WE Are His Disciples

John 1:43-51

“Speak, Lord, for your servants are listening.” Give us ears to hear Jesus calling, “Follow me.” Help us find ways to “Come and see.”

The calling of disciples is a mystery, something profound, sacred, and beyond complete human comprehension. It usually involves divine intervention in a person’s life and a deep personal transformation with significant changes in their beliefs, values, and behavior, and deepening of spiritual awareness and understanding

So we have to ask:

Who is called to be a disciple?

What qualities are required to be a disciple?

What is a calling? According to the Webster International Dictionary, ‘Calling’ is a strong inner impulse toward a particular course of action, particularly when convinced of divine influence.

Calling disciples involves Jesus approaching individuals, often fishermen or other ordinary people, and inviting them to:

“Follow me,”

The people left their current occupations and families to become Jesus’ followers.

They heard a voice only their inner self could listen to. Once heard, the call redirects their lives. They had found meaning in following Jesus.

Isn’t it interesting that Jesus never said to make disciples by taking them to church—or a Bible study group? Not that these activities aren’t an integral part of a disciple’s growth, but the calling is much more personal.

What makes us and others disciples of Jesus?

• People more concerned about individual souls than numbers to fill a church.
• People striving to be like Jesus rather than complaining, criticizing, and confronting from a distance.
• People willing to leave their comfort zone to teach instead of hiding behind four walls and waiting for someone to appear.
• People standing up for the gospel’s truth rather than caving when friends or family members exert pressure.
• People who know what the Bible says and say what the Bible teaches instead of giving personal opinions or quoting off-the-wall scholars.
• People praying without ceasing instead of constantly harping.
• People with open hearts and homes and Bibles rather than closed off to offering their time and presence.

Maybe they’re nowhere near you. So you have a great opportunity: become one of them. Learn how to become a faithful follower of Jesus Christ. Start from scratch. You and the Holy Spirit. You and the divine power of God. You and the gospel truth of Jesus that transforms lives and saves souls.

When Jesus returned to heaven after His resurrection, He left His followers explicit instructions for the people there with Him that day and for every follower of Jesus who would come after them. He said,

“Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19–20).

God wants his people to go out into the world. The religious folk prefer clusters and cloisters, the safety of numbers where one can sway with the crowd and avoid risk in the work of the Kingdom.

Which am I?

Which are you?

The Kingdom begins with me. I, for one, am determined that it will not end with me.

Will you join me?

Jesus only has us to become disciples and encourage others to join us. Faith passes from person to person. Discipleship is simply helping people become better friends with God.

Jesus Himself used the concept of friendship to describe what He’s looking for from us in John 15:14-16:

“No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.”

Jesus did not call exceptional, famous, or influential people to be his friends.

• He publicly endorsed Matthew – a despised tax collector who stole from his people.
• He commissioned a naked man possessed by demons as his first missionary.
• He entrusted a promiscuous Samaritan woman with his testimony.
• He held up a Roman centurion, the military enemy of the Jewish people, as an outstanding example of faith in Israel.
• He let Mary of Bethany – a woman- sit at his feet in the place of a man.
• He handpicked James and John – uneducated fishermen as his protégés.
• He selected Peter – a headstrong, unfaithful loudmouth to be the foundation for his church.
• He chose Paul – the murderer of the church, to proclaim his name to the Gentiles, their kings, and the people of Israel.

Over and again, Jesus picked the most unlikely characters to represent him—the least of these, the outsiders, the bottom of the food chain.

He calls each of us to become disciples, doing what we can to expand the teachings of Jesus and the Kingdom of God.

So, I challenge you to reach out to just ONE person, carrying the message of the Love of God and salvation through Jesus. It isn’t that hard:

• Greet someone here who you do not know 
• Talk to someone at coffee hour and ask them to come again
• Ask your neighbor to go to a church function.

If you do, marvelous things can happen!

Remember the words of Saint Teresa of Ávila:

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.

Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.

Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world.

