William H. Willimon - "Journeying with Jesus" (June 28, 1998)
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- | For those of you who are regulars here, | 0:11 |
you know that today is a bittersweet Sunday for us, | 0:15 | |
because we bid farewell to Deborah Brazell. | 0:19 | |
She has had an extraordinary ministry | 0:22 | |
here among us at Duke Chapel. | 0:25 | |
She will be back among us, periodically, | 0:28 | |
but today is the day when we wish her well | 0:31 | |
in her future ministry, and we express | 0:35 | |
great gratitude for all that Deborah has meant among us. | 0:38 | |
Now on my vacation last week I not only lost a lot of money, | 0:45 | |
but I lost my voice, so I will work today | 0:50 | |
because I have a message for you. | 0:56 | |
In my last congregation, we had a program of evangelism. | 1:03 | |
You know, when we would go out and | 1:09 | |
we would knock on people's doors, | 1:11 | |
and we would invite those people to come join the church, | 1:14 | |
to accept Christ, to become disciples among us. | 1:18 | |
And by all accounts, | 1:25 | |
the program of evangelism did quite well. | 1:26 | |
We recruited a number of people, | 1:30 | |
the church rolls grew, | 1:32 | |
and yet when we got together to evaluate | 1:35 | |
how things were going in our program of evangelism, | 1:38 | |
there in the Evangelistic Committee that night, | 1:42 | |
I remember Gladys saying, | 1:45 | |
"Something bothers me about all this." | 1:49 | |
Why are you bothered? It's working. | 1:53 | |
She said, "Here we go, knocking on our neighbors' doors, | 1:57 | |
urging them to come to church to accept Christ, but | 2:01 | |
what are we inviting them to do? | 2:05 | |
We tell them we have a great youth program. | 2:08 | |
We tell them that we will do | 2:11 | |
this or that for their children. | 2:12 | |
We have great summer activities for all ages, | 2:14 | |
we've got a picnic in the fall, | 2:17 | |
we've got pastoral counseling, | 2:19 | |
we've got good music, we've got preaching. | 2:20 | |
In other words, we've got all these services | 2:25 | |
to meet your needs, to entertain you, | 2:29 | |
to fix whatever's wrong with you." | 2:32 | |
"Well what's wrong with that?" we asked Gladys. | 2:37 | |
After all, isn't the church here to meet peoples' needs? | 2:41 | |
"Well it seems like I remember," continued Gladys, | 2:49 | |
"Somewhere it says take up your cross, | 2:53 | |
and follow me." | 2:57 | |
And we were silent, because Gladys had reminded us | 3:02 | |
that discipleship, Christian discipleship, | 3:06 | |
well that's something else again. | 3:11 | |
How in the world do you call people to Jesus, | 3:14 | |
appealing to their basic selfishness, their needs, | 3:18 | |
and then end up with following Jesus, | 3:24 | |
such as is portrayed in today's Gospel? | 3:30 | |
Hear the Gospel, from Luke. | 3:33 | |
As they were going along the road, someone said to him, | 3:38 | |
"I will follow you, wherever you go." | 3:43 | |
And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, | 3:47 | |
and birds of the air have nests, | 3:51 | |
but the Son of Man has nowhere, even to lay his head." | 3:54 | |
To another he said, "Follow me." | 3:59 | |
But he said, "Well Lord, first let me go | 4:00 | |
and bury my father." | 4:03 | |
But Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead. | 4:06 | |
But as for you, go, proclaim the Kingdom of God." | 4:11 | |
Another said, "I will follow you, Lord, | 4:16 | |
but let me first say farewell to those at home." | 4:20 | |
Jesus said to him, "No one who puts a hand to the plow | 4:25 | |
and looks back is fit for the Kingdom of God." | 4:29 | |
This is the Word of the Lord. | 4:36 | |
Now Jesus is on the way, and you know where that way leads, | 4:40 | |
