from unchurched families and social networks, so when they go out and choose others they will reach whole communities of non-believers that those of us here today can’t easily reach ourselves. 

Certainly God wants us to feed and teach hundreds and thousands of people when we can.  Small groups of a dozen or so, like the apostles, are also necessary, especially for ministries and development of current Christians.  But Jesus model is also to choose four others that can be significant parts of our entire lives, lives which we have dedicated to him.  We can’t expect to reach unchurched, non-Christians with the same kind of advertising we have used over the past decades to draw crowds to church events.  But we can love a few receptive people to a significant degree.  The work isn’t easy, which is why so few churches are engaging it.  But choosing four others will be fruitful and life giving to those we choose, as well as to us.

All 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.