Why do we call ourselves Disciples? (John 8:31-47)
John 8:31-47 (NRSV)
31 Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” 33 They answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, ‘You will be made free’?”
34 Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. 35 The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. 36 So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. 37 I know that you are descendants of Abraham; yet you look for an opportunity to kill me, because there is no place in you for my word. 38 I declare what I have seen in the Father’s presence; as for you, you should do what you have heard from the Father.”[a
39 They answered him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing what Abraham did, 40 but now you are trying to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. 41 You are indeed doing what your father does.” They said to him, “We are not illegitimate children; we have one father, God himself.” 42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now I am here. I did not come on my own, but he sent me. 43 Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot accept my word. 44 You are from your father the devil, and you choose to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45 But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. 46 Which of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? 47 Whoever is from God hears the words of God. The reason you do not hear them is that you are not from God.”
August 18, 2019 Sermon
The “Are You Smarter Than a Third Grader” sermon series provided a good overview of Christianity. It also demonstrated what it means to ask questions about the faith. For the fall preaching series we have taken the next step and invited members of the congregation to ask their own questions. Several good topics were suggested and it is going to be an exciting few months of sermon preparation for me.
One of the first requests was the question, “what does our church teach?”
In one sense, the last several months of baptismal class questions have already answered to this question. The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is part of the larger body of Christ. Therefore we share all the essentials of the Christian faith with believers all around the world.
On the other hand, there are several emphases that are particular to our denomination. These distinctions are not necessarily doctrines unique to us, but are ideas and practices combined in such a way that we have been shaped into a group of believers who tend to look at the Bible, the Church, Jesus, and the world in somewhat similar ways.
In the case of the Disciples of Christ these shared ideas do not create a monolithic worldview that is enforced on every member of the church. We intentionally have no list of doctrines that a person must sign off on in order to join our movement. Instead, we begin with a shared affirmation that “Jesus is Lord” and use that as the foundation for everything else.
Proclaiming Jesus as Lord means that I am not. It also means that you are not. As a result, we all stand equal before God. While we can, and should, learn from wise pastors, teachers, and church history, none of these people are inherently holier than another Christian. We are all equally in need of the grace of Jesus.
This is why Disciples have always placed great value on each person coming to the Bible as an individual. As a movement founded during the Enlightenment, our founders, Barton Stone and Thomas and Alexander Campbell, placed a great deal of trust in the ability of each person to reason through the faith. With the right amount of prayer, study, and guidance by the Holy Spirit, every Christian would be able to come to a sufficient understanding of what Christ wanted for them and their lives.
Of course, the founders recognized that human beings are shaped by their own individual histories and perspectives. They knew that no two Christians would ever agree on everything. This is why they allowed for a great diversity of interpretation, while recognizing the inherent dignity of each individual Christian.
This is why the founders chose to refrain from using creeds as a test of membership. They had seen the damage done by enforcing one person’s, or one group’s, interpretation on others. They created a system that allowed believers to come together while avoiding many of the dogmatic conflicts that had manifested themselves throughout Christian history.
They did this by focusing less on specific doctrinal traditions and more on a set of shared practices. Specifically, they were attempting to restore the practices of the New Testament church. They believed that by acting like the first Christians did, they would be able to overcome the divisions that had plagued the church for millennia and allow believers to come together.
Whether they succeeded at restoring the church to an unblemished New Testament Christianity is a story for another sermon (spoiler alert: they did not). However, it does explain why they chose to drop any denominational title that would imply loyalty to anything other than Jesus himself. Believers would no longer be Presbyterians, Methodists, or Baptists. They would simply be known by the biblical title, “disciples of christ.”
Disciples dedicate themselves to learning from a great teacher
In today’s text from John 8:31-47 Jesus is speaking about the concept of discipleship and what it means to be one of his disciples. In modern English the term disciple tends to only be used in association with the twelve individuals who most closely followed Christ. However, disciples were extremely common in the ancient world.
Nearly every teacher, rabbi, guru, or philosopher surrounded themselves with students who sought to learn from them. Through the years of dedicated study and mentoring these students would hopefully someday grow into masters of their own.
Such mastery required discipline and focus. To be a disciple is to accept the discipline of a teacher. To be his disciple, the twelve members of Jesus’ inner circle had to be willing to leave everything behind and follow a traveling rabbi wherever he might lead. The same thing is true for us today.
Disciples are called to trust and follow Jesus, not simply to know about him
Many people who seek to follow Jesus who turn discipleship into purely an intellectual exercise. The crowd that Jesus was speaking to included several who had once believed in him, but had begun to fall away when he began to say things that challenged them. They had begun to rely on their genealogy and knowledge of Scripture. They did not see how entangled in their own presuppositions they had become.
Jesus challenged them and said that it was not enough to simply be descended from Abraham. The teachers of the law knew Scripture well enough to quote it back to him in defense of their own self-righteousness. It was insufficient to simply know things about God. It was critical to turn one’s life and trust over to God.
What was true for the religious leaders of Jesus’ day is true for us as well. There are many people who profess faith in Christ, but place more trust in their own wisdom and righteousness as well as the things of this world than they do in the grace of God. Sadly, this is why believers are sometimes the least Christ-like people in the world.
Even when our discipleship falters God is always seeking to call us back
This tendency for God’s people to forget the covenant they had been given was nothing new. Jesus was reminding the people of the things they had heard time and time again throughout the Old Testament. In Isaiah 63 the prophet call the people out for failing to recognize the redeeming power of God. He chastises them for failing to acknowledge the one who has saved them throughout their nation’s history.
He bemoans the fact that God has seemingly hardened the heart of the people. He offers a reminder of what happens when people go their own ways. Despite this, he has not given up on God and proclaims that God has not given up on the people. There is always an opportunity to come back once more.
This is precisely the message Jesus was seeking to convey. He knew that the religious people of his day had placed their trust in things other than God. He sought to call them out of their complacency.
This is precisely what we need when we become self-righteous. We need challenged and called back to a life of faith and trust in Christ. Jesus knew that the life of discipleship is hard. This is why he told his followers that they must be willing to take up their cross in order to follow him.
This is why we call ourselves Disciples
As Disciples of Christ, we are a denomination that places great emphasis on living out our faith. We know that Christianity is not just what we believe about Christ. It is defined by whether we are willing to actually trust and follow him. In short, to be disciples, we must actually be willing to be disciplined by God’s own Son. This is a scary prospect that challenges everything we think we know about the world.
Calling ourselves Disciples is an aspirational statement. It is who we seek to be, not who we have already become.
From time to time we will all falter in our discipleship. We will harden our hearts. The good news is that Jesus will always seek to call us back and allow us to start over so that we might be able to once more seek to be the disciples he has called us to be.
