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Our Words Series

A Sermon for the Beloveds of First Austin: a baptist community of faith

By Griff Martin

John 1:35-51 and Luke 9:23-27

On September 30, 2018

John 1:35-51 

The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Anointed). He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter).

The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.” And he said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

Luke 9:23-27

Then he said to them all, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words, of them the Son of Man will be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. But truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.”

Sermon: 

Incarnate and Resurrected God, we ask that you once again take the Word and transform it into a living and breathing new reality we can all together experience. Make us aware of you presence here in this space and in these words God for if we are present to you then nothing else will matter, but if you are not present to you then nothing else will matter. In the name of the Creator, the Christ and the Comforter.  Amen.

Currently two paintings hang above the fireplace in the Martin household: a portrait of Jesus which Abby and I once bought in Barcelona, the best way to describe it is Jesus in front of Van Gough’s Starry Night. It features blues and golds and it was painted by a Spanish artist and we stumbled upon it one afternoon walking through galleries and both fell in love instantly. Jesus has this incredible eyes that draw you and somehow it features just about everything I love about Jesus: his compassion, grace, mystery, humor…. This painting is the Jesus I love.

The second is a portrait of Willie Nelson. And I think that just about tells you everything you need to know about the Martin family spirituality: Jesus hanging next to Willie Nelson. And I could do a whole sermon on how they actually have a lot of similarity- their story telling, how they see the world, how they speak to institutional religion, the community they form- but that is another sermon for another time. 

This portrait of Willie Nelson was painted by yours truly, just a few weeks ago. There is a place on West 2nd Street, Upstairs Circus. It’s a craft and cocktails place and knowing that, it thus has something for everyone, a few of us gathered there a few weeks ago to craft and to cocktail. Jared and I ended up doing the same project- a portrait of Willie Nelson. Here they are…. 

Be a little impressed, but no too impressed with our ability… we had a stencil. 

However I do find it fascinating…. Jared’s use of golds and hot colors and his Jackson Pollack methodology… my use of my favorite colors navy, gray and white and my controlled style… and how in trying to create the exact same thing we were both able to bring our own personality into it.

I think that is Christ following. That in fact might be the only image we need this morning….. that our life is trying to paint a picture, an image of Jesus and we are called to do that by using our very unique personality. Meaning that in the end we might be able to line up a different canvas for each of us in this room and it might be the exact same picture but it’s going to be painted a thousand different ways because we are created in a thousand different ways.

It’s why Jesus did not call disciples to sit in a class room and to learn to be little clones of him in some cult like manner… but to live life on their terms and with their unique gifts and personalities and to live life with him and his unique gift and personality so they could learn to be more like him and then go and live like that for the whole world to see…. It’s our calling today as well, the call to follow Jesus.

At youth camp this summer I realized that we have a major vocabulary issue when it comes to following Jesus. If I asked you who or what do you follow? You might tell me you follow Lebron James, the Astros, a politician, an actor or an author. You might answer with the name of your favorite TV show, actor, singer, sports team. You might even tell me about somewhere you love like your favorite place to eat or a coffee shop. Today following is about twitter, facebook and instagram.

And in this meaning following is really no big thing… not friends with them, it’s not a commitment, it’s easy to do, just click a button. Essentially it’s I am a fan of ___ or I want to see a bit more of ___.  It really means nothing in our world, you can be a fan of Katy Perry today, Taylor Swift the next and Beyonce the next. 

And then we walk into church and we talk about Christianity as following Jesus, we talk about a Jesus who asked us to follow him.

And it’s not the same thing. Or it should not be the same thing, even though as a church we have often asked little more of ourselves than to just really like Jesus or to want to know more about Jesus and we have tried so hard to make it as easy as just clicking a button.

Father Greg Boyle writes “To just say ‘Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, I’m your biggest fan,’ causes him to stare at his watch, tap his feet and order a double scotch on the rocks with a twist. Fandom is of no interest to Jesus. What matters to him is the authentic following of a disciple. We all settle for saying ‘Jesus’ but Jesus wants us to be in the world who he is.” 

Because following Jesus is not about being his fan, of liking him from afar, or just wanting to know a bit more. It’s more than just checking a box. Being a Christian is about identity. It’s the noun and not an adjective we add on to a noun. Christian is the identity, not an identifier. 

Just look at the disciples and our text today…. These fishermen, probably all teenagers trying to figure life out. And they are not the best of the best, we love to make them that because if we make them spiritual all stars then we can’t relate to them and their life becomes unattainable to and for us. However they were a lot like us. They were just really pretty average, doing average work with their fathers. 

