“No Christians Need Apply”
Text:
Luke 14:25-33
© September 9, 2007 by C. Edward Bowen at Crafton
United Presbyterian Church.
I
want to start off this morning by taking a kind of poll, a kind of survey. By raising your hand, how many people here
would say that they are a Christian? It
looks like everyone, or almost everyone, raised their hand. OK, second question: by raising your hand, how many people here
would say that they are a disciple of Jesus?
It doesn’t look like quite as many hands went up, and a lot of the hands
that went up seemed to be raised with a little more hesitation than they were
for that first question.
Are
you a Christian, or are you a disciple of Jesus? Those are the questions that I’m going to
invite us to consider this morning. And
that’s because as we listen to this passage that we read today in the Gospel of
Luke, perhaps to our surprise, we find that Jesus couldn’t possibly care less
if we call ourselves Christians or not.
Yes, you heard that right. Jesus
couldn’t possibly care less if we call ourselves Christians or not. Instead, what Jesus does care about is
whether we’re his disciples or not.
Some
years ago I had an opportunity to go to
But
when I arrived at the church on that particular Sunday morning, I was a little
surprised to see a church staff person standing outside the door. At first I assumed that he was a greeter, that he was there to welcome people inside. But as I got closer to the door, I discovered
that his purpose was actually the exact opposite. His purpose was to shoo people away for the
service – not to shoo everyone away, but to shoo tourists away.
And so that was the only time in my life when I found that I had to
beg to be allowed into a worship service. I had to convince that doorkeeper that I
wasn’t just some tourist – that I wasn’t there just to be amused or
entertained, that I wasn’t there just for something to do, but that I was
serious about wanting to worship God there.
It
made me wonder what would happen if we did the same sort of thing here. It made me wonder what would happen if
instead of posting greeters at the door to welcome and encourage people to come
in, we had people stationed outside the doors who would say to people, “You
don’t really want to go in there, do you?
Do you have any idea what might happen to you if you go in there? Do you have any idea how your life might be
changed if you go in there?” And then
those people stationed outside would only let in those who could prove that
they were truly serious about worshiping God.
Maybe
doing something like that wouldn’t be such a bad idea. After all, that’s essentially what we find
Jesus doing here in this reading from Gospel of Luke. The story begins with a huge crowd of people
following Jesus everywhere he goes. But
that’s not surprising considering the fact that more and more people had heard
about all the wonders that Jesus had been doing: healing the blind and the deaf, casting
demons out of people, feeding thousands of people with just a few pieces of
bread and fish.
But
instead of getting a thrill out of the throngs of people that had begun to
crowd around him, Jesus was troubled because he could sense that a lot of those
people were nothing more than tourists.
Jesus could sense that a lot of those people in the crowd were following
him around so that they could be amused, so that they could be entertained –
they were following him around simply because it was something to do.
And
so Jesus looked at them and basically said to them, “If you follow me, do you
have any idea what you’re getting yourself into? Are you ready to love me even more than you
love your own family? Are you ready to
love me and to follow me even if doing so might cost you your very life?”
In
effect, Jesus was saying to that crowd, “I’m looking for a few good men and
women who want to follow me and who understand the cost that’s involved – but
no ‘Christians’ need apply. If all
you’re going to do is just call yourself a Christian and that’s it, don’t
bother – I don’t need you, I don’t want you.
But if you understand the cost that’s involved and you’re still willing
to be my disciple, then come – come and follow me.”
It
might come as surprise to some people, but the word “Christian” is extremely
rare in the Bible. In fact, in all of
the New Testament it appears only three times, and the word “Christian” never
is found coming from the lips of Jesus.
There is not a single solitary person that Jesus spoke to and said, “I
want you to be a Christian.”
Instead,
what Jesus said over and over again to people is: “I want you to be my disciple.” You see, while the word “Christian” appears
only three times in all of the New Testament, the word “disciple” is used 269
times. That’s significant.
But
the problem is that even though the word “disciple” is extremely common in the
Bible to describe the relationship that Jesus wants to have with people,
“disciple” is not a word that many of us today are familiar with or comfortable
with. No, most of us prefer to think of
ourselves as Christians, not as disciples of Jesus.
For
instance, about a year and a half ago we began to work on creating a mission
statement for a church – a relatively brief sentence to describe what our
purpose is as a congregation. And what
we finally came up with appears on the front of your bulletin each week and on
the front of your church newsletter each month:
God’s mission for Crafton United Presbyterian Church is to be a
community where people grow as disciples of Jesus and minister to those in
need.
But
the part of that mission statement that we spent the most time debating and
struggling with was whether or not to use the word “disciple.” One suggestion was to rephrase it and say
that what we want is for people to grow as “Christians.” Or another suggestion was to rephrase it and
say that what we want is for people grow in their faith. It just seemed that there was something about
that word “disciple” that made people nervous.
After all, “disciple” is such a strange word, such a religious word. But in the end, we decided to keep the word
“disciple” in the mission statement precisely because it is a strange word,
precisely because it is a religious word, precisely because it is a word that
Jesus himself used.
