Sermon | Epiphany 2A

TEXT: John 1:29a—42

15 January 2017

Discipleship

In the Name +Jesus. Amen.

Dear saints,

This morning’s Gospel is the story of Jesus calling his first disciples. Disciple is a word which means ‘student,’ or ‘follower.’ And so, to be a disciple of Jesus is to be a student of his Word, and to follow where he leads. And it’s not just the original twelve Apostles who are Jesus’ disciples. But everyone who is baptized into Christ Jesus and believes in his name is one of his disciples. Discipleship includes you and me—you are a disciple; I am a disciple. And so this morning, I want to talk about discipleship. What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus? What can we learn about Christian discipleship from this text? I wrote in the welcome, four points about discipleship I want to talk about today. So here goes:

  1. Discipleship means Jesus calls you. You don’t come to him. In the text, Jesus shows up at the Jordan. John points him out, “Behold the Lamb of God.” Here he is: the Messiah, the Savior. And Jesus goes to Andrew and this other unnamed disciple, and says, “Come, come and see.” V39.

Jesus is unique. In the ancient world, students sought out their rabbis, rabbis didn’t seek their students. If you wanted to study under a particular rabbi, you would go to that rabbi, and say, “I want to study with you.” Disciples found their rabbis. Rabbis didn’t find their disciples.

If you think of it, it still works this way today. If you want to be a student under the best teachers of the world, you have to go to the teachers. The teachers don’t come to you. You have to apply to the College, the University. And you have to meet certain standards, qualifications to get in: good grades, a high GPA, a brilliant entrance exam. You have to earn your way tothe best teachers in the world. Students seek their teachers. Teachers don’t seek their students.

But not with Jesus. Jesus seeks his disciples. Discipleship starts with his call, his invitation. And that’s what makes Jesus so different. And his call isn’t based on any qualifications. Think of Andrew and Peter: they weren’t students of the Law. They didn’t come from the priestly line. They didn’t have any family pedigree to boast about. They were simple fishermen.

What does that show? If Jesus is willing to call those with no qualifications to be his disciples, it shows that entrance into his kingdom isn’t by works, but by grace. Think about it: if we had to earn it, if we had to meet God’s standards, if we had to be qualify ourselves to be Jesus’ disciples—none of us would make the cut. None of us meet the standard of total perfection that God’s Law requires. But if Jesus comes calling the unworthy and underserving, it means that his salvation is for us, regardless of who we are, where we’ve come from, or what we’ve done.

And that’s good news for you. Because he’s called you. That means, his salvation is for you.

  1. Discipleship means leaving your former life behind. When Jesus called Andrew and Peter—this isn’t in John’s Gospel, but the other Gospels tell us this—it says, they immediately dropped their nets, and followed him. They stopped being fishermen. They left their vocation behind. When Jesus called John and James—this is even more drastic—it says they dropped their nets,and their father, old man Zebedee, who was still in the boat—they left him behind (poor guy).

Discipleship means leaving your former life behind. I don’t want to mislead you. If you are a layperson, and not an Apostle or a pastor, and God has called you to the vocation of father or mother, son or daughter, husband or wife—that’s precisely where he wants you.When Jesus calls you to be his disciple, if you are a layperson, is not asking you to leave your vocations, and go off and be a missionary in some foreign country. That’s for the Apostles, that’s for pastors as well—to leave their vocations, drop their nets, and become fishers of men. Discipleship doesn’t mean leaving your vocations behind. But it does mean leaving former life behind. What do I mean?

V 38—Jesus turns around to Andrew and this other disciple, and says, “What are you seeking?” These are the first words of Jesus in John’s Gospel.This is a provocative question.It means: “What are you looking for? What are you chasing after? What are you seeking?”

And it’s a question he asks you too.Dear saints, what are you looking for? What are you chasing after to give you peace and happiness in your life? Are you chasing after money? Are you chasing after a career? Are you chasing after a better marriage, better health? Better financial security?What is it? Whatever it is that you’re seeking, Jesus says, leave it behind, and seek me instead.

Luther in the Large Catechism, has this brilliant section where he defines God. What is a God? What does it mean to have a god? And Luther says, a god is anything in which you put your trust. What are you trusting, what are you placing your confidence in, what are you looking to as the source of every good thing in your life? Luther says,whatever that thing is, that is your god.

And that definition, anything can become a god. Money, a career, family can become a god. When Jesus calls you to be his disciples, he calls you to leave your former life behind. And that implies dropping dead to all of the other gods, and all of the other idols you’ve been serving. And to start seeking after him, as the source of every good thing in your life.

