Sermon 15th January 2016

Today, one of our Lay Readers, Trevor, Taylor, continues our study of the story of Jesus as told in the book of Matthew. The reading is from Matthew 8 verses 14-22.

Following Jesus

One day a man went to an auction. While there, he bid on a parrot. He really wanted this bird, so he got caught up in the bidding. He kept on bidding, but kept getting outbid, so he bid higher and higher and higher. Finally, after he bid way more than he intended, he won the bid - the parrot was his at last!

As he was paying for the parrot, he said to the auctioneer, "I sure hope this parrot can talk. I would hate to have paid this much for it, only to find out that he can't talk!"

"Don't worry." said the auctioneer, "He can talk. Who do you think kept bidding against you?"

Many of us are used to putting a price on things. For example, estate agents put prices on houses, and if we want to buy the house, we need to decide if we’re willing to pay the price – to meet the cost of the house. Today’s Gospel reading was about the cost of something. Not the cost of buying a parrot – or even a house, but about the cost of being a Christian

 – about the cost of following Jesus.

How much would you be willing to pay to be a Christian? What does it cost to follow Jesus? There are in fact two aspects to this question. The first is

-       the cost that God was willing to pay, and the second is

-       the cost that we need to pay.

So, what was God willing to pay so that we could become Christians and follow Jesus? What was Jesus himself willing to pay? What was the cost to God? The answer is short, but profound: his Son Jesus. God was willing to give Jesus for us – and Jesus was willing to accept this.  We get an indication of this from verse 20, where Jesus said, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” The Son of Man was an Old Testament title that Jesus used for himself. For those listening to Jesus – and for Matthew’s readers - it would have been a significant description. Jesus’ listeners would have sat up when they heard Jesus describing himself as the Son of Man. 

They would have recalled a vision that Daniel of the Lions’ Den fame had. He spoke of seeing one like a son of man, describing it in the OT book of Daniel as follows: “He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshipped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.” [Daniel 7:14]

The Son of Man was a big figure to whom God had given authority, glory and sovereign power. Jesus indeed is the Son of God, and so you would expect him to have authority over all created things for all time. And these are exactly Jesus’ rights as the Son of God - all glory and sovereign power over all people and all creation for all time. These are his rights. And we see from verse 20 he was prepared to give them up. Jesus said, “Foxes have holes, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lie down and rest.”

The children of earthly rulers, whether they be kings, queens, emperors, presidents or prime ministers, are usually comfortably off at the very least. You wouldn’t expect them to have no place they could call home. Yet here was Jesus, the Son of God, with no place to lie down and rest. He laid down his divine rights as the Son of God. And he also laid down his basic human rights – to have a place he could call home.

Many of us have children, and we long for the best for them. Most parents are willing to make great sacrifices for their children if it’s for their good. God the Father and God the Son were so concerned for us that Jesus was willing to lay down everything. Jesus was willing to lay down everything so that we could become Christians.

So, why was it necessary for Jesus to lay down everything for us? Last Sunday Cameron introduced this series on Matthew and we looked at two miracles of healing that Jesus performed. Jesus healed a man with leprosy and he also healed the servant of a Roman centurion. These miracles show that Jesus can fix the unfixable, and that Jesus can offer us the radically life-affirming, life-changing, life-giving restoration that we need, in all of the ways that each of us need it. And at the start of today’s reading, Jesus continued in the same vein, first of all healing Peter’s mother-in-law and then many other people. And Matthew in verse 17 hints at the deeper significance of these miracles:  ^“This was to fulfil what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah:

‘He took up our infirmities and bore our diseases.’”

This quote comes from Isaiah 53, and I remember as a student aged 18 reading Isaiah 53 properly for the first time, and being amazed by it. Isaiah was written 700 or so years before Christ, and the prophet was able to describe what Jesus would do for us.

I’ll just quote two verses from Isaiah 53, verses 5 and 6, which describe God’s suffering servant:

“5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;

the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.

6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way;

and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

Isaiah 53 would have formed part of the general understanding of the people to whom Jesus was speaking, and also of Matthew’s original readers. As Jews, they would have been very familiar with the OT prophets. Isaiah 53 speaks of a day when God would send his servant from heaven to pay the price or debt owed by us to God. Humanity has turned its back on God, and the servant has come to pay back the debt owed by us to God.  And through paying back that debt, the servant has given us the chance of receiving that radically life-affirming, life-changing, life-giving restoration that we need.

