Sermon: Insane Discipleship

Mark 1:14-20

Insane Discipleship

James Sledge                                                                                       January 21, 2018

At our session meetings (Session is the discerning and governing council for a Presbyterian church.) we always spend some time discussing a passage of scripture. At the January meeting, we discussed our gospel passage for today.

For this particular discussion, I had primed the pump a bit by including some discussion questions in the agenda. “What differences do you see between the two sets of brothers? Do those differences make it harder for some to follow Jesus? What gets in the way of our following Jesus? In the way of the church following Jesus?”

We started with the first question, quickly noting what many of you may have also noticed. The two sets of brothers appear to come from different circumstances. Simon and Andrew have only casting nets to toss from the shore, meaning they are likely subsistence fishermen. James and John, on the other hand, are part of a family business that has employees. The gospel writer emphasizes this for us by saying precisely what these two sets of brothers leave behind when the go with Jesus. Simon and Andrew leave only their nets, but James and John leave their father in the boat with the employees.

We discussed the impact that having a little or having a lot has on being able to follow Jesus. There were a variety of thoughts on this, but most of us agreed that it gets harder to let go of what you have the more that you have. Jesus says as much in his teachings, pointing out what a hindrance wealth is to becoming part of God’s new day.

But then one of our elders observed that for both sets of brothers, what happens is “insane.” They drop everything and go off with this Jesus fellow who just happens by and calls to them. As far as we know from the story Mark’s gospel tells, they’ve never met Jesus, perhaps never even heard of him.

That is insane, and the relative wealth of the different brothers seems not to make any difference at all. We might have expected James and John to struggle a bit more. They were leaving a lot more behind. The gospel writer has made a point of describing the different circumstances of these sibling pairs, but then it plays no role in what happens. Both pairs drop everything and go with Jesus. What on earth accounts for such insane behavior?

We live in a very different world than that of James and John, Simon and Andrew. Most of us have little knowledge of subsistence fishing or subsistence anything. We live in a consumer society predicated on acquiring more and more. Our economy is dependent on consumer spending, and if a large portion of the population ever decided they have enough, the whole thing would collapse.

Many religious writers have noted how corrosive such a culture is to Christian faith. The Bible describes an early Christian community where everyone sold what they had so that no one went without. Rather than acquiring they were letting go of things.

Perhaps our corrosive, consumer culture is a big reason that the Church is struggling so in America. A rapidly increasing number of Americans profess to have no faith at all. Church attendance continues the rapid decline that began in the second half of the 20^th century. And even congregations that are doing fairly well struggle to pay the bills as older members who were strong institutional givers age out, taking their big pledges with them.

It certainly makes sense that in a culture driven by money and the things and experiences money can buy, church would be struggling. We have so much, and we want so much more, that we can’t possibly let go of it to follow Jesus. That would be insane.

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There’s a quote that you have heard from me before that I think is from Roy Oswald, founder of the Alban Institute. His work was focused on helping Mainline congregations such as ours, and the quote is addressed to people like us. He said, “People come to our churches seeking an experience of God, and we give them information about God.”

I think the quote works equally well if we speak of Jesus. People come, hoping to encounter this one whose presence can prompt people to drop everything, to take insane risks, but instead they find information, doctrines, rituals, and so on. Very often Mainline churches can be a mix of worship with some self-help and a little charity thrown in. And not much Jesus or divine presence. But church congregations are not terribly good at either charity or self-help.

If you want to help the poor, fight homelessness, or end racism, church is a pretty inefficient mechanism. Much of our resources go to doing worship and maintaining our buildings. Often we haven’t a lot left for acts of charity.

We’re not much better at self-help. Self-help typically involves hearing someone’s suggestions for how to improve your life. You read the book or listen to the speaker and try to implement those things that seem like good ideas to you. But Jesus asks people to let go of things they treasure and go with him. He even talks of letting go of our lives saying, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”

That’s not reasonable advice that sounds like it would make life better. It sounds crazy, insane. Why would anyone embrace such a thing? They wouldn’t. Not unless they encountered a presence so powerful, so magnetic, so teaming with the Spirit of God that the insane started to seem reasonable and possible.

When Mark’s gospel tells the story of Simon, Andrew, James, and John being called as the first disciples, it is an insane story. Jesus offers no teaching, no word t that explains why this would be a good idea. There is nothing to persuade these would be disciples, only the presence of Jesus, the presence of God’s power in the flesh.

But the Church has often institutionalized, rationalized, explained, and domesticated such presence away, robbing the faith of divine power and authority, leaving pastors trying to explain how it is reasonable and rational to do at least a little of what Jesus says. Not surprisingly, churches are often some of the most staid, reasonable, tradition-bound, risk averse places you can find. Nothing crazy or insane to see here.

Unless we meet Jesus. Unless we encounter the living Word of God that called forth the Big Bang, ordered the Cosmos, and breathed life into the primordial ooze of a new planet. Unless we hear the call of the Living One whose word is life.

Dare we open ourselves to power and presence that can pull us away from life as it has always been? Dare we acknowledge an authority and wisdom beyond what we know or can imagine? Dare we listen for the voice that calls us to join the insane story that is shepherding God’s new day into the world?