{"id":1606,"date":"2017-07-02T11:00:12","date_gmt":"2017-07-02T15:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=1606"},"modified":"2019-09-24T13:20:47","modified_gmt":"2019-09-24T17:20:47","slug":"the-discipleship-of-the-lost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2017\/07\/02\/the-discipleship-of-the-lost\/","title":{"rendered":"The Discipleship of the Lost"},"content":{"rendered":"

Click here to listen to the full service<\/a><\/p>\n

Genesis 22:1-14<\/a><\/p>\n

Romans 6:12-23<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>Click here to listen to the meditations only<\/a><\/p>\n

May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of all our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O God, our rock, and our redeemer. Amen.<\/p>\n

We journey together in these summer months, we who gather along the banks of the Charles, whether near or afar. We journey along with friends and with guests during our annual summer preacher series at Marsh Chapel. We journey, this summer, charting new directions in discipleship.<\/p>\n

Over the course of this liturgical year, Year A of the Revised Common Lectionary, we have been journeying with Matthew, who is the leftmost figure in our Altarpiece here at Marsh Chapel, depicting Jesus and the four evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. For the past three weeks, we have abided for a time in the tenth chapter of Matthew\u2019s Gospel as Jesus calls and sends out the twelve disciples. We would do well to remember how that sending begins in verses five and six: \u201cThese twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: \u2018Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans,\u00a0but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.\u201d Most of the rest of the tenth chapter delineates just how fraught their mission will be, replete with persecution, rejection, and division.<\/p>\n

At last, we come, this week, to the final three verses of the chapter and the conclusion of Jesus\u2019 mandate in mission to the disciples. At last, things are beginning to look a bit brighter. At last, the disciples are encouraged to gird up their loins and persevere for they will receive the just rewards of the righteous if they do. And so, Jesus declares, \u201cWhoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.\u00a0Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet\u2019s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous;\u00a0and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple\u2014truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.\u201d In sum, good things come to those who persist.<\/p>\n

And so, we pick ourselves up, and dust ourselves off, emboldened and encouraged by Jesus\u2019 words of instruction. Off we go, continuing our journey. Now wait a minute, I forgot, where was it you said we were to go again, Jesus? \u201cGo nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.\u201d Israel. Right. Off we go.<\/p>\n

Now wait just a second. WE are of the house of Israel. WE descend from the house and family of Jacob. And what\u2019s more, SO DO YOU, JESUS! Well, isn\u2019t this a fine \u201chow do you do!?\u201d This is no journey to see the sites, to get out in the world, to carry the gospel to the ends of the earth. Jesus is telling us to go home!<\/p>\n

Indeed, Jesus finds it easier to find faithfulness outside of Israel than within. Just back in chapter eight, we recall that \u201cWhen he entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, appealing to him and saying, \u2018Lord, my servant is lying at home paralysed, in terrible distress.\u2019\u00a0And he said to him, \u2018I will come and cure him.\u2019\u00a0The centurion answered, \u2018Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only speak the word, and my servant will be healed.\u2019 When Jesus heard him, he was amazed and said to those who followed him, \u2018Truly I tell you, in no one\u00a0in Israel have I found such faith.\u00a0I tell you, many will come from east and west and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven,\u00a0while the heirs of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.\u2019\u201d (8: 5-8; 10-12).<\/p>\n

\u201cMany will come from east and west and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.\u201d We remember that God made covenant with Abram, who was renamed Abraham, that his descendants would become nations, including both of his sons, Isaac, who he almost sacrificed, and Ishmael who he sent away and whose nation was the harbinger of Islam. But it was Isaac\u2019s son Jacob, who was renamed Israel, whose tribe would become lost so that Jesus must send the disciples to find them. Indeed, \u201cin no one in Israel have I found such faith,\u201d and \u201cthe heirs of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.\u201d<\/p>\n

It would be all too easy, and over the course of Christian history we have proven all too susceptible to making this finding of a lack of faith in Israel a justification for antisemitism. To be sure, the community of the Gospel of Matthew was in the midst of a wrenching divorce within synagogues between those who believed that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah and those who did not. However, it would be a mistake to conclude that the moral of this story is to write off those who did not understand Jesus to be the Messiah. The moral of the story, instead, is that to learn what it means to be faithful, that is, what it means to be a disciple, and thus what we should be teaching and mentoring each other to become, we may have to look outside of our own community, as Jesus did here in the eighth chapter, and again in the fifteenth:<\/p>\n

\u201cJust then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, \u2018Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.\u2019\u00a0But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, \u2018Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.\u2019\u00a0He answered, \u2018I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.\u2019\u00a0But she came and knelt before him, saying, \u2018Lord, help me.\u2019\u00a0He answered, \u2018It is not fair to take the children\u2019s food and throw it to the dogs.\u2019\u00a0She said, \u2018Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters\u2019 table.\u2019\u00a0Then Jesus answered her, \u2018Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.\u2019 And her daughter was healed instantly.\u201d (15: 22-28).<\/em><\/p>\n

This is not a matter of those outside of Israel being right and those within being wrong. This question as to proper faithfulness and discipleship in Matthew is not antisemitism. Just as Jesus found a Roman centurion and a Canaanite woman to be faithful by contrast with Israel, so too he found his Israelite disciples to be faithful by contrast with his natural family in the twelfth chapter: \u201cWhile he was still speaking to the crowds, his mother and his brothers were standing outside, wanting to speak to him.\u00a0Someone told him, \u2018Look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.\u2019\u00a0But to the one who had told him this, Jesus\u00a0replied, \u2018Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?\u2019\u00a0And pointing to his disciples, he said, \u2018Here are my mother and my brothers!\u00a0For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.\u2019\u201d (12: 46-50).<\/p>\n