it is the way leading to the cross. | 4:46 | |
He's on his way to death. | 4:49 | |
And on his way, he encounters people who say, | 4:52 | |
"I'll follow you wherever you go, | 4:57 | |
only first let me give my father a decent burial." | 5:01 | |
After all, honor thy father and mother, | 5:07 | |
isn't that what the Bible says? | 5:11 | |
And Jesus replies, "Well accept my condolences, | 5:15 | |
but let the dead bury the dead. Follow me." | 5:19 | |
Another says, "I'll follow you, just let me | 5:25 | |
get a few things in order at home." After all, | 5:28 | |
we're Christians, don't we believe in family values? | 5:31 | |
Jesus replies, "No one who puts his hand to the plow | 5:34 | |
and then looks back is fit for the Kingdom of God." | 5:38 | |
On this pleasant summer Sunday morning, we come to Jesus. | 5:46 | |
And let's say that we're all here this Sunday | 5:52 | |
because we are seeking to follow him. | 5:53 | |
And then on this pleasant summer Sunday, | 5:57 | |
he gives us these tough, demanding words. | 6:00 | |
It's enough to make each of us ask, | 6:06 | |
"Are we prepared to follow this Jesus?" | 6:09 | |
Last year about this time, there was the | 6:15 | |
Tom Cruise movie, Jerry Maguire. | 6:17 | |
At the beginning of the movie, Jerry is caught | 6:22 | |
in a rat race of a job as a sports agent, | 6:25 | |
representing spoiled, overpaid athletes, | 6:29 | |
living off their talent. | 6:32 | |
One night, Jerry has a sort of breakdown, | 6:35 | |
and after tossing and turning and sleeplessness, | 6:39 | |
he jumps up, goes to his computer, and turns out | 6:42 | |
a long mission statement, in which he | 6:46 | |
criticizes what his company has become. | 6:50 | |
And he makes some rather radical proposals | 6:53 | |
for reform of the sports industry. | 6:57 | |
The next morning he copies this memo and puts it | 7:01 | |
in the mailboxes of all of his co-workers. | 7:04 | |
When he timidly enters the office the next day, | 7:08 | |
to his surprise, he receives a standing ovation. | 7:12 | |
His fellow workers praise him for his courage and vision. | 7:17 | |
"Thank God you said it," one of his co-workers says. | 7:21 | |
And then that same co-worker just a moment later, | 7:27 | |
turns to another one and under his breath says, | 7:29 | |
"How long do you give him?" | 7:33 | |
And the other one says, "He'll be gone in a week." | 7:35 | |
I wish I could say that Jerry Maguire's act of courage | 7:41 | |
led to the reform of his business, | 7:45 | |
to a new sense of dedication and integrity. | 7:48 | |
But alas, just one week later, he is tossed | 7:52 | |
out on the street by his friend, | 7:56 | |
with only his goldfish, his life a shambles. | 8:00 | |
Now Jerry Maguire the movie ends on a more positive note, | 8:07 | |
but what I liked about that movie was the realism. | 8:09 | |
The honesty of that very first scene. | 8:15 | |
Because from what I've seen, | 8:19 | |
if you do stand up for what's right, | 8:21 | |
if you speak up for the truth, | 8:23 | |
there may be high cost. | 8:28 | |
And I like that movie because | 8:31 | |
at least at that point, | 8:34 | |
it had the courage not to romanticize | 8:35 | |
or sentimentalize the role of the courageous reformer. | 8:38 | |
And this morning, I don't want to romanticize | 8:46 | |
or to sentimentalize the role of a disciple of Jesus. | 8:49 | |
You've got to give the Gospel of Luke some credit. | 8:55 | |
It depicts following Jesus in a way which is real. | 9:00 | |
Following Jesus is not easy. | 9:07 | |
Sometimes there are choices, and the choices are tough. | 9:10 | |
And they're real choices. | 9:14 | |
The choices given here are not choices between | 9:17 | |
