8 July 2012

14th Sunday in Ordinary Time B
Mark 6:1-13
8 July 2012


Last week, our text from 2nd Corinthians and Nativity’s annual meeting just passed together brought us into a good place to talk about financial stewardship – namely, being a Biblical Giver.
This week’s Gospel carries us forward … in a fine serial fashion … this morning … with a lesson on how to be a Biblical Live-r.
It’s a text ripe with instruction on discipleship. Discipleship … growth in personal discipleship … growth in corporate discipleship … this is The Hot Topic in faith circles today.
Fifty years ago, it all used to be about Membership … Membership in a church, put on a par with having your union card, belonging to the YMCA and the DAR and the Elvis Presley Fan Club. It was the socially acceptable, meet, right, and salutary thing to do.
But then … but then people started to realize that you could be a member of an organization without ever actively participating in its activities. Fill out your application, pay your dues, and you were in. And of course the church worked that way too. Most church constitutions -- including ours -- have a clause in them stating that “an active church member means someone who has made a donation of record” (usually $1) and “who has communed once in the past year.”
So you can legally be an active, voting church member just by showing up at Christmas or Easter, and one of those two times, putting a buck in the offering plate.
Ah, but that’s a human rule, certainly.
Once again, Lutherans have an enduring, faithful word on all this … whether we paid attention to it or not … our Confessional word about Church Membership is that people become Church Members in their Baptism … it’s Baptism … God’s act … not ours … which makes one a Member of the Church with a capital C ... as in “One Holy catholic and apostolic Church” … and That is the Most Important Word about belonging.
God chooses us, in Water and Word of forgiveness, promise and hope … once and for all in our Baptism … and the flowing stream of living water, once poured over us, has a continual effect, yesterday, today, and into God’s tomorrow, with and for us.
Now I realize that individual congregations – as legally incorporated entities – need to say somewhere in their incorporating documents (like our congregation’s constitution) what makes an active, voting member; you have to draw the line somewhere. But remember that word … that Membership word … is a human word … and has no standing with God whatsoever. It’s a congregational bookkeeping term, and nothing more. Period.
What matters to God is the Baptismal Word … as we have it clearly printed in our worship folder during these green summer months … let’s turn to page 12 and read that Word together …

A Word from Luther’s Small Catechism on Holy Baptism:
What then is the significance of a baptism with water?
Baptism means that we hear the call daily to repent to God and our neighbor –
to confess the bad things we think and say and do. And daily through that repentance, God promises to forgive us, so that we may live new lives, for the sake of the world and each other.

It is the Baptismal Word that makes the difference for us.
It is the Baptismal Word … flowing streams of living water … with, for, in us … which make us into Biblical Givers.
And it is the Baptismal Word … flowing streams of living water … with, for, in us … which make us into Biblical Live-rs.
Discipleship … THIS IS WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT FOR US … WALKING WET IN GOD’S BAPTISMAL WORD.
And today’s Gospel text, as I said, offers us fine instruction on how to be Biblical Live-rs ... disciples ... of Jesus.
Throughout the Gospels, Jesus offers his disciples ... then, and now ... a clear, four-step approach to discipleship:

• I do, you watch;
• I do, you help;
• You do, I help;
• You do, I watch.

Here in our Gospel reading today, we see all four of these steps in action.
First, note what happens to Jesus in the initial section of today’s text. He goes to his hometown, to teach, and he’s roundly dismissed by his own townspeople. They just can’t believe that God would use one who was to them so common and ordinary, to do the extraordinary work of God!

Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?

