The Kijiji add read like this:
Wanted: Individual interested in adventure.
Person should be comfortable with unpredictable situations. Accommodations not guaranteed.
Bereavement leave not offered.
Must be available to start immediately.
Are you interested?
No!
Well no surprise there, not many people are.
The fact is Jesus doesn’t do a very good job advertising for the position of disciple.
At least in the church today we try to jazz up discipleship, make it look good, full of blessings and benefits.
Instead Jesus lays it all out on the table.
1)You won’t have a place to sleep
2)You won’t be able to bury your own father
3)You won’t even be able to say goodbye
Not exactly the speech I would give an interested recruit.
Seems like there are a lot of things to leave behind.
Some of the things taken for granted, the comforts of life, will disappear.
Burying the dead, let the dead do that.
Even a simple goodbye seems to indicate that you aren’t fit for the kingdom of God.
With this list I’m not sure any applicant for discipleship would be accepted or that anyone would live up to this criteria even if they tried.
I’m not sure I would even let Jesus do this little presentation during announcements.
It might scare off the visitors and maybe even some of the most stoic members.
Why?
Because discipleship like everything in our world is supposed to be fun, attractive and for our benefit.
It’s supposed to be an enjoyable journey.
It’s not supposed to be difficult or a struggle and when it is we simply get off and find another more “fulfilling” path.
Maybe we aren’t totally straight about what discipleship is like.
We say it’s easy, fuzzy and cuddly.
We say following Jesus is all about blessings and good times.
And while there are definite benefits, following Jesus is also about not knowing, and at times confusion and doubting.
So with no place to lay your head, alienation from family and never looking back, who here is ready to jump on the discipleship train?
Still not?
Well then I guess we can all go home and get in our pillow top beds, bury the dead, and look back at the good old days.
But then we must ask the question are we disciples, are we followers of Jesus if we rest on our laurels?
Professor of preaching at St Paul’s Seminary asks the question this way.
“How are our lives different as followers of Jesus than what they might have been otherwise?”
He goes on.
I remember a bumper sticker asking, “If you were on trial for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?”
Does anything in your life indicate that you are following Christ outside of the fact that you are here right now.
Discipleship means living in ways we might not otherwise live.
That’s the problem with the third candidate for disciple.
He says that he will follow Jesus but then puts conditions on what that will look like.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer describes his conditions this way.
He wants to follow but he feels obliged to insist on his own terms. Discipleship to him is a possibility, which can only be realized when certain conditions have been fulfilled.
This is to reduce discipleship to the level of human understanding. First you must do this and then you must do that.
The disciple places himself at the Master’s disposal, but at the same time retains the right to dictate his own terms.
But them discipleship is no longer following Jesus but a program of our own to be arranged and suited to ourselves.
The trouble with the third would be disciple is that at the very moment he expresses his willingness to follow, he ceases to want to follow at all.
If you’re looking for superficial comfort and predictability you’ve come to the wrong place.
Discipleship is not a clearly laid path with little solar lights to make sure you don’t step off the edge.
The minute we think we’ve got it figured out, the minute we start making it about us, we are no longer followers.
It’s very messy.
However we must also remember that we are followers.
That means that we have someone to follow.
It may be messy and unpredictable, but the one we follow knows where we’re going.
His face is set towards Jerusalem.
And we all know that the way you’re facing is an important part of where you end up.
Vanessa has to remind me every once and a while to keep my eyes on the road when I start staring out the side window while driving.
Wherever my face is pointing is where I steer the car.
Discipleship is a lot like driving.
It demands a certain posture, it means facing a certain direction.
That direction is forward into the unknown not backward into the past and predictable comforts.
We look toward Jesus because we follow Jesus.
And really who wants to always be looking backwards or to the side, while all along heading into the ditch?
The problem is it’s what we naturally do.
The nice view on the highway, the attractive women walking by or an accident on the side of the road distracts us.
Giovanni Bernardon knew what it meant to be distracted.
His father was a rich silk merchant back in the day when silk was a real big thing.
Because of this Giovanni got to live the life typical of a wealthy young man, traveling, eating and enjoying life.
He joined the army and even went of to battle where he had a vision that directed him to go back to Assisi where he was from.
Not long after he went on a journey to Rome where he joined a bunch of pan handlers outside a large church.
This experience was so moving that he decided to live the rest of his life in poverty.
Known more commonly as St Francis of Assisi, Francis’s commitment to poverty challenged the church and those who had much.
This is even true today as the new Pope took on the name Francis and continues to challenge the church and it’s members who are constantly being distracted.
To be a disciple of Jesus means to have a future beyond the distraction of making sure immediate needs are taken care of, beyond memories of your loved ones who have dead and beyond your past.
It means facing Jesus who is the real future for each of us.
There is no future in those other things, there is only death.
These would be disciples are invited to put there hands to the plow and look forward because if they’re looking back when they plow the furrows end up all over the place.
Of course the reality is that we always end up rubber necking while plowing through life.
If we could see our path in life I’m convinced it would be a very windy road.
But there is one whose face does not wander.
There is one whose face is always focused on the task at hand, the task of freeing us from the things that give us comfort or the past that we constantly fall back into, so that we can live with a future.
That one is Jesus.
Jesus is a forward not a backward motion.
Jesus is the future not the past.
With Jesus face set towards Jerusalem we have a light shining ahead of us.
No matter how we strain our necks, try to set the agenda or long for what is behind us, Jesus is always standing in front inviting us forward to a future with our God.
And what a future that is.
Thanks be to God.
Amen
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