AtomThe Discipleship Question: Do you also wish to go away?
Pastor Dave Peterson
First Lutheran Church
March 14, 2010
John 6:60-71
Gospel – John 6:60-71
60 When many of his disciples heard this (that Jesus is the Bread of Life), they said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” 61 But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, “Does this offend you? 62 Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? 63 It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. 64 But among you there are some who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him. 65 And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.”
66 Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. 67 So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” 68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69 We have come to believe and know that you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” 70 Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the twelve? Yet one of you is a devil.” 71 He was speaking of Judas son of Simon Iscariot, for he, though one of the twelve, was going to betray him.
This is the Good News…the Gospel of our Lord!! THANKS BE TO GOD!!
This letter came via email this week…
Dear Friend,
I’m writing to say thanks. I wish I could thank you personally, but I don’t know where you are. I wish I could call you, but I don’t know your name. If I knew your appearance, I’d look for you, but your face is fuzzy in my memory. But I’ll never forget what you did.
There you were, leaning against your pickup in the West Texas oil field. An engineer of some sort. A supervisor on the job. Your khakis and clean shirt set you apart from us roustabouts. In the oil field pecking order, we were at the bottom. You were the boss. We were the workers. You read the blueprints. We dug the ditches. You inspected the pipe. We laid it. You ate with the bosses in the shed. We ate with each other in the shade.
Except that day. I remember wondering why you did it.
We weren’t much to look at. What wasn’t sweaty was oily. Faces burnt from the sun; skin black from the grease. Didn’t bother me, though. I was there only for the summer. A high-school boy earning good money laying pipe.
We weren’t much to listen to, either. Our language was sandpaper coarse. After lunch, we’d light the cigarettes and begin the jokes. Someone always had a deck of cards with lacy-clad girls on the back. For thirty minutes in the heat of the day, the oil patch became Las Vegas—replete with foul language, dirty stories, blackjack, and lunch pails that doubled as bar stools.
In the middle of such a game, you approached us. I thought you had a job for us that couldn’t wait another few minutes. Like the others, I groaned when I saw you coming.
You were nervous. You shifted your weight from one leg to the other as you began to speak.
“Uh, fellows,” you started.
We turned and looked up at you.
“I, uh, I just wanted, uh, to invite … ”
You were way out of your comfort zone. I had no idea what you might be about to say, but I knew that it had nothing to do with work.
“I just wanted to tell you that, uh, our church is having a service tonight and, uh … ”
“What?” I couldn’t believe it. “He’s talking church? Out here? With us?”
“I wanted to invite any of you to come along.”
Silence. Screaming silence.
Several guys stared at the dirt. A few shot glances at the others. Snickers rose just inches from the surface.
“Well, that’s it. Uh, if any of you want to go … uh, let me know.”
After you turned and left, we turned and laughed. We called you “reverend,” “preacher,” and “the pope.” We poked fun at each other, daring one another to go. You became the butt of the day’s jokes.
I’m sure you knew that. I’m sure you went back to your truck knowing the only good you’d done was to make a good fool out of yourself. If that’s what you thought, then you were wrong.
That’s the reason for this letter.
Some five years later, a college sophomore was struggling with a decision. He had drifted from the faith given to him by his parents. He wanted to come back. He wanted to come home. But the price was high. His friends might laugh. His habits would have to change. His reputation would have to be overcome.
Could he do it? Did he have the courage to follow you? It was a pretty hard decision!!
That’s when I thought of you. As I sat in my dorm room late one night, looking for the guts to do what I knew was right, I thought of you.
I thought of how your love for Jesus had been greater than your love for your reputation.
I thought of how your obedience had been greater than your common sense.
I remembered how you had cared more about making disciples (and following Jesus) than about making a good first impression. And when I thought of you, your memory became my motivation.
So I came home.
I’ve told your story dozens of times to thousands of people. Each time the reaction is the same: The audience becomes a sea of smiles, and heads bob in understanding. Some smile because they think of the “clean-shirted engineers” in their lives.
They remember the neighbor who brought the cake, the aunt who wrote the letter, the teacher who listened, the classmate who stood up for the dignity of another …
Others smile because they have done what you did. And they, too, wonder if their “lunchtime loyalty” was worth the effort.
You wondered that. What you did that day wasn’t much. And I’m sure you walked away that day thinking that your efforts of following Jesus had been wasted.
They weren’t.
So I’m writing to say thanks. Thanks for the example. Thanks for the courage. Thanks for giving your lunch to God. He did something with it; your lunch became the Bread of Life for me.
Gratefully,
Max Lucado
P.S. If by some remarkable coincidence you read this and remember that day, please give me a call. I owe you lunch.
Jesus said, “I am the Bread of Life…whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.” And at First Lutheran we’ve spoken of and received this promise of Jesus many times over…but…in today’s Gospel, when the disciples told how difficult this was to accept and that many turned back, Jesus asked the discipleship question…”Do you also wish to go away?”
The Discipleship Question…it’s the question on the other side of receiving the Bread of Life. It’s the question of following Jesus, the Bread of Life…which means:
It’s a question of courage in the midst of fear.
It’s a question of loyalty in the midst of ridicule.
It’s a question of faithfulness in the midst of temptation.
It’s a question of being a devoted follower…or simply a “fair-weather” friend of Jesus!!