Christ has no body now on earth but yours.[1]

Will you commit yourself to becoming a disciple of Jesus?

Let us pray:

We come before you with a heart open to your guidance and a spirit eager to walk in the path of discipleship. Lord, we recognize the call to follow you, to be your disciple, and to grow in our faith each day.

Grant us the strength to leave behind our old ways and embrace Jesus’ teachings. Please help us to surrender our will to yours and to trust in your divine plan for our lives.

Fill us with the wisdom of your Word so that we may understand the depth of your love and the purpose you have for us as a disciple. May your Holy Spirit guide our steps and illuminate our understanding as we strive to follow in the footsteps of Jesus.

Amen.

 

(Starts at 3:36–15:42)

Delivered at Ohio Living Westminster Thurber Tower and Westminster Terrace, Columbus, OH; 14 January 2024

 

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[1]      Saint Teresa of Avila (1515-1582), No Hands But Ours

From NAZARETH!?!?

John 1:43-51

Let us pray:

Helps us to allow your words to work in us, so that we may take it home with us; so that our week may be filled with the gift your grace gives us today. Let us not forget what we have heard but rather build on it; give us the love it takes to build, let this love work in us. Remain the light of our days, become the goal of our love, and bestow on us through this homily a new life in your faith, a life that is both prayer and work in your love. Amen.

Our gospel reading today comes from John – the fourth and most mystical and philosophical of the gospels. The last of the gospels written, John is less a historical narrative of Jesus’ life and works, and more a multi-level commentary about his teachings and their meanings for our lives. John Shelby Spong describes John’s gospel as:

“a book about life, abundant life, and ultimately eternal life. . . a book to be lived as much as a volume to be mastered”.[1]

The first chapter of John completely ignores the birth stories and jumps straight into Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist, and the beginning of His ministry. In our passage today, Jesus has travelled to Galilee and begun recruiting His followers and disciples. One of those selected is Nathanael, mentioned only three times in the Bible, and introduced to Jesus by Philip of Bethesda.

Let’s take a look at Nathanael for a moment. He was a friend of Philip; he must have been a good friend since Philip wanted to introduce him to the one he loved, this powerful new force in his life – Jesus. We all have close friends, ones that when we discover someone or something extra special, we want to rush out and be sure that that friend meets the new person or experiences that special thing for themselves. We can deduce that Nathanael was such a friend of Philip’s.

Philip described Jesus to Nathanael as:

the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth (John 1:45)

Like many young Jewish men of that time, Philip was obviously a religious man and a student of the Torah. It is clear that Nathanael was also a religious man; we heard that he prayed for the arrival of the Messiah that would save Israel. It was interesting to me to learn that ancient Jewish writers equated ‘gathering figs’ or being ‘under the fig tree’ with a sacred place of prayer, study and meditation on the Torah, a place of longing for the Messiah to show himself as King. Jesus’ vision of Nathanael in this passage as sitting beneath a fig tree, is a clear indication that Jesus knew Nathanael was a serious student of the Torah also.

But Nathanael was not so sure about meeting this man, Jesus. Why not? Because of where He came from – Nazareth! It seems Nathanael, like most of us, tended to judge people by where they came from.

In his response to the invitation from Philip to come meet this marvelous man, it appears that Nathanael said what he thought, without any filters, when he replied:

“Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” (John 1:45)

He couldn’t get past the fact that, in that time, Nazareth was considered a backwater town, a place of mud houses, low income and populated by what generally would have been considered the ‘red necks’ of the time. He couldn’t get past his prejudice of what he thought Nazareth was.

In fact, in this new year’s list of the ‘top ten best’ and ‘top ten worst’, Nathanael would have listed Nazareth and its people on the ‘top ten worst’, maybe even at the top of that list. Nathanael presupposed that anyone from Nazareth was insignificant, unworthy of attention. . . without having a basis for this prejudice. He came to that conclusion based on his personal perceptions, or as my grandmother used to say, ‘He jumped to convulsions’. He was a prejudiced and judgmental man.