So, you want to be a disciple of Jesus, do you? Go home! Go home. Go home to the lost sheep of Israel, that is, go home to the church, your church, your tribe, and your nation, and testify to the faithfulness you have encountered on the highways and byways of life. Go home to your brothers and your sisters and your mother, and tell them of those from the east and from the west whom you expect to meet at the banquet table of heaven.<\/p>\n

My, my, my, you may be thinking, that does sound hard. Indeed, there is a great deal more at stake in providing welcome, in providing hospitality, whether to a prophet, or to a righteous person, or to a little one, than merely providing food, and drink, and shelter. After all, to welcome one of them is to welcome Jesus is to welcome God.<\/p>\n

Consider, then, the sermon preached on Palm Sunday in 1959 at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama by the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. He took as his sermon texts two passages from the Gospel of John: \u201cI have other sheep, which are not of this fold\u201d (10:16) and \u201cVerily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do, shall he do also. And greater works than these shall he do because I go unto my Father\u201d (14:12). Doctor King applied both of these verses to Gandhi, and in doing so made two significant moves. The first is to simultaneously acknowledge the religious otherness of Gandhi and to adopt that very otherness of Gandhi\u2019s life, practice, thought, and person into the fold of God. King argues that Gandhi is a Christian not by being a Christian but by being a Hindu, and thus not of this fold. This is to say that it is by virtue of Gandhi\u2019s Hinduism that he belongs to King\u2019s God.<\/p>\n

The second move is even more startling, especially since it arrives in a sermon on Palm Sunday, third only in importance on the Christian liturgical calendar to Christmas and Easter. The appellation of the second text signals that Doctor King believed that in his life Gandhi had achieved greater things than Jesus. To be sure, by noting that Jesus predicted this, King is safeguarding the sanctity of the Christian narrative. Nevertheless, the greatest accomplishment of Jesus according to the Christian narrative is nothing less than the salvation of the world. It is that very Christian narrative, then, that Doctor King employs to elevate the significance of Gandhi\u2019s life to the level of soteriological efficacy. This is a shocking move for any Christian preacher to make, even one trained at the Boston University School of Theology.<\/p>\n

Doctor King came north via Morehouse College in Atlanta and Crozier Divinity School in Philadelphia to take his PhD in systematic theology at Boston University. It was on that journey that he learned about Gandhi, not least from the Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman here at Marsh Chapel. Then, he went home. He went home to the south. He went home to Atlanta and to Selma and to Montgomery and he testified to the faithfulness he had encountered on the way.<\/p>\n

And what did Gandhi\u2019s faithfulness consist in, you may be wondering? The faithfulness of Gandhi may best be summed up in a word: Satyagraha, loosely translated, insistence on or holding fast to truth. Satyagraha was the name Gandhi gave to his philosophy of nonviolent resistance. It was also the name he gave to the ashram he founded. Of the first half of the term, satya, Gandhi says, \u201cThe word Satya<\/em> (Truth) is derived from Sat<\/em>, which means \u2018being.\u2019 Nothing is or exists in reality except Truth. That is why Sat<\/em> or Truth is perhaps the most important name of God. In fact it is more correct to say that Truth is God, than to say that God is Truth. But as we cannot do without a ruler or a general, names of God such as \u2018King of Kings\u2019 or \u2018the Almighty\u2019 are and will remain generally current. On deeper thinking, however, it will be realized, that Sat<\/em> or Satya<\/em> is the only correct and fully significant name for God.\u201d (M. K. Gandhi.\u00a0 Non-Violent Resistance<\/em>. New York: Schocken Books, 1951. 38.)<\/p>\n

A testament to truth we may also find yet further east, in China. Consider then the words of the scholar Xunzi of the third century BCE: \u201cIf a man has attained perfection of truthfulness, he will have no other concern than to uphold the principle of humanity and to behave with justice. If with truthfulness of mind he upholds the principle of humanity, it will be given form. Having been given form, it becomes intelligible. Having become intelligible, it can produce transmutation. If with truthfulness of mind he behaves with justice, it will accord with natural order. According with natural order, it will become clear. Having become clear, it can produce transformation. To cause transmutation and transformation to flourish in succession is called the \u2018Power of Nature.\u2019\u201d (John Knoblock, Xunzi: A Translation and Study of the Complete Works<\/em>. Vol. 1. Stanford University Press, 1988. 177-78).<\/p>\n

Truth is at the root of the power of nature. Truth is the only correct and fully significant name for God. \u201cHere are my mother and my brothers!\u00a0For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.\u201d Could the will of God be anything other than truth? Faithfulness. Discipleship. \u201cMany will come from east and west and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.\u201d Faithfulness. Discipleship.<\/p>\n

Go home! Go home. Go home to the lost sheep of Israel. Go home to the church, your church. Go home to your tribe, and your nation. Go home and testify to the faithfulness you have encountered on the highways and byways of life. Go home and witness to the discipleship of the Roman and the Canaanite and the Hindu and the Ru. Go home to your brothers and your sisters and your mother, and tell them of those from the east and from the west whom you expect to meet at the banquet table of heaven. Amen.<\/p>\n

– Brother Lawrence A. Whitney, LC\u2020, University Chaplain for Community Life<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click here to listen to the full service Genesis 22:1-14 Romans 6:12-23 Click here to listen to the meditations only May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of all our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O God, our rock, and our redeemer. Amen. We journey together in these summer months, we who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2679,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[7],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1606"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2679"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1606"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1866,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1606\/revisions\/1866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}