It’s the Discipleship Question…the question that, in the big picture, Jesus has asked millions and billions of disciples since that day…
And, it’s the question that, in the individual picture, each individual disciple of Jesus answers daily through their words and deeds; be it on an oil field in Texas or on the streets of Detroit Lakes!!!
• We answer it when we’re given opportunity to give witness to Jesus to someone in our school or place of work…
• We answer it when God gives us ways to use our gifts and talents to serve in God’s church or serve a neighbor in need…
• We answer it when we’re faced with the multitude of temptations to sin that come our way…
• We answer it when God’s Will and my will clang together in our lives…
And…THANKS BE TO GOD…for all the disciples of Jesus who each day say their YES to the discipleship question…and in their yes, they live out, like Lucado’s mentor:
courage in the midst of fear.
loyalty in the midst of ridicule.
faithfulness in the midst of temptation..because, they are (you are) followers of Jesus!!
This was my first thought in reading this Gospel and praying about bringing it to God’s People today. This Gospel is a THANK YOU to all the followers of Jesus who continue to step up and live out God’s call to them…
Yet there’s more…there is also the encouragement to put into practice what it takes for this yes to happen…thus my second thought…was to give a contemporary image of what it takes to be a disciple of Jesus …and this image came to me in the form of another story…borrowed from the season we’re in….and we’re not talking Lent…we’re talking MARCH MADNESS!!
Mike Krzyzewski is the head coach of the Duke basketball team…he is known as one of the greatest coaches in the game today.
Krzyzewski came to Duke in 1980. By his third year, he was being booed in his own gym.
On March 11, 1983 the Duke Blue Devils suffered their worst defeat in school history, a 109-66 loss to Virginia. In the team’s hotel after the game, fans and alumni shrank from Kyzyzewski as if he had a disease. (did you hear this in the gospel…people leaving??)
As he sat with his assistant coaches that night, someone suggested they recruit new players. “Absolutely not,” Krzyzewski said, his voice steely. He then pushed forward a sheet of paper with five names on it—four of them freshmen players from the night’s debacle. “This will be our squad next year,” he said. “Losing doesn’t make you a loser unless you think you’re a loser. I’m not quitting on these kids.” (By the way, Jesus didn’t quit on his young kids either and he won’t quit on us!!!)
An assistant coach offered a toast: “Here’s to forgetting tonight ever happened.”
Krzyzewski picked up his iced tea and looked around the table. “Here’s to never forgetting,” he said.
Those battered freshmen went on to win an NCAA record 37 games as seniors in the 1985-86 season, losing the national title by just three points. (John Feinstein, “A Winner’s Secret, Reader’s Digest, January 1992, pp 49-50). Nine times since, Duke has been to basketball’s Final Four, winning it 3 times, and, I wouldn’t bet against them again this year: they are ranked # 4. They won yesterday and are in the ACC championship game today!! The key says Krzyzewski…is discipline and determination!!
One January, after his team was pasted by a conference rival, Krzyzewski was quiet on the long trek back to Durham. At 7 p.m., after a three-hour bus ride, the team finally reached campus. One by one the tired players filed off the bus, heading toward their dorm rooms. “Not so fast,” Krzyzewski called out. The players turned in surprise. “I want everyone dressed and on the court in ten minutes. Gentlemen—we’re going to practice.”
And they did, the toughest practice of the year. “But it wasn’t punishment,” says Krzyzeski. “It was an opportunity. That loss reminded us that we had to work hard to win. I wanted to drill that message into them while the defeat was fresh in their minds.”
Friends in Christ, It’s no different for Followers of Jesus. We too have Christian Disciplines to engage ourselves in…the disciplines of: Prayer, Bible Study, Worship, Witnessing, Good Stewardship habits, Christian Fellowship—we need to engage ourselves in all these disciplines because these are the disciplines that make us more and more attentive to what Jesus would do in and through our lives.
And…when we fail at it…when we get pasted…(which we will)…we don’t quit and fall away. We get up, get dusted off by Jesus, and get back on the court…as followers of Jesus.
I tell this story because It strikes me that this is the type of determination and discipline that followers of Jesus can learn and put into practice each and every day we live!! As Pastor Maxie Dunman asks,
“Imagine, If every follower of Jesus in every church today approached our discipleship in that fashion, imagine what powerful Christians and Churches we would we be? Just imagine the impact we could have on the world around us…in the name of Jesus!!”
Today we hear and answer the discipleship question…it’s the question on the other side of receiving the Bread of Life. It’s the question asked by the Bread of Life: “Will you also go away?”
It’s a question of courage in the midst of fear.
It’s a question of loyalty in the midst of ridicule.
It’s a question of faithfulness in the midst of temptation.
It’s a question of being a devoted follower or fair-weather friend of Jesus….
And, let’s also recognize, we don’t answer this question once and for all – we answer it each and every day in our life journey as we seek to faithfully follow Jesus, the one who indeed is the Bread of Life!!
Lucado wrote:
I’m sure you walked away that day thinking that your efforts had been wasted.
They weren’t.
So I’m writing to say thanks. Thanks for the example. Thanks for the courage. Thanks for giving your lunch to God. He did something with it; your lunch became the Bread of Life for me.
May it be so with us, disciples of Jesus…May we consciously live our live journey with this same discipline and determination each and every day: both as recipients and followers of the bread of life – Jesus Christ!!
AMEN!!
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