something that's bad, as opposed to something that's good, | 9:19 | |
but it's those tough choices you're | 9:22 | |
sometimes called to make in life, | 9:24 | |
between one good and another good. | 9:26 | |
After all, isn't it important | 9:30 | |
to love and support our families? | 9:32 | |
Isn't the love of children for their parents | 9:36 | |
absolutely essential? | 9:38 | |
Choices are tough. | 9:40 | |
Sometimes it's something so small as a choice between | 9:43 | |
whether to spend an evening at home with the family, | 9:46 | |
or to participate in the church's prison ministry downtown. | 9:49 | |
Yet at other times, the cost seems high. | 9:54 | |
And what I love about this portion of scripture is | 9:59 | |
it doesn't make it easier than it really is. | 10:05 | |
A few years ago I had a tough text to preach here. | 10:12 | |
It was the story of the rich young ruler, | 10:15 | |
some of you know that story. | 10:18 | |
This young upwardly mobile, high SAT-scoring young man | 10:20 | |
comes to Jesus, and says, | 10:24 | |
"What have I got to do to follow you?" | 10:26 | |
And Jesus likes him and says, "Well all you've got to do is | 10:30 | |
to obey all the commandments." | 10:35 | |
And he is rather surprised, I suppose, | 10:38 | |
when the young man comes back and says, | 10:41 | |
"Yeah, I've obeyed all the commandments, | 10:43 | |
ever since I was a kid." | 10:45 | |
And then Jesus looks on him and says, | 10:49 | |
"Could you do just one more little thing for me? | 10:53 | |
Could you go and sell everything you have, | 10:56 | |
and give it to the poor? Then, follow me." | 10:59 | |
And with that Luke says he got real depressed, | 11:05 | |
and he got back in his car and he left, | 11:11 | |
and Jesus says, "It's really hard to get | 11:14 | |
some of these upwardly mobile young | 11:18 | |
well-to-do types to follow." | 11:20 | |
And that's the way the story ends, in failure. | 11:25 | |
It just ends hanging there with Jesus saying, | 11:28 | |
"It is so hard to get people like this to follow me." | 11:30 | |
Well as a preacher, I decided | 11:36 | |
I'm going to try to preach it like that, | 11:38 | |
I'm going to try to leave it like that. | 11:40 | |
I'm not going to explain it to them, | 11:42 | |
I'm not going to say he didn't mean | 11:43 | |
give away everything you've got, he meant pledge 10% | 11:46 | |
off the top or after taxes, that's what he meant. | 11:49 | |
He meant put money in its proper- | 11:52 | |
you've heard those sermons. | 11:54 | |
I was determined I'm not going to do that, | 11:55 | |
I'm just going to say, "Somebody is | 11:57 | |
confronted with the toughness of Jesus, | 11:59 | |
and he goes away sorrowful." | 12:03 | |
And I just kind of ended the sermon that way. | 12:06 | |
Next morning, Monday morning, I was having breakfast | 12:10 | |
in the university cafeteria, I run into the | 12:13 | |
then Dean of the Divinity School. | 12:16 | |
He says to me, "Oh, yesterday, wasn't that a downer?" | 12:18 | |
He said, "Well what could you do? The anthem by the | 12:23 | |
choir was so low, I mean naturally the sermon was dead, | 12:26 | |
I mean what could you do? Everything just laid there. | 12:30 | |
It was depressing, you've got to get | 12:34 | |
the musicians to help you try to | 12:36 | |
get the service up off the floor, and do something with it." | 12:37 | |
I said, "Yeah, I was just thinking that myself | 12:42 | |
about the service." | 12:45 | |
And I turn around, and I encounter | 12:46 | |
the then Chair of the Religion Department. | 12:49 | |
And he with tray in his hands says, | 12:52 | |
"Well what happened yesterday? Just sort of | 12:55 | |
got it all out on the table, didn't we, | 12:59 | |
but didn't know what to do with it, did we? | 13:01 | |
We couldn't think of a way to end the sermon, | 13:03 | |
could we? Well don't you worry, you're usually | 13:05 | |
quite adequate, you do fine. | 13:07 | |
You can't be on every Sunday, can you?" | 13:09 | |
And I staggered over to my seat. | 13:14 | |
There was this graduate student, | 13:18 | |
comes up to me and he says, "Wow, man, | 13:21 | |
after that sermon yesterday, | 13:27 | |
I just, I've really been bothered." | 13:28 | |
And I said, "Look kid, don't start on me about that sermon. | 13:31 | |
I may have to take that off of those people, | 13:37 | |
I don't have to take this off of you. | 13:39 | |
I don't want to hear about the sermon." | 13:40 | |
He said, "Well, of course, you know, I went home, | 13:44 | |
I laid on my bed, I mean I just wanted to cry." | 13:46 | |
I said, "You wanted to cry?" | 13:51 | |
He said, "Yeah, I mean I asked Jesus, you know, | 13:54 | |
'What do you want? What would make you happy?'" | 13:58 | |
You know me, I told you, I had this religious experience | 14:02 | |
when I was in college, and I gave my life to Christ. | 14:05 | |
Someone told me that like following Jesus | 14:09 | |
was a nice thing to do. That you would like be | 14:11 | |
better off afterwards, but it just seems | 14:13 | |
like every Sunday I come to church, and I just | 14:16 | |
get assaulted with some new demand, | 14:19 | |
and I lay on my bunk, and I said to Jesus, | 14:21 | |
"Look, what would make you happy? Can I keep the bicycle, | 14:25 | |
is that okay? What do you want out of me?" | 14:28 | |
And I said to him, "Do you see that aging man | 14:35 | |
sitting over on the side of the cafeteria? | 14:40 | |
Could you go over there and like explain things to him? | 14:45 | |
I think you got it. | 14:52 | |
See, we're here this morning | 14:56 | |
because we want to follow Jesus. | 14:58 | |
In one way or another, you are among those people | 15:01 | |
who when you heard Jesus say, "Follow me," you followed. | 15:05 | |
Some of us, of course, have been following | 15:13 | |
more closely than others. | 15:15 | |
And yet, maybe the good news this morning, | 15:19 | |
is that at least you are following him. | 15:24 | |
You are. | 15:30 | |
Here you are, being instructed by him. | 15:32 | |
Here you are, searchingly examining your own | 15:36 | |
discipleship, maybe correcting it, | 15:41 | |
in submission to his Word. | 15:44 | |
The good news is, the good news is he knows it's not easy. | 15:48 | |
He loves us enough not to make it | 15:56 | |
appear easier than it really is. | 15:58 | |
The choices are tough, and they are large, | 16:01 | |
and he knows it. | 16:04 | |
He warns us. | 16:06 | |
And yet despite the challenges, it's a journey worth taking. | 16:10 | |
He gives our little lives a sense of adventure. | 16:17 | |
We walk with him. | 16:23 | |
We walk with him, sometimes well, and sometimes poorly. | 16:24 | |
But we walk with him, beside him, along the way, | 16:29 | |
which is God's way. | 16:36 | |
I know you. You will leave this sweet hour of worship | 16:40 | |
and return to the world where you've got | 16:44 | |
all sorts of tough choices and difficult demands. | 16:48 | |
But I want you to know this, | 16:53 | |
Jesus knows it is not always easy. | 16:56 | |
Thus, in this service, you will note that we confess | 17:01 | |
our inability to follow as we ought. | 17:06 | |
In this service we pray for strength. | 17:10 | |
We ask for forgiveness when we fail, | 17:12 | |
and we renew our determination to walk with him. | 17:15 | |
We take some bread, we take a little wine, | 17:20 | |
to sustain us for the journey. | 17:24 | |
And the good news is, | 17:28 | |
we journey not alone. | 17:30 |
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