As the text says, they took offense at him. And so Jesus moved on ... not, as you note, not without doing the relatively minor work (!) of curing a few sick people through his touch. Minor, indeed.
Note, too, that all through this story it’s noted that his disciples followed him. They watched as Jesus preached and taught ... they saw how he was roundly dismissed -- Jesus’ point in showing this to them was that not everyone would listen ... they went on with him, as he left his hometown and kept teaching in the surrounding villages.
I do, you watch.
But you, watch what happens next. Jesus called to the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits.
Here’s I do, you help and You do, I help in action. Kind of all rolled into one, but the point is there ... Jesus right here at this still early point in his ministry begins the transition to the disciples’ carrying on his mission and ministry, so that even after he’s gone, the Word will still be proclaimed.
And note how his instructions reflect what had happened to him in the section prior, when he – Jesus – was doing and they – the disciples – were watching.
First – he tells them how to dress and what to take with them, and how to lodge while they’re on the road.
But then – he gives them the word on what to do when people won’t listen ... just as the people of Jesus’ hometown took offense at him, so too, Jesus says to the disciples, this could, will happen to you too.
So ... do what you saw me do, is what he tells them. Move on to the next town, just as I did with you.
And see what happens. It’s you do, I watch. They – the disciples – they cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.
If we read Luke’s version of this story ... where Jesus sends out 70 disciples, not just twelve ... this point becomes even more clear.

The seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!” Jesus said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning.”

And this, this is just one story, one example from the Gospels, of how Jesus intends for his disciples to be raised up, to be trained, for deployment in Jesus’ name ... this is just one example of Jesus’ tried-and-true way of creating Biblical Live-rs – active, faithful disciples ...

• I do, you watch;
• I do, you help;
• You do, I help;
• You do, I watch.

Which is precisely the way we shall be, as we follow Jesus’ call to raise up new disciples. We ourselves, and others. Since that was Jesus’ main work ... so shall it be ours, too.
I know you’ve heard me say it, and say it, and say that I’ve said it again and again over the past eight years (following another rule of Jesus’ – tell them, tell them again, and tell them that you told them ... ah, but that’s ANOTHER sermon) ... but the old days when we could count on “church membership alone” to get us – the church – through – whatever situations the world gave to us ... big situations, like disasters and economic crises and political instability ... and regular old run of the mill daily stuff, like the grinding, wearing on that gets to each and every one of us ... well, those days are OVER ... those days when we just made these kind of assumptions about people...

(well, they’ll just join and be church members just like us ... so they’ve got to know everything there is to know about faith, church, Jesus, and all that; they’ll come and serve on committees like we did, they’ll come to worship and fill the pews and chairs like we did, they’ll take an active role in serving the institution like we did) ... and so on ...

No! In these days of re-awakened faith, re-formed faith, what a number of Christian writers and thinkers are calling the Second Reformation ... we’re going back to Scripture, back to the stories of Jesus, and finding that what makes a disciple of Jesus is what Jesus has done for them ... US ... we’re realizing that relying on the human bookkeeping term of “church membership” won’t save us ... we see that the wall which separates “inside the church” from “outside the church” needs to come down, because we’re realizing that Jesus is active and alive in people’s lives OUTSIDE THE CHURCH ... and there is plenty of INSIDES THE CHURCH that need to be blasted open, to let the revitalizing fresh air of the Gospel in, to cleanse, to purify, to heal and make whole and new once again.
And the way it shall be done, the way we shall learn from each other, the way we shall grow in discipleship together ... is by following Jesus’ example ... first, teaching each other how to be Biblical Live-rs ... disciples ... teaching each other how to read Scripture, how to discuss this life of faith, how to share stories of how Jesus is active in our lives, how to pray individually and together with and for each other ...

... being church, not just Belonging To A Church.

Jesus does not promise an easy road. But then, in that four-fold way of making disciples, he told us that from the beginning ... as it was the same for him ... and they took offense at him.
Nor do we know what precisely we shall be about as we hear his call to follow ... what kind of healing, what kind of bad spirits we may cast out ... but we do know that there is plenty ... plenty, in our homes and schools, our jobs and lives with friends, our life together as congregations of Jesus’ disciples ... plenty of illnesses to heal, plenty of bad spirits to cast out, like poverty and hopelessness and despair.
But through it all, Jesus promises us that he will be there, with and for us, as we embark together on this discipleship journey.
And it is a journey ... to be sure ... not a destination ...

... well, when I get this much faith, I’ll be there; when we get a building with a real kitchen and bigger bathrooms, then we’ll be there ...

No, this life, this faith, it is a journey; as it was for those first disciples, so it shall be for us; Jesus, walking with us, leading, guiding, teaching, discipling us; we, walking with others, sometimes teaching, sometimes learning, always growing in faith, in love, in service to and for each other.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.