Sermon: Commissioned as Discipling Disciples

Matins

There are two kinds of people, someone once confidently told me: ‘the be-ers and the do-ers. The do-ers like to do things, they are the activists and the change agents; the be-ers are content simply to be, to let things happen, confident that it will all come out well in the end.

Like most simplifications, this has a grain of truth in it. But it is only a grain. The greater truth is that we are all both be-ers and do-ers.  We are all of us both human beings and human doings.  It's a matter of balance and completeness, rather than etiher/or.  Certainly the balance point comes in different places for different people. But it also comes in different places for the same person at different times of their life.  Indeed one of the ways in which we might grow old wisely is to keep and eye on this particular balance point.  Generally speaking, after the torpid adolescent years of lazy lie-ins we become do-ers but then, as time goes by a little more, we more in the direction of be-ers.  However we must be careful not to rush too quickly into contented be-ing ness.  Activity is good for us.  A friend did some research into the wellbeing of people in residential care homes - often a place where being far outweighs doing; and she found, no surprise here, that people were happier if there were activities to engage in.  Dominos, scrabble, beetle drives, bingo:  I don't know whether you class them as ways of be-ing or forms of doing. But there are situations in which these things are called ‘activities'.  

One of the things that happens to human beings in the middle years of life, and some of you might have noticed this, is that memory of past events gets better. I don't mean that it gets better than memory of recent events, which is often observed but is in essence the failure of short term memory in older age. No, this phenomenon is that in early middle age our memory of childhood events improves. So, forty year olds will recall childhood events better and more vividly than twenty year olds.  I remember having this explained to me just as I was myself passing though this happy transition. ‘It's rather good isn't it,' I said. ‘It's as if the videos in the mind have all been renewed. They are more rewarding to watch'. ‘That's true', said the psychologist with whom I was talking, ‘but you don't want to get too excited because it is a journey which end up with you sitting by the fire staring into space'.  I guess that might be the way my life is heading, but while I value the being side of life, I hope that I will retain a desire for activity and engagement during my remaining years. That, when safely ensconced in a care home, I will have frisson of excitement when I realize that today is Tuesday and Tuesday means bingo. The ‘being' side of life matters to us; but however much we enjoy the delight of pure existence, the pleasures of purpose and activity are integral to what it means to be human: every human being is, to some degree, also a human doing. 

This dynamic of being and doing offers one way into making sense of our second lesson: the final words of Matthew's gospel.  Jesus crucified and risen is perhaps the ultimate example of a being who is entitled to be simply a being.  Loves redeeming work has been done, the fight has been fought, the battle one.  Surely it is time for alleluias and worship; for contemplation and waiting for the kingdom of God.  After all the strenuous violent activity of Good Friday and the draining emotional drama of denial, betrayal and desertion, it is time to bask in the glory of God and to allow our minds to go back not to the dread days in Jerusalem, but to the happy days of Jesus' teaching and healing ministry; to remember and retell some of those great stories of the kingdom.  Easter, surely, is the season which appeals to the be-ers rather than the do-ers. After all, the activity of the cross and resurrection puts all other activity, all other projects, in the shade. Compared to that we think our own little projects have no more spiritual significance than a beetle drive. 

However, if that is our starting point, we will not be able to make a lot of sense of the ending of Matthew. For the ending of this gospel is one that appeals not so much to the be-ers as to doers, not to the contented and calm side of our nature but to the activist within. First, the eleven head for a Galilee and climb a mountain. Then there is a combination of worship and doubt.  Then Jesus gives them a little talk about authority and charges the eleven with what is often called the great commission: ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you'. (Matt 28 19&20)

The audacity and scale of this commission is truly staggering. ‘All nations' is the phrase used.  ‘Teach them to obey everything I have taught you,' says Jesus. Now this really is quite a project. 

Like a great leader, Jesus does not spell out how the eleven are to do it. It is important to realize that. There is no mission strategy or implementation plan here; there is nothing that looks like a programme or a handed-down set of priorities.  But there is one word that gives us a clue as to how Jesus thought they might go about doing this - and indeed how we might go about being faithful to the commission today. It lies in the Greek which is translated as the two words ‘make disciples'.  But in the original this is one verb and it would be better to translate it ‘disciple':  ‘Go and disciple all nations'. 

It is possible that the verb ‘to disciple' is the most important word in Christian vocabulary today. It is certain that we do not hear enough of it.  Interestingly, it does not primarily mean ‘to follow' or ‘to make followers'.  Jesus calls people to follow him but this is not so that they can be followers, but so that they can be disciples - that is learners.  You could say lifelong learners - not because the phrase is fashionable, but because it is true.  But these are not learners in the same sense that people who might attend a series of lectures on local history are learners.  These are learners in the sense that apprentices are learners. For their learning is not aimed at enhanced being but different doing. Jesus calls people to be his followers because it is only by being close to him that they can become disciples. Jesus did not set up a correspondence course in discipleship.  (It was Paul who tried to teach people in this way - but that, for today at least, is another story.) 

The more we focus on Jesus, however, the more the question of discipleship and discipleship learning comes into focus. And the more that comes into focus the greater the imperative of finding how to be obedient to the great commission to disciple people of all nations. The more I reflect on this the more astonished I am that this process of discipleship learning is not much nearer the core of everything we do as a church. It has just a high a claim on our time as does worship and when we begin to explore what it might mean in practice to disciple people we begin to get into some very exciting territory.  

For instance, we are drawn to the question of how we can integrity seek to disciple anyone else. The answer to this is, I suggest, to set a high priority on being disciples ourselves; to be serious about our own learning and development in the faith.   In particular, to let ourselves be discipled by others. That is, we should seek primarily to be Christian learners so that we might become discipling disciples.  

But what should we be learning?  Jesus, you might have noted, was not the sort of chap who was happy merely sharing information. His approach to teaching was far fresher and much more passionate than that. ‘You have heard this...but I tell you that.' His teaching was aimed at transformation, repentance, renewal of religion and renewal of life. Jesus was passionate for truth and justice: his curriculum was simply entitled ‘the kingdom of God'.

And his teaching method? Jesus called twelve people to learn discipleship from him.  He took them on adventures, shared his life with them, relied on them, corrected their mistakes, got let down by them, put up with their misunderstandings and so on.  The basic mechanism of discipleship learning is sharing everyday but mission-shaped life. Jesus says, ‘follow me', but the nearest equivalent we have to this is to say ‘live with me'.

That's a big ask.  But we can at least ask people to come for a walk with thus, or to share an adventure.  Let's set up some discipleship journeys; some modern pilgrimages which begin to open us to God's word for the future. Journeys that will involve going not to historic sites but to the places where we might encounter and share the lives of the people about whom Jesus spoke on another mountain-top occasion, the people of the beatitudes: the poor in sprit, the bereaved, the powerless, the justice seekers, the inveterate forgivers and the transparently honest. Such are those who might disciple us. 

When Jesus called people to follow him, he set them on a course of continual learning and so the New Testament is one long story of passionate engagement and deep learning.  If it is a religion of pure ‘be-ing' that you are after it might be that Buddhism is more your bag. For Christianity involves discipleship and discipling others, learning and helping others to learn. If we are to be obedient to the great commission we need to look first to ourselves, personally and corporately, and ask not whether we are be-ers or do-ers but how passionate we are to learn and to help others to learn the bracing way of Christ, crucified and risen. For the risen Christ invites us not to impress or even primarily to educate others. Rather he commissions us to be discipling disciples.