The whole world is still shaking from the events of September 11, the hijackings, the buildings destroyed, the mass deaths and destruction, the world efforts to put together a coalition to finally stamp out terrorism, the layoffs and financial troubles of the airline industry, the upset of the stock market. It will be a long time before things settle down again.
It’s a graphic and tragic demonstration of what just a few determined people can accomplish. The FBI’s best guess is that there were 19 men who did the actually hijackings. How nineteen men shook the world!
And they paid a price for it. They left their homes to live here in the United States for… how long? At least a year, probably more. Some of them spent a lot of time learning how to fly a commercial jetliner. Somebody put a lot of money into it. I can’t imagine that flight school is cheap. There were a lot of expenses for daily living and travel. Just the tickets for the travel scheduled for September 11 must have cost a lot, 19 tickets that were supposed to go from the east coast to the west coast. It sounds like some of them left wives and children behind. They were all ready to die for what they believed in, and they did die.
Ossama bin Laden picked a select group of followers, used political connections to build safe retreats for training them, gave them an ideology, financed them and sent them out. And they shook the world.
What if the church could raise up young men and women who were also dedicated to shaking the world, but their focus was on love and not hate, their focus was on building rather than destroying, healing rather than hurting, their time frame was patient instruction to all people so they could have time and the information they needed to choose what is right rather than impatiently imposing their way on people who didn’t even have any warning or know what the battle was about? Does a church that has grown comfortable, often indifferent, often confused about what it is even here for have anything at all to respond to this threat?
We have the military power now to respond and hopefully, in time, remove Ossama bin Laden from the world scene. But what can we do preemptively in the future, before things blow up again? People are desperate all over the world with hunger, ignorance, disease, injustice and oppression. Many parts of the world are being torn apart by ancient conflicts between groups of people, with both sides able to name long lists of atrocities done by the other side. Do we have any power at all to clean those things up before they explode? Can we shake the world for God? Can a few Christians dare to dream of making a difference today as the 21st century begins?
The answer to that question was given to us long ago. We saw it done. Jesus of Nazareth took just 12 men, not 19, and he worked with them for what we guess was probably three years, and he didn’t have much money and he didn’t have any political connections at all and no safe havens. He had very little formal education by modern standards. The 12 that he picked were not the ideal material, not what you would expect for a project to shake the world at all. But he did it. And sometimes you wonder if the church has it in it any more to do any shaking at all, but our God has not left us. The power can still be there.
The challenge for the church in the 21st century is the same challenge that Jesus gave us in the 1st century, to make disciples of Jesus Christ, people who will make a difference. And as we think about where we are going as a church, goals for coming years, making disciples for Jesus needs to be near the top of the list.
In the climax of Jesus’ teaching of his disciples, his last message before ascending to heaven, he told them to make disciples. We heard it in our first lesson, “And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age." That’s our job.
It’s affirmed for us in the Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church, “The mission of the Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ.” If we do that well, if we mold ourselves to think like Jesus, to act like Jesus, to do the things he told us to do, we can shake the world for God.
Let’s meet the 12 that he started with and then talk about what it means to make disciples. Our text for this morning lists them by name. It is just five verses, Luke 6:12-16.
“Now during those days he went out to the mountain to pray; and he spent the night in prayer to God. And when day came, he called his disciples and chose twelve of them, whom he also named apostles: Simon, whom he named Peter, and his brother Andrew, and James, and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James son of Alphaeus, and Simon, who was called the Zealot, and Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.”
Don’t miss that the passage begins with prayer. The opposition to Jesus had been building. He knew he would be the center of ever increasing attacks as people realized that he was calling his people to accountability, to live up to their responsibilities to God, and there were many who would react violently. Time was short.
And so he prayed. He prayed all night. He got away from the rat race and prayed alone. And his Father in heaven made the solution clear; invest in disciples who can extend your ministry after you are gone and to more places than you will ever walk to. Where are Jesus’ hands for healing today? Put your hands up where you can see them. Those are the hands that Jesus has to work through today. Where is the mouth that Jesus is to speak through today? Touch your mouth with your finger. That’s it. His ministry advances or falls depending on us.
