St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church

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Whose Disciples Are We?

Mark 6:14-29

July 16, 2006         (Click the date to see the bulletin)

1. I’m often bumfuzzled about the selection of texts in the lectionary, and this one from Mark is a case in point. I’ve never plumbed the depths of Mark’s story of the death of John, and I’m going to hazzard a guess and say you’re probably never heard a sermon on this passage, either. But this is the gospel lesson for today. So I’m gonna do it! What "word from the Lord" could there be for us in this story? Let’s see what we can find.

2. John is the most obvious place to begin. We know only a very little from scripture. We know that God was excited about his birth, and determined that his would be the task of making the people ready to receive The Christ (Luke 1:5-25). And we know that his parents, Zechariah the Priest and Elizabeth, were elderly. We also know that his mother was a cousin of Mary, the mother of Jesus. That much we know. What we don’t know is what happened between his birth, recorded in the first chapter of Luke, and the day he appeared in the Jordan River baptizing Jews and Gentiles alike, all of whom were repenting their sins.

3. What is your impression of John? How do you picture him? My picture of John is a bit like pictures of the hippies in the 60s. Mark writes that he wore some kind of long shirt woven from rough camel-hair, and he tied a piece of animal hide around his waist. It was probably sheepskin or goatskin, and the people in those days rolled it up to make it strong – which also made a convenient place to hide money. He was likely an Essene, which was a sect of Jewish men who lived in seclusion and never cut their hair. For food, he ate wild honey and locusts. Now, the Book of Leviticus lists many foods which were "an abomination unto the Lord." This list included shrimp and lobster, but locusts were not on that "abomination" list. They were quite plentiful, and Moses told the Children of Israel that God encouraged them to eat those locusts (Leviticus 11:20-23). Such was the diet of this man who drew many disciples to him. As each one came, he plunged them into the water of the Jordan River – he baptized them. That was really nothing new. Jews regularly went to the priest to be washed, to be "baptized" according to rituals that dealt with cleansing the body after disease. John, however, baptized for a different reason – he baptized in order to cleanse the heart.

4. In between baptisms, he preached an angry message. "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? . . . Even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees; every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire" (Matthew 3:7-10). And true to God’s calling before he was born, he pointed the way to Jesus: "One who is more powerful than I is coming after me. He will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire" (Matthew 3:11-12). He pointed to another as angry as he.

5. So we have this picture of an angry, eccentric religious fanatic. Who would have listened to a man like that? And who would have followed him? We know there were many, but who were they? We read in the Gospel of John that one of them was Andrew. Andrew had been listening to John when Jesus walked by, and heard John say, "Look! Here is the Lamb of God." So Andrew and another disciple followed Jesus to the place where he stayed, listened to him, decided to become a disciple of Jesus instead. Andrew then brought his brother Simon, whom Jesus immediately renamed "Peter" (John 1:35-42). And the rest, they say, is history.

6. John attracted a good many followers, that’s for certain. I think that’s still true today! Many who call themselves disciples of Jesus act more like disciples of John, pointing their angry fingers at those whom they believe to be sinners, and threatening them with unquenchable fire if they do not change their ways. Who is right? Which one are we to follow? Whose disciple are WE?

7. When I began, I asked what word from the Lord there is for us in this story. It’s obviously not "John," because in this story we learn that John was not the resurrected one! John’s life was not the life God wants us to follow! How do we know? We look for signs. One of the signs for John the Baptist is an ax. Axes are designed to cut things out – things like dead wood and weeds and undergrowth that keep the garden cluttered. Axes are good, useful tools to make things look perfect. Where do we see axes? Mostly in hardware stores. I cannot think of a time when I saw an ax appear in a cut watermelon or a condensation trail in the sky. Not once!

8. So the word from the Lord for us today word must be JESUS. The most well-known sign for Jesus is an empty cross. That is the sign that we see everywhere. Most often, of course, in churches and Christian stores and catalogs. But the sign of the cross shows up in very unlikely places, too – like the cross that "just appeared" in the watermelon. Every time we see a cross in an unexpected location, it reminds us to keep our eyes on Jesus.

9. The cross is the sign we are to seek! As we live out our lives, we seek to be disciples, not of John with the ax in his hand, but of Jesus whose empty cross reminds us that God vindicated his life – showed us that Jesus was the one who was right. Rather than trying to chop out the riff-raff, Jesus hung out with them and shared time with them. Rather than shutting them out, he called them out, and asked them to Rather than condemning them, Jesus called them to come along with him on the journey of their lives!

10. It’s not an easy task, to follow Jesus. Every day we wake up with concerns that threaten to weigh us down. How many of us came here today with a heavy heart? Or a difficult problem? Even though we often wake up with huge concerns, at the same moment, we also wake up with a fresh challenge: How will we be faithful to this empty cross? How will we answer Christ’s call to proclaim the love of God and the grace of Christ Jesus to a world that so desperately needs to hear those words? To have a love like that, we need a Christ-like love for people even when we are totally opposed; we need a church where we honor each others’ struggles. To have a love like that, we need to be reminded. These "pop-up crosse" reminders are everywhere if only we have eyes to see. Let us keep our eyes upon Jesus, let us be HIS disciples, and everything else will find its proper place.

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