Discipleship

In the early eighties, an Indian guru, Sathya Sai Baba, became very popular among young spiritually inclined people. As well as being a spiritual teacher, Sai Baba had some unusual abilities. He could produce candy, watches and other trinkets, and more importantly an unusual scented holy ash called Vibhuti from his fingertips. Many of my friends in Scotland started to become his devotees. He appeared to them in their dreams, and his photos manifested small piles of Vibhuti.

Sai Baba did not come to me in my dreams. He did not call me to be his devotee, his disciple. He did not send me Vibhuti. I felt left out and a little unwanted. I longed to have a spiritual teacher who could teach me how to be deeply spiritual myself.

Of course what I didn’t understand, and probably didn’t want to know because it wasn’t glamorous, was that I had a spiritual teacher already - Jesus the Christ, with the Holy Spirit and our Creator.

In today’s reading from Matthew we hear Jesus at the beginning of his ministry calling some of his disciples. “he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.”

We are here this morning because Jesus has called us to be his disciples. And on some level, whether immediately like Simon and Andrew or rather reluctantly and slowly, like me, we have heard his call.

What does it mean to be Jesus’ disciple today?

In our conversation on Wednesday morning, theologian Marcus Borg, said that Jesus had two focuses in his teaching – the Way and the Kingdom. The Way is the spiritual path of deepening our walk with God, being devotees of Jesus and being transformed more and more into Christ-like beings. The Kingdom is our work of bringing the reign of God into manifestation in this world, as we pray in the prayer Jesus taught us, “thy kingdom, thy will be done, on earth as in heaven.” It is living the values of the reign of God here and now and working for social justice, working for the Great Shalom, where all beings live in peace, justice and dignity.

Which is very different from the world we are living in, and the one Jesus lived in. The fighting, beatings and the death of protestors we are seeing in Minnesota today would have been familiar to him, living under Roman rule in a brutal society which hit first and asked questions later, if ever.

The essence of Jesus’ life, teaching and death shows that a system based on blaming others, a system based on violence, does not bring life or human flourishing. Jesus conquered death. Jesus came back. Yet he did not blame or shame – he was the perfect self-giving victim – the one who was blamed for the unrest in Jerusalem. The one who was blamed, not just by the Roman authorities but by his very own people. Just like those who have been killed in Minneapolis Jesus was described as a ‘domestic terrorist.’

None of us wants to be blamed. None of us wants to be scapegoated. But it is part of human nature. In order to feel better about ourselves we humans gang up on others, belittling them and excluding them. Yet this is not the way of the Kingdom. in the reign of God people forgive one another, not holding grudges and making negative judgments against each other. In the reign of God power is in self-giving love, not in belittling, in violence and victimizing.

It seems that we have entered a time when the rule of law is questioned, when blaming and retribution are commonplace, where might is right. Which requires us as disciples of Jesus to be ever vigilant and refuse to be drawn into it. To resist the dominant language, the dominant mindset, of our culture.

It is hard. But discipleship is hard.

The culture around us is like a great river and it is easy for us to get swept along in the current. Then as we are pulled down the river it is easy to get caught up the detritus which is flowing down – the negativity and divisiveness; the self-aggrandizement and desire to take care of number one, the willingness to lie and to accept lies in the place of truth. Turning around and swimming upstream is difficult and that is for us the cost of discipleship.

Jesus’ disciples were living with him to learn from him, just as Sai Baba’s devotees flocked to his ashram in India to be close to him. We have the privilege of the Holy Spirit living with us to teach us in every moment. And one of the ways that the Holy Spirit works is through each other, which is why faith communities such as St Peters are so very important. One of the functions of faith community is to help us stay conscious. To help us remember our values. To help us remember the Jesus we follow.

I am deeply grateful for this community of faith. I am grateful to each one of you who shares your life, your glimpsings of God, your ideas and your inspirations.

There are many false prophets today who teach a Christianity which is not based on the teachings of Jesus. They argue that America was founded as a Christian country and should return to its roots but they forget that Jesus ate with prostitutes and sinners, they forget that he talked to women, to Samaritans and foreigners. They forget that Jesus never called anyone scum, that Jesus preached love and inclusivity and that he was a rabbi grounded in the Hebrew scriptures which repeatedly call for care for the stranger and the foreigner.

The great light which Isaiah foretold is in the gospel of Jesus – the non-violent Savior – who did not blame or shame but who triumphed over the evils of this world – the evils of victimization and violence. The gospel of Jesus the Christ who emptied himself in his human life and in his death on the cross.

This is the Jesus we follow, this is the Jesus we seek to imitate. This is the one who leads us in the Way and in the Kingdom.

Being the disciples of Jesus does not reward us with holy ash or with candy and trinkets. It rewards us with a deeper and deeper knowledge of the God who is life itself. We follow the greatest spiritual teacher of them all who makes himself known to us in creation, in scripture, in the eucharist and in the community of his beloved, the church.

Let us resist the swirling current of our culture of increasing violence and return again and again to following the one who is the Prince of Peace.

the Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall