The Cost of Discipleship - Redeemer Episcopal Church

Luke 12:49-56 

⁴⁹“I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! ⁵⁰I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! ⁵¹Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! ⁵²From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three;⁵³they will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

⁵⁴He also said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, ‘It is going to rain’; and so it happens. ⁵⁵And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat’; and it happens. ⁵⁶You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?

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This sermon was originally preached by me, Rev. Sarah Locke, at Redeemer Episcopal Church on August 18, 2019. You can listen to the sermon by visiting the link here. 

Grace and peace to you, from God in Christ who bids us come and follow him and his example so that we might lead holy lives. Amen. 

During my course of studies in seminary, I was required to spend one year in a congregational setting, on internship. Because no one ever accused me of being boring, I applied and was selected to do an international internship in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I had many incredible opportunities while serving in a largely Indian and Chinese congregation there. 

One of my favorite opportunities was teaching Bible study at their sister congregation, that was made up entirely of Nepalese migrant workers. None of them spoke English, so the entire Bible study was translated back and forth between me, the translator, and these men. 

They had migrated recently to Malaysia and worked brutal hours in the factories there. They often lived in tiny apartments with many people to one room, but this group of men was happy and smiling when they came to Bible study every Wednesday night. 

Throughout the Bible studies, it came out that these men were not just seeking a better life here in Malaysia, in fact many of them had been teachers and doctors in Nepal. They were forced to leave. 

They were Christians and not even 1.5% of the Nepalese population is Christian. They told me stories of people coming into their villages, threatening them and their families. They were given a choice: denounce Christianity, leave the country, or die in the fires they would set in their villages. They had 24 hours to decide. 

They told me that some of their friends and even family members decided to stay and denounce Christianity, leaving their belief behind so that they could live in their country and community. Some of their wives even couldn’t bear the thought of leaving the country, so they stayed with their children and denounced Christianity. 

These few men sitting in the Bible study each week were there because they had nothing else. They were there because the gospel had changed their lives and transformed who they were and they were not willing to put that aside for the sake of their community or even their families. 

Eventually I asked, “how did the people know you were Christians?” 

They looked at my dumbfounded and said, “well of course because of the way we lived.” 

Precisely what Jesus says in this troubling and difficult text is what happened to these men. Division, conflict, between family and communities. It cost them everything to be Christians, sometimes including their wives and children. 

In Jesus’ time, it cost a lot to be his follower. Following Jesus often meant being in conflict with your family, your employer, the people who you have known your entire life in your community and faith. 

Jesus wasn’t the warrior king that they had expected, that they had read about in the prophecies. Jesus was humble, kind, loving, and forgiving. He regularly made a table with sinners and those that people had deemed unclean. 

If you were a follower in Jesus’ time, it meant that you not only had to change your beliefs about what the messiah is supposed to look like and other core Jewish beliefs, but you also had to change how you lived. 

Following Jesus meant literally following him, often going around the country with him, giving up your own resources to provide for his other followers, dining with the people Jesus dined with, which was often uncomfortable for the disciples. 

It meant that those who followed Jesus had to preach forgiveness and love, treating others as Jesus treated them, healing, and inviting people into their homes. 

Eventually, the cost of being a disciple for most of Jesus’ followers was their own lives. 

Following Jesus in Nepal looked a lot like following Jesus when he was here on earth. I wonder what following Jesus looks like for us, here in this community. 

Do we live in such a way that our discipleship costs us anything? Does believing in Christ Jesus, living in the reality of his death, resurrection, and ascension change the way we see the world? Does it change the way the world sees us? 

Does coming to this table every week to feed on the body and blood of Christ Jesus change us? Did our baptisms turn our lives upside down and inside out? 

How can we use our time together on Sunday in worship, Sunday school, in our book groups, and in fellowship to encourage one another to not just believe in Jesus, but to truly act like Jesus.

How do we even do that? If we want to imitate someone, be more like them, then we must spent lots of time with them and with other people who are like them. In order to be more like Jesus, we must spend a lot of time getting to know Jesus. We must spend a lot of time learning about who he is and what he did while he walked this earth with the disciples. 

We have to know the kind of person that he was and the kind of people he made company with. And as we begin to understand all of that, we can begin walking that path as well, following in Jesus’ footsteps and being like him. That is, after all, our call as Christians. 

Perhaps our following Jesus will cause division within our families or even our community. Jesus says that he will cause division.

But perhaps instead of being fearful of the fire that Jesus speaks about, we can lean into it a bit with our own lives. We can encourage a fire within us, a fire that kindles the passions of God, encourages the love of Christ and the Holy Spirit. 

But we can also lean into the fire that helps refine us, that helps us be a bit more like Christ, the fire that turns and molds our beliefs into actions. Then perhaps we can have the faith that our second reading describes, that faith of the great cloud of witnesses before us, so that we may lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely and follow daily in the blessed steps of Christ’s most holy life. 

Amen.