God is a God of justice and love.  Justice demands that there should be a consequence for the fact that humanity has turned away from God, that humanity has rebelled against him. And Isaiah 53 tells us that the consequence, the punishment, that should have been borne by us human beings has been borne by the servant. By his wounds we are healed. God loved us so much that he sent the suffering servant to pay the debt that we owe God. And of course the suffering servant is Jesus. And it was on the Cross that Jesus paid the debt that we owe to God.

And verse 17 tells us a bit more about the suffering servant: “He took up our infirmities and bore our diseases.”

This tells us that the point of the healings and miracles that Jesus performed is to show that he came to fix the unfixable and to offer us restoration with God. Jesus has given us the chance to restore our relationship with God.

What does it cost to follow Jesus?  The answer for God is his Son, Jesus. We are only able to follow Jesus, to have a right relationship with God, because of Jesus’ sacrifice.

But what is the answer to this question for us? How much does it cost us to follow Jesus? This question was posed by two individuals in our Gospel passage. We start in verse 19 where we read that a teacher of the law came to Jesus and said to Jesus, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.”

Teachers of the law often got it wrong in the New Testament. As a teacher of the law myself, I wonder whether it’s because we tend to think we know it all when in fact we don’t! At first sight, what the teacher of the law said seems very commendable; “I will follow you wherever you go.” But he was offering too much too soon. He didn’t realise who Jesus really was and what following Jesus really entailed. Jesus was willing to lay aside his heavenly rights and even his basic human right to a home. He was prepared to be born in a stable, abandon all creature comforts, to be mocked, to be spat upon, to be given a false trial and to be nailed to the Cross in order to restore our relationship with God. If it cost the Son of God so much to enable us to become Christians, how much is it worth to us?

It seems as if the teacher of the law didn’t realise the implications of what he was saying. “Do you really know what you are offering?” was the essence of Jesus’ reply. Jesus had been doing many exciting things – performing miracles, challenging the religious leaders and generally causing a great stir. It was clear that he was special. But following Jesus meant more than being caught up in the excitement of the moment.  It wasn’t going to be a triumphant procession through the country, watching Jesus doing amazing things. Following Jesus was going to involve great sacrifice. It would mean going with Jesus to the places in the world where there is deepest pain. His chosen lifestyle was one of insecurity and homelessness.

And then we read of another person who offered to follow him. “‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ ²² But Jesus told him, ‘Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.’”

This response from Jesus is shocking. I don’t actually think Jesus was telling this man to abandon all care for his parents. The Old and New Testaments are full of commands to honour your father and mother, a command that Jesus fully accepted. Tom Wright, a biblical scholar we often quote in our parish, explains that for a devout Jew one of the most solemn and sacred parts of the morning routine is to say the basic Jewish prayer: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is the only Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart….” This prayer is considered by official Jewish teaching the most important thing to do each day. But there is one thing that takes priority. And that is when a man’s father dies, he must give him a proper burial; that comes even before saying the “Hear, O Israel prayer”.

So when the man said he had to organise his father’s funeral, those listening would have expected Jesus to say; “Of course you must do that – and then you can come and follow me.” Instead, what Jesus said is one of the most shocking things in the Gospel story; “Let the dead bury their own dead. You must follow me right now.”

Some commentaries suggest that the man’s father was not in fact dead. So what he was actually asking Jesus for was an indefinite postponement. He was wanting to keep his options open. But even if this was the case, Jesus reply was stark. His listeners would have been shocked at what he said. Jesus’ reply could well have been intended as a figure of speech – designed to shock but not to be taken 100% literally. Even so, it is startling.

Jesus’ concern was to expose the danger of qualified discipleship. This man was promising too little too late. He wanted to put off following Jesus until later. He wanted to do something else first. And Jesus deliberately made the point in an outrageous way – to show what he was doing was so vital, so urgent and so pressing that it was the one thing that mattered. Whatever else you were thinking of doing, follow me now.

We don’t actually know for sure how the teacher of the law and the other would be follower responded to Jesus’ challenge. Perhaps they found the cost of following Jesus too high, and that may be what our Gospel passage implies. Or perhaps they embraced the challenge. We can’t be sure. But however, they responded, the question for us is how do we respond to Jesus’ challenge. What cost are we willing to pay to follow Jesus?

Life is full of pressure – whether at work, at home or in the community. There are plenty of distractions. Many of the people around us don’t share the same priorities. But in the midst of all these pressures, we need to remember that Jesus was willing to give everything up to fix the unfixable and to restore our relationship with God. What are we willing to give in return?

Let’s pray. Lord Jesus, thank you that you paid the debt we owe. We pray that you will give us such an appreciation of this great gift that we will be willing to follow you where you lead us. Amen.

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[i] 15 January 2017