Words of a disciple

from Helen

Words, words, words – there are so many of them about. It is true that we all know a lot of words and use a very small amount of those words. Words have a stronger power than we can ever think. After all communication is key. How we communicate is a way to express the type of people we are.

An elderly lady was well-known for her faith and for her boldness in talking about it.

She would stand on her front porch and shout "PRAISE THE LORD!"

Next door to her lived an atheist who would get so angry at her proclamations he would shout, "There isn’t a Lord!!"

Hard times set in on the elderly lady, and she prayed for GOD to send her some assistance. She stood on her porch and shouted "PRAISE THE LORD. GOD I NEED FOOD!! I AM HAVING A HARD TIME. PLEASE LORD, SEND ME SOME GROCERIES!!"

The next morning the lady went out on her porch and noted a large bag of groceries and shouted, "PRAISE THE LORD."

The neighbour jumped from behind a bush and said, "Ah! I told you there was no Lord. I bought those groceries, God didn't."

The lady started jumping up and down and clapping her hands and said, "PRAISE THE LORD. PRAISE THE LORD ! He not only sent me groceries, but He made the devil pay for them !"

Words and actions go so well together and can mean so much. In our readings today we have heard something of words. From the epistle of James (3:1-12) reminding us to watch what we say as this is what guides us – to the gospel (Mark 8:27-38) with Peter having a moment of triumph when he recognised who Jesus was to then turning around and messing things up by telling Jesus that He was wrong.

Peter was learning about Jesus and whilst he was brave enough to tell Jesus who He was, He was also ready to make himself look silly if he got it wrong. How encouraging for us !

Peter never one to hold back admitted his feelings and faith. I love Peter, he is perhaps one of the disciples that most people find comforting. Peter had moments of wonder and then moments of complete confusion.

In the gospel reading Peter was learning that words and actions go together. Jesus was teaching the disciples about faith and who He was. As He did this the disciples were being trained as followers. Followers who had a commitment to make. A commitment that was not the easiest. 

To be honest the idea of denying something you like is not easy. The idea of changing our lives and looking to Jesus is great and we have done that- but the daily living of being a disciple is not as easy. 

Jesus said that to follow Him means that we must take up our cross, we must be more like Jesus. Then our words that say we believe, really show meaning in the way we live our lives.

After Peter had made his declaration Jesus began to teach the disciples about what would come next.

The disciples had been through a whirlwind already. They had seen Jesus whom they wanted to follow. They had seen Him perform miracles, they had heard him teach about a better way to live, they had seen Him be confronted by their religious leaders and they knew that He was something special. 

They must have thought that they were on the winning team. Messiah to them meant a new King, a warrior who would overthrow the Romans and rescue people. 

Jesus began to teach the disciples that things would be different. The disciples felt they were on the winning side but the actions that would happen to Jesus certainly didn’t seem like winning. Jesus used Old Testament passages that the disciples would understand to help them see that He needed to suffer but that it would all be right in the end. That glory would come and life would be better.

Being a disciple is not easy we have to match our words and actions. Martin Luther said that a religion that gives nothing, costs nothing, and suffers nothing, is worth nothing. To be a follower of Jesus our words need to show by the way that we live. By the people that we are.

There was a man who had written about them, ‘He made free use of Christian vocabulary. He talked about the blessing of the Almighty and the Christian confessions which would become the pillars of the new government. He assumed the earnestness of a man weighed down by historic responsibility. He handed out pious stories to the press, especially to the church papers. He showed his tattered Bible and declared that he drew the strength for his great work from it as scores of pious people welcomed him as a man sent from God. Indeed, Adolf Hitler was a master of outward religiosity--with no inward reality!’

It is quite frightening and certainly as Jesus taught the disciples about how things were to be He was warning them that being a disciple is about putting Him first. It is about sacrifice, it is about a new way of life, it is about taking up the cross of Jesus. 

Jesus never asked for people who were a little bit committed to Him. People who would say all the right words and then go out and do something different, He didn’t ask for people who would gossip about others, He didn’t ask for us to worship Him one day a week and then do our own thing, He asked for complete commitment.

Jesus is our centre, He is our Lord but if He is not Lord of everything in our life then He is not Lord at all. 

Jesus needs to be in the driving seat of our lives and we need to make sure that our words and actions are faithful to Him. If we are going to deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow Jesus then we need to do as He would do. To choose love not hate, to choose justice not injustice and to choose peace. 

Jesus said, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me.’ 

May we make sure that our words and actions point to Jesus.You will have heard it before but it is always a good challenge – There are 5 gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and you. Most people never read the first 4. We have a gospel to proclaim a gospel of sacrifice that will bring us everything. AMEN