Just what is prejudice? The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines ‘prejudice’

• ‘as a preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience;
• an adverse opinion or leaning formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge;
• an irrational attitude of hostility directed against an individual, a group, a race, or their supposed characteristics.’

There is a little or a lot of prejudice in all of us. It is so hard to admit we are prejudiced. Prejudices makes us blind to things that could enrich our lives and gladden our hearts. We all have prejudices that prevent us from being our best selves, opening to new people and experiences, and fully following the teachings of Jesus.

I imagine, if we would admit it, every one of us in this sanctuary is prejudiced in some way. We all tend to group people by race, or occupation, or sexual orientation, or politics, or income, or place of origin, and then we pigeonhole individuals and judge them because they belong to one of those groups.

One of my greatest prejudices I recognized when I spent time in Salt Lake City, working for a company that was laying the Alaskan pipeline. I had grown up as an Air Force brat, and had assumed, because of the diversity in the military, that I was not prejudiced. But, was I SO wrong. I discovered that I really disliked the Mormon religion – not because of the individual members, but because of their position on women, and, particularly, unmarried women. I supervised a group of engineers in a manufacturing plant, and constantly heard from the men that I was taking food off a family’s table. I even heard it at the hardware store when I went to buy a pair of dog clippers. I was admonished by the sales clerk that because I was not married, I would not be going to the ‘real’ heaven, but only a place where I would be a handmaid to those gods and goddesses who were favored enough to gain entrance to the ‘celestial’ paradise.

Anyone who knows anything about me can imagine how that sat in my craw. I was furious that my worth would only be measured by marriage and the number of children I could produce! I had to admit to myself that I was

PREJUDICED. . .

BIGOTED . . .

JUDGMENTAL!

Boy, was that a shock to my psyche!

But, eventually, I came to admire many aspects of the Mormon religion, as I saw numerous acts of kindness and generosity lived out by the Mormon people to those not of their faith.

And the good news is that God, through the people we come in contact with, and experiences we may have, can break down our prejudices, . . if we will allow it. Because of Nathanael’s relationship with Philip, despite his conviction that

“nothing good can come from Nazareth” (John 1:45),

Nathanael went with Philip to meet Jesus, a man he had never met. But, Nathanael was not unknown to Jesus – we hear later in the Gospel:

Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and saith of him, “Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!” (John 1:47)

Even though Nathanael was wary of people from Nazareth, and therefore – Jesus, Jesus recognized the goodness deep within Nathanael. Just as he sees the goodness within each of us! It didn’t take Nathanael long to realize that his prejudice was misplaced; that he had, indeed, found the Messiah.

As we now know, something good DID come out of Nazareth! Jesus came from that little backwater town to teach us the most valuable lesson there is –  everlasting, eternal love!

So, if we put our prejudices aside and follow Philip’s advice to Nathanael to

“come and see” (John 1:46)

we will see who Jesus really is, what following His way can do for us, and we will know that the best is yet to come. How many opportunities for new love, growth, inspiration and joy can be ours if we put our prejudices aside each day and become open to people, ideas and experiences that we may have formerly shunned.

So, let’s take time this week to reflect on what prejudices we each may have – and vow to work hard on changing these thoughts. . . and be ready and willing to

“come and see” (John 1:46)

Let us be ready to meet Jesus anew in the face of every person we encounter and every challenge we face.

Let us pray:

Holy God, ignorant, hurtful, hateful words churn in our hearts; they wound or distract us from your love. We are called to contradict those words and prejudices within us; it’s a lot to ask of us. Remind us, and then remind us again: Your Word is life. Your Word is light. Your Word is full of grace, full of truth. Whatever words we hear, whatever words tumble through our thoughts, let yours be the Word we speak. Let yours be the Word we live. Amen.
 
[1] John Shelby Spong, The Fourth Gospel: Tales of a Jewish Mystic, HarperOne, New York, 2014; p 9
 

Delivered at Saint John’s Episcopal Church of Worthington and Parts Adjacent, Worthington, OH; 14 January 2018