Sermon for 17th Sunday after Trinity, 2020

Trinity XVII

Deep in Discipleship

  October will be a special month in the life of our church family – this is our Launch Month. Next Sunday, God willing, we will officially launch as a Mission Church. When you launch something, you set it in motion. It is often applied to ships. Luke 5:4: “Now when he had left speaking, he said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.” To celebrate what God has already done for us, and to prepare ourselves for where He is leading us, we will focus each Sunday in October and the first one in November on one of our five Core Values. 

Our Core Values are grounded in Scripture. Acts 2:42 provides a summary of the practices of the early Church. Listen for four elements.  “And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” The first Christians devoted themselves to the Apostle’s “teaching” and “fellowship.” These are our core values of Deep in Discipleship, which we will address today, and second, they devoted themselves to “fellowship,” which is our core value of Together in Life, which will be the topic on November first. They also devoted themselves to “the breaking of bread” and “the prayers” – which correspond to our Centered on Communion and Rooted in History. These will be the themes on October 18 and 25. Our fifth core value – Mobilized for Mission – will be the theme for next Sunday – Launch Day. This morning then, we will consider our first core value - Deep in Discipleship. 

“Discipleship” is a familiar word. It corresponds to a Greek word which means “to learn.”  In the ancient world, discipleship was not limited to Christians. Prominent philosophers had disciples, and so did some influential Pharisees. John the Baptist had disciples, two of whom, most likely Andrew and John, became disciples of Jesus. Discipleship is a prominent theme in all the Gospels.  The word “disciple” occurs 72 times in Matthew, 46 times in Mark, 37 times in Luke, and 78 times in John. This morning we will consider just two aspects of deep discipleship: self-denial and habitual recollection. 

To introduce the subject of self-denial, we can look at three passages in St. Mark’s Gospel. These passages conveniently occur in chapters 8, 9, and 10. In Mark 8:34, Jesus says, “Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” In 9:35 He says, “If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all.” Finally, in 10:45 He says, “For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many.” Together, these three passages in Mark 8, 9, and 10 tell us that if we really want to be His disciples, we must deny ourselves, even to the point of putting ourselves last that we may the servant of all. We might expect that each of these passages was preceded by Jesus announcing to His disciples that He was about to teach them about discipleship. That is not what we find, though. Each of these discipleship teachings is preceded by Jesus telling them of His coming betrayal, suffering, death, and resurrection. These are the only three Passion predictions recorded by St. Mark, and each of them is used to teach about discipleship.   

What is the connection between His Cross and our discipleship? Discipleship is about learning, and if we have truly learned from Christ, we will want to be like Him. We will practice self-denial, for that is what He did. And this self-denial is so complete that the only way to describe it is as a death - as taking up one’s cross. Second Corinthians 5:15: “And he died for all, that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.” Because of Christ’s atoning sacrifice, the power of sin has been broken for all those who by faith trust in Him. We have died to living for ourselves, and we now live to Him who for our sakes died and rose again. In the Prayer Book, this self-denial is called “walking in the way of the cross.”  It is no accident that one of the most famous books about Christian discipleship is Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship. You cannot follow Jesus without self-denial. 

The second aspect of deep discipleship is habitual recollection. “Recollection” is remembering, but we’ll see there is more to it than that. And it is “habitual.” Like any good habit, however, it doesn’t mean we do it perfectly, or without fail, or that there is no room for improvement. To find out how we can begin practicing habitual recollection, we turn again to St. Mark’s Gospel. 

Marks records the calling of the 12 disciples in chapter three. He commissions them to preach, and tells them they will have power to heal disease and to cast out devils. Do you know how the passage begins? “And he ordained twelve, that they should be with Him.” Before the preaching, before the miracles, before any works at all, the first, the most essential thing in being His disciple was to “be with” Him. Nothing, not even performing miracles, was to get in the way of that. This “being with” Jesus is habitual recollection. It is more than remembering Him. It is a continual, loving attention to Him. It is one way to “pray without ceasing.” We should deliberately remember God at set times during the day – this is the reason the Prayer Book provides for Morning and Evening Prayer. But being deep in discipleship means actively nurturing the divine presence throughout the day, and shunning everything that might inhibit it. What does this look like? 

If we practice recollection our intent is to always please Him, in order to “be with” Him. And so I will ask myself, “If I do this thing, will I be following Christ?” “As I think these thoughts now, is Christ with me?” “If I allow my attention to be captured by this, I am pleasing Him whose loving presence I want to be in continually?” Habitual recollection is the practice of the presence of God. It consciously brings Christ into all activities of life, so that whether therefore we eat, or drink, or whatsoever we do, we do all to the glory of God.

There is another side to habitual recollection. At the Offertory, you will hear the Celebrant say, “All things come of thee, O Lord, and of thine own have we given thee.” This comes from First Chronicles 29:14. Not only do all our material possessions come from God, of which we give back to Him a portion, but our very existence, our powers of reasoning, and all the capabilities of our bodies and souls come from Him, also. This means that any activity or achievement that makes use of our God-given talents is recollecting Him who made that possible. Any service or help we render to others is recollecting Him who “came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.” Any legitimate pleasure that comes from His hand, whether the sound of children playing or the smile of a loved one that results in giving thanks to Him for these things, is recollecting His goodness and love to us. Anglican priest and author Martin Thornton put it this way, “I see no reason why our joy in Christ should be confined to quiet walks in the country.” 

We have looked at two aspects of deep discipleship: self-denial - the daily taking up our cross, and habitual recollection – the “being with” Him in continual remembering and loving attention.  There remains one thing more – to ask if these are related.  

You can be a disciple, and a good one, too, of any earthly teacher, no matter how admirable and virtuous he or she may be. If you are committed enough, you have a good chance of following most everything that person taught. Being a disciple of Jesus, learning from Him, and following Him, however, is different. Eternally different. On your own, it’s not just that His teaching will prove difficult – it will prove impossible. If you do want to live deep in discipleship, it will take a degree and type of self-denial that only Jesus Himself can bring about. He can do this for us, because when He came and took our nature upon Himself, His self-denial took Him all the way to the Cross. He can help us carry our cross, for He has already carried His. 

We would always want to be in the presence of Him who gave everything for us. That is recollection. And as that recollection becomes more habitual and deeper, would it not lead to greater degrees of putting others first and seeking His will in order to please Him and be more like Him? That is self-denial. So these two aspects of deep discipleship, self-denial and habitual recollection, contribute to, work together, and strengthen each other. 

We can close with an illustration. Do you think the Apostle Paul felt any less like a disciple when he was making tents in Corinth to support himself than when preaching the Gospel to the Stoic philosophers in Athens? No, for Paul was deep in discipleship. He had learned habitual recollection. “Prayer time” for him wasn’t compartmentalized. He was always at prayer for all his life was filled with God, and spent in loving attention to Him who had revealed Himself on the Damascus Road. And this was true for him because of this kind of self-denial: “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”