  1. Discipleship means finding your identity in him.In the ancient world, people used to find their identity in their family. But today, more than anything, we find our identity in our career. We can see this in the way we talk to little kids. We ask little kids, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” And we never expect them to say, “I want to be a mom, dad, husband, wife.” We expect them to say a profession, a career: “I want to be a doctor, a nurse, construction worker.” You see how we identify with our career? We gain our identity from what we do.

And that can become a problem. Because what happens if you lose your job? Is your identity gone? Have you lost everything? Jesus’ call to discipleship is a call to find your identity in him. Your identity isn’t found in this things of this world: not in your money, not in your status, not in your career, not in your accomplishments or achievements. Your identity is in Christ.

And the good news about that: is that’s an identity no one can take away from you. You might lose your career, but you haven’t lost your identity. You might lose your family, through death or divorce,but you haven’t lost who you are. You might lose your life: someone may say, “Because you’re a Christian, I’m going to kill you,” but they can’t take your identity.

St. Paul says in Col. 3:3: you want to know who you are? You want to know what your identity is? Here goes:You have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.There it is. You have died to sin, to death, to the condemnation of the Law. You have died to the accusing voice of the devil and your own conscience. There is no one left to accuse you. Because you have died with Jesus. You were buried with him by baptism into death. And in your baptism, his blood covers you from all sin. You’re forgiven. You’re reconciled to God. You’re free. That’s who you are.

What that means is this: You are a person of infinite worth, and infinite value, and infinite dignity, and infinite importance.And that’s because you identity doesn’t come from other people, or status, or career, or whether or not you’ve made a name for yourself—but from Christ.

Jesus says: Don’t be defined by any of the other gods of this world. Your identity, your meaning, your purpose in life comes from me, and my word. And I will never fail you. All your gods will eventually fail you. Your money will fail you. Your career will fail you. Your pension plan, 401K will fail you. And your family will fail you. None of these things are able to give you the ultimate peace and rest and security that you’re looking for, because none of these things are the one true God. But if Christ is your God, and your identity comes from him, you’re blessed.

  1. Discipleship is an all or nothing proposition.Being a disciple of Jesus doesn’t mean that you can be a weekend Christian. It doesn’t mean that you can be a nominal Christian but a functional pagan. What that means: to go by the name Christian but to live in the world as if the Gospel made no difference for you, had no part to play in your daily life.

There’s no going halfway. No being a Christian and a worldling at the same time. Discipleship is an all or nothing proposition. God will have all of you, or he will have none of you.

There was a Lutheran theologian named Dietrich Bonhoeffer who wrote an essay called, “The Cost of Discipleship.” In the work he used the phrase ‘cheap grace.’ What cheap grace is, is to say, “I’m saved by grace, therefore everything can remain as before. I don’t have to renounce my old ways. I don’t have to die to sin. I don’t have to be changed in any way.” That is cheap grace.

Epiphany is the season where we think about Christ as a light shining in the darkness. I want you think about your life as a dark room. Imagine a dark room, like a one-room house with no windows, its pitch black, you can’t see anything. And the light of Christ comes into that room.What are the dark corners of your life that the light hasn’t touched? What are you holding back? What are you refusing to give to Jesus that he would take from you?

Is it prayer? You think you are too busy to pray? In the Catechism, Luther says prayer is easy. All you have to do when you wake up in the morning is make the sign of the cross, In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, say the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostle’s Creed and that’s it. Why are you too busy for that? Why are you holding back?

Is it the Divine Service? You know what the Lord offers here. You can give me the good catechism answer. The body and blood under bread and wine, given to us Christians to eat and drink. So why are you treating it as if it was not the most important thing in your life?

What habit/addiction has you enslaved?What grudge against your neighbor won’t you give up?

What person in your life haven’t you forgiven? What are you holding back from Jesus?

Now I know a lot of that was pretty harsh Law. So here’s the Gospel. Godwants to take your whole life, every part of you, and fix you and change you and transform you into the person you were always meant to be in him. He wants to make you a new person. He wants to give you a new heart and a new mind. He wants to fill you with such peace and joy that your heart will burst open andoverflow out in works of love and mercy toward your neighbor.

So stop fighting him. Hear his call and let him come to you. Let the love of Christ touch the dark corners of your life. Let his Word penetrate the whole of your being. Surrender to his love, his grace, his mercy. For he would make you into the disciple you were always meant to be. Amen.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.