Do Not Be Afraid - Redeemer Episcopal Church

Luke 12:32-40 

³²“Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. ³³Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. ³⁴For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. ³⁵“Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; ³⁶be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. ³⁷Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them.³⁸If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves. ³⁹“But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. ⁴⁰You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”

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This sermon was originally preached at Redeemer Episcopal Church on August 11, 2019 by The Rev. Sarah Locke. You can listen to the sermon audio (with infusions from the Spirit) at this link. 

Grace and peace from God in Christ, without whom we cannot exist. Amen. 

“Do not be afraid” seems like an absolutely ridiculous thing for God to say to us, and to these people in these stories. 

Think of the story of Abram: God had promised that he would be a great nation and up until then, he had only had a son born to his wife’s slave— hardly the right kind of heir! So he questions God, and I think most of us would say rightly so— and God says “Do not be afraid.” But can we blame Abram for being afraid? Things aren’t going as planned or promised and he is already an old man. 

In the gospel text, Jesus is in the core of his teaching. He has already healed many people, he has calmed the storms, and he has predicted his death multiple times to his disciples. Why wouldn’t they be in fear and trembling about all the things their rabbi has done and says that he will do? Just before this, Jesus told someone in the crowd that possessions are only going to rot and crumble beneath them. The one thing that assured the life and longevity of people in the ancient world— wealth, acquiring more stuff— Jesus says is worthless. It makes sense that people are a little uneasy. 

So how galling is it that Jesus says, “Do not be afraid.”

This is the same message that God brings to us today. 

The imagery that Jesus uses as he speaks to the disciples strikes me. Jesus gives us a story of a slave, waiting in the middle of the night, for the master to return. Then he says that “if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. ⁴⁰You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”

Jesus us tells his followers about two times when we much stay awake, stay alert. And they both happen to be at night. It is in the middle of the night that the master may return from the wedding banquet. We are to stay up, far into the darkness of evening to await his return. Far into the unknown hours of mystery and vulnerability. So too, Jesus speaks of a thief who comes during some mysterious, unknown hour to break into the house.

This is where we find ourselves this morning. In darkness, in mystery, in fear, awaiting those things that we know will come, but without any indication of when or for how long we must wait.  

127 of God’s children have died or were injured in mass shootings in the United States just in the last two weeks. 

680 of God’s children were arrested in ICE raids this week and hundreds of parents were separated from their children.

God’s creation of land and water are being exploited at unprecedented rates, wreaking havoc on our whole world. 

Friday’s triple shooting marked Jacksonville’s 100th homicide this year.

Do not be afraid, Jesus says. 

But it seems we are sitting in the deepest darkness many of us can imagine. 

Think about what it means to be in the dark. As children, many of us were probably afraid of the dark. Maybe we still are. It’s often terrifying and it makes us sit up a little straighter, strain our eyes a bit to be sure we know where we are going, keeps us focused and diligent. But is also gives us an opportunity. 

Barbara Brown Taylor reminds us that “we are never more in danger of stumbling than when we think we know where we are going.” Only when there are no more maps, no more compasses, no more lights to direct the way, are we fully vulnerable to God. 

So here we are, waiting in the darkness, beginning to understand that we are fully reliant on God. In the collect this morning we prayed that we cannot exist without God. How often do we truly believe that? Only when we know we cannot rely on anything else in this world. Only when we are in total darkness, waiting for God to return.

So what do we do in this space? What do we do to quell our fear and feel more secure?

The world would tell us that we have to have more defenses, buy more guns, increase our national security budget, have some sort registry of the mentally ill. The world would tell us that we must frantically flip on all the lights and respond in fear, gathering up all the resources we can so that we can defend ourselves against intruders and thieves. The world tells us that these things will keep us safe. 

But God tells us that true security doesn’t come from those things. In fact, Jesus tells us to sell all of our possession in preparation for his return, we are to give to the poor and be cautious of what lies within our hearts. Our psalm this morning says this: There is no king that can be saved by a mighty army; a strong man is not delivered by his great strength. The horse is a vain hope for deliverance; for all its strength it cannot save. God is our only help and shield.

The only thing that can hold is in this in-between time— this time of darkness, mystery, and fear, when the reign of God is not but not yet come, is God. Only God. 

So what are we to do? We look to our ancestors and all those saints who have gone before us, we look to those who have gone through the darkest of times and we learn from our history. We remember those who have died fighting against the same evils. We read their stories again and again, we remember their names on our lips and in our prayers. We dine with them at this holy table. We are assured in the promise that we are washed in the same waters of baptism with them. And like Abraham and Sarah, and our parents before us, we defiantly, rebelliously have more faith in God than we do in this world. 

Because we know where we are in this story, as resurrection people— we know the end of this story. We know how it ends. God’s story does not end with the darkness of the sun being blotted out as Christ dies on the cross, it does not end with the darkness of the tomb. 

The story continues as the sun rises to reveal an open and empty tomb. 

God’s promise of life everlasting is the only thing that allows us to sit through the night, waiting for the thief, wondering what comes next. It is only God’s promise that allows us to have faith that something better awaits. 

And that is exactly why we come together in this community to sit and wait and be vulnerable before God as we wait for what is to come, trusting in God’s radical and revolutionary promise that we need not worry. 

Amen.