And so Jesus called together 12 out of many followers. He taught all who would listen. But he selected these 12 for special care.
And he trained them to serve in his name. I don’t know why it is that people will go to college for 4 years of very hard work for their career, and then expect to be an effective Christian without training. Training is often not a lot of fun. But you won’t accomplish much in this world without taking time for preparation. The most basic meaning of the word disciple is to be a learner.
And how did Jesus train his disciples? That’s a huge subject by itself, but let me just highlight two key elements.
First they learned by doing. He gave them simple jobs to do while they were with him. In John 13:29 we read that he had Judas be treasurer and sometimes sent him out to give money to the poor. That’s an interesting assignment, having the one who would later betray Jesus for money be the one who was to give money to the poor.
When he stopped at a well outside of Sychar, he sent them into town to get food for lunch.
When there was a huge crowd and not enough food, he had the disciples start serving the huge crowd from just a few loaves and fish and as they stepped out in faith at his word the food started multiplying in their hands and they found themselves part of a miracle.
In Matthew 4:2 we read that when people came to take the step of baptism to say that they wanted to be part of what God was doing through Jesus, Jesus had the disciples do the actual baptizing. They could see firsthand lives that were being touched.
After they had watched him preaching and healing for a while he gave them authority to do the same and he sent them out, not alone, but two by two to do just what they had seen Jesus do. And they came back so excited and what God could do through them.
And of course learning by doing can never replace teaching. The gospels tell us that Jesus was always teaching, in the synagogues, beside the Sea of Galilee, in the open fields. He took every opportunity to help people understand the scriptures and to fit together an understanding of God and themselves that would equip them to serve. But those teachings came together as they put them to use practically. Discipleship goes beyond just listening. The lesson is not complete until it is applied in practice.
I spent three years working very hard in seminary to read and learn and soak up everything I could learn. It was wonderful. But the lessons that I value most are the lessons that came from working with real people, sometimes having to pray for money to come in for the next day’s supper, begging the Lord to help us know what to do with a difficult person, digging in the scripture for something to teach the people that I led, and seeing for myself that God was there and would answer my prayers. There’s no substitute for learning by doing, especially by serving.
And Jesus taught by sharing lives together. He never sat down and wrote a textbook. But he would talk with the disciples as they walked along the road. They could ask him to a lesson on how to pray when their curiosity sparked a question. When they had a conflict between them, he told them what to do, sit down and work it out. Before he had them try something, he had them watch him do it. In the church we grow by serving together and learning together.
And it cost the disciples a lot to sign up for the Jesus school. They traveled a lot, away from home, although God doesn’t call everyone to leave home. It wasn’t good for their careers. God doesn’t call everyone to leave their jobs, but he calls us all to examine the way we approach our jobs and use our time to be sure that faithfulness to him comes first.
But there were wonderful privileges as well. It was Peter, the first one called to be a disciple, who kept watching Jesus and watching him and finally figured it out and was able to say, Jesus, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” It was these twelve who had front row seats to everything that Jesus did. Someone once said that if you want to be successful in life, look for the current of where God is at work and place yourself in the middle of it. Those twelve men who left everything to follow Jesus were in the middle of it all. They saw people long alienated from God brought home. They saw lepers healed, inside and out. They saw the grip that money had on greedy hearts broken and hearts set free. They saw evil that had long hidden under a veneer of civility come out and show its true nature. They saw it all. And they were terribly shaky at first. But with Jesus’ training and the empowering of the Holy Spirit, those twelve shook the world.
The invitation still stands, and it’s more than an invitation, it’s a command. Jesus says to every one of us, Come, follow me. And if you would like to sit down and talk with me about where to start, I’d love to hear from you.
We don’t have to stand helpless before world events. Jesus can shake the world through people like us who will follow him and be true disciples. AMEN
