Matthew
28:16-20
Things that you see and hear as a child stick
in the back of your memory sometimes. TV
theme songs, for those of us of a certain age, are a good example.
“People, let me tell you ’bout my best friend,
He’s a warm-hearted person who’ll love me till the end.
People, let me tell you ’bout my best friend,
He’s a one-boy cuddly toy, my up, my down, my pride and joy.
People, let me tell you ’bout him; he’s so much fun,
Whether we’re talkin’ man-to-man or whether we’re talking
son-to-son.
’Cause he’s my best friend.
Yes, he’s my best friend.”[1]
That was the opening of The Courtship of Eddie’s Father, which ran from 1969 to 1972. The video portion showed the two main
characters, a father and son, walking together on the beach, followed by shots
where the father was imparting essential life skills that included how to cast
a fishing line, how to throw a Frisbee, and how to tee off with a golf club
that is as tall as yourself. Those are
stereotypical father-son scenes. If you’re older, you may remember Andy
Griffith and Opie walking along a dirt road with fishing poles. If you’re younger, maybe you remember Cliff
Huxtable showing all of his children, including Theo, how to dance during the
opening sequence of The Cosby Show.
Not
all fathers are the same. Not all
fathers fit that idealized picture. When
things go well, though, a lot passes from one generation to another from
fathers and grandfathers and uncles and godfathers, not as much by spoken words
as by demonstration and coaching.
I
was fortunate to have some wonderful theologians as teachers in seminary, and I
thank God for them. The man who prepared
me for parish ministry, however, was my first field education supervisor when I
was a summer intern at a country church in North Carolina. The day I met him he was in the church
office, kneeling on the floor. I wish I
could tell you he was praying, but he had a screwdriver in his hand and he was
taking apart a Xerox machine. Over the
next week, he had me salvage everything we could from that copier, and he took
the rollers and other parts and over a period of weeks turned them into a pea
sheller. He had me visit folks to let
them know it would be available to anyone who wanted to use it. Mind you, this was before e-mail was common,
so it meant sitting on the porch everywhere and drinking a lot of that sugary
Southern tea, and being shown around a lot of backyard gardens. In the course of that I had to get a handle
on who was whose cousin on their mother’s side and which people were working
fifty miles away and how many years they’d been part of the church and a lot of
other matters that I won’t go into. Then
I’d report back to the parsonage for supper, and to answer the questions,
“Well, then, what happened today?” and “Where is God in all of this?”
Four
years later, I was living on an island far away from North Carolina, and also
where the nearest Xerox repair shop had to be reached by plane. I was very glad to be able to call someone
and say, “Yup. The corona bar is
shot. Here’s the model number, and we’ll
need a new drum in about four months, so send one of those, too.” I was also glad to have learned to ask myself
his questions: “Well, then, what happened today?” and “Where is God in all of
this?”
Jesus
didn’t gather students about him. Yes,
he did teach. That was a big part of
what he did. But his teaching wasn’t the
kind that aimed to satisfy intellectual curiosity. It was the kind that aimed to impart a way of
living. He gathered disciples. He took them with him, and showed them how to
fish for people, how to repair broken hearts, how to mend lives. Then he sent them out to do it. Luke says,
“Jesus called the twelve together and gave them
power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the
kingdom of God and to heal. He
said to them, ‘Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor
money—not even an extra tunic. Whatever house you enter, stay there, and leave
from there. Wherever they do not
welcome you, as you are leaving that town shake the dust off your feet as a
testimony against them.’ They
departed and went through the villages, bringing the good news and curing
diseases everywhere.” [Luke 9:1-6]
The Bible doesn’t give us the details about it,
but says that
“On their return the apostles told Jesus all
they had done. He took them with him and withdrew privately to a city called
Bethsaida.” [Luke 9:10]
That
process itself was something that Jesus wanted them to learn, and to repeat
with others.
“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.” [Matthew 28:18-20]
Making disciples doesn’t come, sad to say, by
preaching. Making disciples comes by the
day-to-day sharing of a way of life that follows the example Jesus gave
us. That’s the “obeying everything I have commanded you” part. We have to be disciples to make
disciples. Going back to the Fathers’
Day theme, you cannot have a child without having been a child yourself, or
help someone grow to maturity unless you yourself are trying to be mature.
Jesus
didn’t just tell his disciples that they should be a people of prayer. He took Peter and James and John aside with
him at times to pray. Jesus didn’t just
tell them to proclaim the forgiveness of sin, he forgave them when they fell
asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane and didn’t notice that a posse had come to
arrest him. He didn’t just tell them to
love their enemies, he prayed on the cross for the people who had nailed him
there. He asked nothing of them that he
did not himself also do. Thus are real
disciples made, by being shown the way of life.
“Go therefore and make disciples of all
nations,” said Jesus.
A man who grew up in Souderton, named Henry Appenzeller, went
to Korea in the 1880s and spent almost twenty years there, founding a school
and tending to victims of a cholera epidemic, and getting quietly involved with
the movement to free Korea from Japanese occupation. All that time he preached about Jesus, and
the power of his resurrection. He shared
the message that life is stronger than death, that the grave has no power over
God’s people. Then came the night of
June 11, 1902, when the ship which was carrying him to a meeting of Bible
translators was rammed by another, larger ship in the fog. Twenty-seven people died in the
accident. One of those was Henry
Appenzeller. He drowned because he chose
to try to save a young Korean girl rather than swim to shore. All that he had done to that point was good
and faithful, but when word spread of the way he died, that was when people saw
that he had meant everything he had said.
There are currently about 1.5 million United Methodist Christians in
Korea who trace the origins of their faith through him.
1.5 million, from one faithful disciple… How many people are there in this room, now?
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