Discipleship

    Jesus said, “If you love me, you will obey what I command.”  Many of us here this morning are a little uncomfortable with commands...or at least certain commands?  We chafe under the seeming inflexibility of “the rules,” we bend God’s commands and sometimes break them and try to explain them away or just plain ignore them.  Sometimes rules seem dusty and  out of date and senseless anyway.  Did you know that in Tennessee, it is illegal for a driver to be blindfolded while driving a vehicle?  In Indiana, it is against the law to shoot open a can of food. (So that’s why they make pop tops!)  In Kentucky, it is a crime to use a reptile during any part of a religious service.  “I don’t care if it is testimony time...put that snake away!”

“Thin places.” In every age, in every land, people who seek the divine have always believed special places exist . . . sacred spaces where the Spirit of Life comes near. “Thin places.” Those were the words a Scottish gardener used to describe the island of Iona, just off the Western coast of Scotland. That rocky, windswept island was home to the radiant Columba, who in the sixth century founded a monastery that became the beating heart of a missionary movement that eventually stretched all the way across the dark lands of Western Europe. “Ah,” said the gardener, “Iona is a very thin place!” Asked to explain his words, he remarked, “There’s very little between Iona and the Lord.”
Have you found “thin places,” where the barriers between heaven and earth are permeable...where anything could happen, where God comes near?

    Philemon, a man of some means, had lost one of his house servants, a man named “Onesimus” or  “Useful” had run away.  Philemon had traced the runaway’s path, but the trail grew cold.  Now where does he show up but in the company of  Paul, the servant of Christ. “I’m writing to you about ‘Useful,’ who has become a son to me while I’ve been in jail,” Paul wrote.  “Now before you call 911 or send the Bounty Hunter,  I want you to read this letter in its entirety.  I know you probably want to change your servant’s name from ‘Useful’ to ‘Useless,’ but I believe that he might become ‘useful’ to both of us, and perhaps that’s the Lord’s doing.  ‘Useful’ has become a man of faith, a servant of Christ, a helper to me in my present condition.  Nevertheless, he belongs to you and I’m writing to tell you that I’m sending him home.”
    “Now--before you break out the handcuffs and the chains, listen to this old man, who has been a father in the faith to you, and a prisoner of Jesus Christ.  I beg you to do something for me.  Have mercy on ‘Useful.’ 

    This morning’s story exposes our blindness to the poor.  How many other blind spots do you suppose we have?  In how many other areas of our lives are we running roughshod over the gospel, thinking that we’re doing just fine, when in reality we’re totally lost.  The pages of scripture are filled with people who should have seen, but didn’t.  The disciples heard all Jesus’ words about loving your enemies and being kind to those who mistreat you.  But when a certain village rejected Jesus’ message and told him to move on down the road, James and John were livid and said, “Hey Lord...Do you want us to call fire down from heaven on them?”  Or our morning scripture a few weeks ago was about slavery.  Paul wrote to slaves, “Now you be good and work hard for Master, especially if he’s a Christian.”  Maybe even Paul didn’t get the entire picture all at once.

Regardless of the accomplishments and faith of our fathers and mothers...from Rahab and Sampson and David to the martyrs of the Church all the way down to Josephus Hopwood and Toyozo Nakarai and Mildred Dampier and Bill and Lela Lacey and Marvin Patton all the way down to Rodney Oakes...their story is incomplete without you...without us.  We have our part to accomplish in this long epic tale of faith.  We have our stories to add.  We have our work to do.

    Isn’t it interesting that most of our movies are filled with images of people dishonoring their parents, murdering fellow humans, committing adultery, stealing, and bearing false witness against each other?  Isn’t it interesting that the heroes of our culture often do the same?  Isn’t it crushingly sad that the current war we’ve spent five years and a trillion dollars fighting, the war that has left hundreds of  thousands dead, maimed, homeless has been waged over a host of broken commandments: fathers and mothers have not been honored, murder has been baptized, thievery is the order of the day, and the whole thing has been justified by lies and deception and false witness.  These commandments are not just for the individuals; they’re given to teach us corporately how to live in the neighborhood.

We need each other to be the people of God.  Here’s where it’s the hardest.  Our society fragments us, individualizes us, separates us.  It rewards a few and punishes a few.  But to enter the abundant and good land God has promised us, we as a church must unite...we must be deeply involved in one another’s life, we must break the bonds that separate us in our own little houses, our own little rooms, our own little jobs, our own private thoughts and practices.  We need each other.  I can’t imagine what freedom from greed, freedom from brickmaking, freedom from fear looks like unless I see it in you.  When you model the life of Christ, I can grasp it, try it out.  When you open your home to others, I want to open my home.  When you share generously with the needy, it makes me want to open my wallet too. 

What kind of dreams trouble the richest and most powerful nation in the world? We have nightmares of scarcity. There isn’t enough to go around. We’re getting behind. We need more...more money, more of the world’s pie, more stuff from Walmart, more security, more oil. We are goaded by our leaders to be a fearful people– afraid of outsiders, afraid of terrorists, keeping one eye on the colored threat level alert. Is this an orange week or is it yellow again? Pick up the papers and it’s Egypt all over again. We’re worried about immigrants in our midst. How did there come to be so many? What can we do to ensure they don’t turn against us... overpower us? Can we send them back, can we build walls around them? Can we continue to keep them in economic bondage without giving them the freedom to find a home among us? And above all else, like the children of Israel in Egypt, our lives center around work. Work has become the major component of our lives. We have become cogs in Pharaoh’s machine. Work and spend money. 40-50-60 hours a week. We have bought into Pharaoh’s brick-making economy. You’re only worth as many bricks as you can produce in a day.

    It was humility and obedience that brought Jesus to the point of death.  Our Gospel reading takes us to the Mount of Olives on the last night of Jesus’ life.  Here Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane.  The name Gethsemane translates “olive press.”  Jesus often came to this beautiful grove to pray, and on that night it lived up to its name.  Ancient olive presses were simple and effective machines: a basket full of ripe olives was placed on a stone catchment and a massive stone weight came down with crushing force, squeezing the oil out of the olives.  On this last night of earthly life, Jesus came to the “Garden of crushing,” and laid his life under  the weight of the world’s sin and the inexorable will of the Father.