But
what exactly does that word “disciple” mean?
I believe it basically involves three main aspects. First, a disciple is someone who is dedicated
to learning. In particular, a disciple
of Jesus is someone who is dedicated to learning who Jesus is and what Jesus
wants us to do. Second, a disciple is
someone who is dedicated to taking that learning, that knowledge,
and putting it into practice, putting it into action, for the good of
others. And third, a disciple is someone
who is dedicated to taking that knowledge and putting it into practice in relationship with other disciples. In other words, if you’re a disciple of
Jesus, you’re not a Lone Ranger. No, if
you’re a disciple of Jesus, you’re living out your discipleship in cooperation
with other disciples.
When
you think about it, those same basic three aspects are a part of everything
that we decide to do that’s important to us.
When it comes to making a decision about what kind of career we’re going
to pursue, those three aspects come into play.
For instance, if you want to be a teacher, you need to go to college and
learn certain facts and certain skills.
And then you need to put that knowledge into practice. After all, you can’t be certified to be a
teacher unless you successfully do some student teaching and prove that you can
take what you have learned and use that knowledge. And finally, to be a teacher, you need not only
to have knowledge and to be able to use that knowledge, but you also need to be
able to do your teaching in cooperation with other people. As any successful teacher will tell you, you
can’t be a successful teacher all by yourself – no, you need to find a way to
work with the students and with the parents and with the principal and with the
other teachers.
Even
when it comes to hobbies that we take seriously, those same three aspects come
into play. Take, for example, if you
want to play football. First, you need
to dedicate yourself to learning – to learning the rules of the game, learning
the plays, learning the signals. Second,
you need to take that knowledge and practice it. You need to work on taking the knowledge you
have of the game and improve your ability to put that knowledge into
action. And third, if you’re serious
about playing football, it’s not enough to just know how to play, and to do a
great job on the practice field. No, if
you’re serious about playing football, you’ve got to develop your ability to be
a part of a team. You’ve got to develop
your ability to work with the other members of the team so that together you
might reach the goal that you’re aiming for.
When
it comes to our careers, when it comes to our hobbies, when it comes to
anything that really matters in our lives, we know the importance of those
three aspects: the importance of
learning, the importance of putting that learning into action, and the
importance of joining together with others.
But why is it that we apply those three aspects to virtually everything
significant in our lives, except when it comes to our faith?
How
are you doing at being a disciple of
Jesus? To help you answer that question,
I want to invite you to give prayerful attention to the insert in today’s
bulletin. In particular, I want to
encourage you to take that insert home and give serious consideration about how
you want to fill it out. As you seek to
be a disciple of Jesus, what are you willing to commit yourself to do in order
to increase your knowledge of who Jesus is and what he wants for your
life? What are you willing to commit
yourself to do in order to take that knowledge and put it into action for the
good of others? And finally, what are
you willing to commit yourself to do in order to live out your discipleship in
cooperation with other disciples? If you
truly want to be a disciple of Jesus, what are you willing to commit yourself
to do in order become the kind of disciple that Jesus wants you to be?
Although
we might not like to think about it too much, the day is eventually going to
come when we’re going to stand before Jesus and be judged. And when that day comes, the basic question
that Jesus is going to pose to us is this:
do you belong to me – are you my disciple – or not? When that day comes, how will we answer? When that day comes, will we be able to look
Jesus in the eye and say with joy and confidence, “Yes, Jesus, I am your
disciple”? Or when that day comes, will
we have to look away in shame and only then realize that we’ve failed, that
we’ve failed to live up to the calling that Jesus had for us?
Jesus
invites us to come, to come and follow him, to come and be his disciples. Are you prepared to accept that
invitation? Are you prepared to commit
yourself to the kind of life that Jesus wants you to live? If so, then respond to Jesus’ invitation not
just with your words, but with your life.
Respond to Jesus’ invitation by living your life as the disciple he
wants you to be.
Name __________________________
As a sign of my determination to be a disciple of Jesus, I
commit myself to engage in the following practices:
1. To increase my knowledge of who Jesus is and what he wants for my life, I commit myself
to: (check all that apply)
___
To pray at least ____ minutes each day.
___
To spend at least ____ minutes each day reading the Bible.
___
To participate in Sunday School or Bible study.
___
Other (specify______________________________________)
2. To put my
knowledge of Jesus into action, I commit myself to: (check all that apply)
___ I will talk with
at least _____ people in the next _____ weeks and share with them about the
importance of my faith, and invite them to come to worship with me.
___ I will go out of my way to engage in some
caring act for at least ____ people in the next ____ weeks.
___ I will display
generosity by donating at least $_____ more than I had planned to give before
the end of the year.
___ Other (specify ______________________________________)
3. To grow in my
relationships with other disciples, I commit myself to: (check all that apply)
___ Participate
in worship at least _____ Sundays per month.
___ Participate in
the fellowship lunches at least _____ Sundays per month.
____ Join in a
particular service project or fellowship group (specify
__________________________)
____ Other
(specify __________________________________)
(Please return this sheet to the church next Sunday,
September 16.)