On
this foundation………
Jesus calls the the disciples.
This is the beginning.
He calls Simon and Andrew,
James and John by the sea of Galilee: that makes four. He calls Levi, or
Matthew as he is better known. That makes five, and He will gather twelve, up
on the mountainside as we read later in Mark’s gospel. He calls them.
We often forget just how
different that is.
For some jobs in
Programmes like the X-factor,
looking for stars of the future, will attract 30,000 or 40,000 hopefuls in the
big cities.
But Jesus did not ask for
volunteers, did not look through a list of applicants.
And here’s the difference –
they did not choose Him.
He chose them.
Even more mysteriously,
when
asked by the teachers of the Law, about the quality of those He chose,
the
kind of men He chose
when
asked, for example why, why He chose a man like Matthew…..
and
chose to associate with Matthew’s friends….
Jesus says:
I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.
If we pause for a moment and
look at this,
we
discover that this is not an ironic reply, by Jesus, to a foolish question from
the teachers of the law.
When the Lord says –
I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.
read
through the Gospels and you will find that this is simply a matter of fact !
You will see that the
disciples, the apostles, are indeed - sinful, faltering, failing…..
Look at Matthew, the tax
officer. Certainly not a prestigious profession, sitting in a tax office, in
those days you would need to be a certain kind of man to do that, with a rather
loose set of values. A man who didn’t think much about his
country, or where the taxes came from, or where they went. When the Lord
goes with Matthew to his home, for a meal with his friends, the teachers of the
law cannot resist asking if Jesus knows
what He is doing. Why is He eating, with these people ?
The Lord’s answer is:
I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.
From the very beginning of the
ministry of Jesus as He chose, called and gathered disciples from the sea
shore, from the tax booth, from sitting under the tree, or up on the
mountainside, as far as anybody else was concerned, these disciples could
hardly be called the flower of
No, as the gospel story unfolds
– these men are without any word of a doubt who are
faltering, failing, sinful human beings.
And Matthew with those friends
of his, is just the beginning.
Read the gospel story and you
will see
How slow they are to understand
Their
slowness to learn – the mysteries hidden in parables from the ordinary people turn
out to be mysteries to them too.
In Mark chapter 4, after
telling the parable of the sower, we read that the disciples had no idea what
the Lord was speaking about - and Jesus said to them ‘Don’t you understand this
parable ? How then will you understand any parable ?
Read the gospel story and you
will see
How the disciples balk at some of the things that Jesus says – the
things that don’t suit them
We read at the mid point of
Mark’s gospel that Jesus spoke to them of the difficulty of the road, and the
times ahead, His own suffering and His death, His own suffering and death
ahead. Peter then begins to argue, to point out better ways, easier methods, of not taking it
all too seriously.
Jesus tells them three times
about the cross and all that is going to happen.
And each time, they cannot or
will not understand………
Read the gospel story and you
will see
The behaviour of these disciples……..
James and John – the brothers
got so irritated by a bruising encounter with some villagers that they wanted
the Lord to call down fire on the village !
And the same brothers are later
to be found arguing which one should be in charge of the rest of the disciples
when the kingdom comes.
Read the gospel story
and you will see that they lack so much, so very, very much
Yes, it is true at the
beginning of the ministry of Jesus they came back delighted in all that had
been achieved, but then look again at them at the foot of the mountain at
Caesarea Philippi when a father comes to them pleading with them to heal his
son, not one of the disciples can do anything about it. There is not time to
tell of their lack of prayer, lack of faith, sheer lack of power to heal, to bring
relief to the troubled and the sick. Or to tell of
Yes indeed, the words of Jesus, are simple,
anadorned, fact………
Those He has called, are not righteous, but sinners………..
So why is Jesus with them ?
The answer to this is, in fact, the very heart of
the good news itself !
Why is Jesus with these men ?
Because He has chosen to be.
And why has He chosen to be
with them ?
There can be no other answer
than this:
Jesus has chosen to be with
them,
through His wonderful patience, and inexhaustible grace
and in
sin bearing love.
Yes, and the heart of the
matter is this,
that
He who said I have not come to call the
righteous, but sinners.
has
shown this at the Cross – for here at
the Cross, in wonderful patience, and inexhaustible grace
and in
sin bearing, forgiving love,
Jesus Christ has given Himself,
for sinners, to open up the new and living way to God,
Paul puts it like this - while,
while we were yet sinners – Christ, (and this is the depth of His love for us)
Christ died for us !
So when we hear those words of
Jesus Christ: I have not come to call the
righteous, but sinners.
is not
all our hope there, in those words of grace and love ?
for we
are no different from those disciples
Look how slow we
are to understand
Look at how we
balk at some of the things that Jesus says – that don’t suit us
Look at our behaviour – our lack of love……..
Look at all that we lack………….
When we hear those words of
Jesus Christ: I have not come to call the
righteous, but sinners.
all
our hope is in them, in those words of grace and love
those
words are for us !
We have been speaking about the
disciples, the twelve apostles as sinners, not by way of condemnation – but
simply as an obvious matter of fact, to be read all the way through Matthew,
Mark, Luke, John, the book of Acts………
they
are human beings………….
But there is more, much more - you
see, above all the
Gospel story……….
is the
story of what Jesus Christ made of these men:
And we discover this, with
astonishment,
Writing to the Church at
built, he says of these very same men - on the foundation of the apostles !
What has happened ?
We read of their sinfulness,
their faltering faith right through the Gospels…..
What has happened that Paul
should call them a foundation of the Church ?
Well – what has happened is
what Jesus Christ has made of them………
These men slow to understand now see into the depths of truth
These men who balked at the Cross that Jesus spoke of, are now faithful to His word, faithful to His command
faithful to His cross, and the forgiveness they have found there
They may once have been lacking in grace and love but now they are growing, ever growing in the wonder and
knowledge of Jesus
Christ !
this
is why Paul calls them a foundation of
the Church
And because of what Jesus
Christ has made of them the disciples, the apostles are unique,
chosen
by Jesus, those years before, chosen by Him for a special purpose…..
taught
by Him, they are eye-witnesses of all
that the Lord said, and did in His healing ministry,
it was
these men who saw Him risen from the dead,
One of them, John, would write:
This we proclaim concerning the Word of
life, the life appeared, we have seen Him, and testify to Him, and we proclaim
to you the eternal life who was with the Father, and has appeared to us…..
And Jesus Christ chose them,
for this very purpose……….
Chose them to be the first to receive the Holy
Spirit……..
Chose them as the foundation
for the Church
all
that we find contained in the New Testament has been passed on to us through
them,
and it
was for this purpose that Jesus chose and called them………
beginning
long ago at the lakeside, on a busy street, on a quiet mountainside,
It was for this purpose that
Jesus chose and called them………
And because of what Jesus
Christ has made of them these men, these disciples, these apostles are – unique.
But in another way, we share
this with them………..
And that is, what the living
Lord Jesus Christ is making, and will make of us………
though we are slow to understand He it is who opens our eyes to see into the
depths of truth
Where we may balk at the Cross
that Jesus spoke of, His Spirit is at
work within us to make us faithful to
His word, faithful to His command,
faithful to His cross, open to the
forgiveness we find there.
Lacking, yes, though we are lacking in grace and love because His Spirit
is at work within us - we are
growing, ever growing in Jesus Christ, in His love which is so high and
so deep, the love that surpasses knowledge…..
So, we can say even says this –
that our joy is in these His words,
our
joy….
I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.
AMEN.