And suddenly there is this Jesus fellow who calls them to follow him. Now I don’t think this is out of the blue, my read on the story is that the disciples and Jesus have all been hanging out in the same places for a bit of time now. Jesus is spending his days near the water, which would have been one of the centers of life in the villages. And he talks to the folks, he might tell a story or two, as time goes on they begin to trust each other more and the conversations get a little bit deeper and they begin to see there is something different to this Jesus character. He has some new ideas about how things should be or could be, his stories seem to open up a whole new world… it’s hard to put into words but there is just something about him, as if he might be the very future of all things good.

So when Jesus comes to them and says “Follow me.” It’s not some magic moment when their eyes lock across the room and they instantly fall in love because that only happens on music videos. This is an invitation from someone whom they have gotten to know, who they have learned to trust and who has invited them into a future that they desperately want to see become a reality.

In fact they want it so much that they are willing to give up a lot…. They are willing to give up everything they have always known, the way things have always been. They are willing to give up their future, the one they have been working so hard to prepare for. They are willing to give up their families, their friends, their community.

This is how I described it to our youth this summer… you are finally a graduating seniors… you are at this wonderful space… you have chosen what is next for you and you are starting to think you might know what you want as a career, and you have a supportive family and friends- you know who are your people, you have enough cash that you can make it for a few months… and then the invitation comes to something new, something exciting but it’s going to take all that away. 

This is the disciple’s choice. 

This is what follow means…. Maybe think about it like this: would you be so quick on facebook to follow ___ if it meant leaving everything you knew, taking a leap into the unknown, losing financial security, leaving your family and friends. If following meant that, then God I would hope Katy Perry would not have 108 million followers. 

While we are talking about words maybe it’s time we learn to reclaim following as a verb that is scary, that is hard work but is also full of promise and hope because it might create a new world and it just might save you. 

There was an expression about disciples, it comes from Yose ben Yoever (an early sage of the Mishnah) and it goes like this: “Cover yourself with the dust of your Rabbi’s feet.”

It made a lot more sense in it’s original culture because people immediately knew what the image…. “The idea of being covered in the dust of your rabbi came from something everybody had seen. A rabbi would come to town and right behind him would be his group of students, doing their best to keep up with the rabbi as he went about teaching from one place to another. By the end of the day of walking in the dirt directly behind the rabbi, the students would have the dust form his feet all over him.”

Follow me is get so close that you get lost in all this mess, that you get so involved in it all it becomes yours as well, that this dust might also save you.

And the disciples were willing to do it…. Because in the time they had spent with Jesus they had seen his vision for how things could be, they had seen his vision for who they could be, because they believed in what he was proposing and because he believed in them.

So they wanted to be covered in the dust of his feet.

And I don’t think that is all that different today, it’s still what Jesus wants from us… And Jesus is still offering the same: a vision for all our world could be, a vision for all each of us could be and the good we can do in this world and the deep love Jesus has for each of us. The question is do we desire the same, will we follow, will we be Christian?

And I have to say for me yes because Jesus still make sense, in fact in my life Jesus might be the only thing that really makes sense. Even though it did not at first, I had to sit with the story for a long time until it changed me because I really saw it… because I realized the incarnation, the story of God becoming flesh and blood like us, matters to me because that Jesus came to this world to invite me to be part of a story.

So what does it mean to identify as Christian? It means to choose to let Christ following be the most important work you do, the thing you will be identified by. 

To me it comes down to an event that happened a few years ago in my ministry. There was a woman who was a bit upset by something I had said or written, it bothered her… this happens from time to time. However she gave me this grace, she came to my office and brought me a up of coffee and said she wanted to talk because she was pretty sure we had very different theologies and it turned out that we did. In fact in the conversation we realized that we saw almost everything differently. At the end she asked me who Jesus was to me. 

And without overthinking it, and in a departure from my normal ways of thinking I went with my feelings first and suddenly found myself saying: Jesus is hope in my life. Jesus is the ultimate example of humanity and Jesus is the clearest picture I have of God. Jesus is my lens, the lens through which I view Scripture, but also the lens through which I view all of life. Jesus is the height of creativity and imagination lived to it’s fullest.  Jesus is my deepest comfort. Jesus lived the truest story this world has ever encountered. Jesus is my deepest calling, to follow the Way he so clearly lived out. Jesus is my Savior, his way of living and his way of dying and resurrection offer salvation to our world. And ultimately for me it comes down to this: Jesus is the deepest love of my life.

She got real quite and then she said, “I wish you preached that more.” And again without thinking it through I said, “I do to and I wished we all lived it more.”

You see that is what it’s about…. Being Christian is about living like Christ in our own unique ways… following with our own lives…. painting our pictures of Jesus with the colors that speak most to us… letting Christian be the primary noun and not just an adjective… because that is our calling.

Come and see.

Follow me.  

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words, of them the Son of Man will be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. But truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.”

Amen and Amen.

artwork: Fishers of Men, Painting by J. Kirk Richards, 2015, http://art.jkirkrichards.com