Sermon for Sunday, April 6, 2008

FOLLOWING CHRIST FROM A DISTANCE

By

Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz

⁵⁷Those who had arrested Jesus took him to Caiaphas the high priest, in whose house the scribes and the elders had gathered.  ⁵⁸But Peter was following him at a distance,

We are going back to a Bible passage from Holy Week and Easter to look at the behavior of one of the disciples, the one named Peter. In the text we just heard, it is Thursday night before Jesus is killed on Friday. The disciples have celebrated the Last Supper Passover meal. They have gone from the Upper Room in the city out to the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus has prayed all night and where he is then arrested by soldiers from the High Priest. Peter has tried to kill one of the soldiers but has only cut off his ear.

When the guards march Jesus back into the city to be tried by the Jewish council, all the disciples run away just as Jesus predicted they would, even Peter, the one who boasted that he would never run away, never abandon his teacher and master. Peter seems not to run far. He follows the procession into Jerusalem and to these very steps where Jesus will go to the High Priest’s house. These steps are likely the actual steps Jesus would have been led down into the dungeon of the house, and they are one of the true places today in Jerusalem where we can say that we walked where Jesus walked.

But Peter stayed far enough back from the soldiers that he was not seen. He hung back in this courtyard outside the house and warmed himself by the fire with some others. You may remember some of those conversations he had around the fire and how he handled it when people said to him, “You were with Jesus also, weren’t you?”

The line that stood out for me two weeks ago when we read this part of the Holy Week story is this: after Jesus was arrested and taken into the city to be tried, “Peter followed from a distance.”

Why did he follow from a distance—why did he hang so far back? He was afraid of course, he saw what was about to happen, and even though he had boasted that he would stay right with Jesus whatever happened, his cowardice and fear took over and staying far away was the best he could do. We might say he was just prudent, he was cautious; he was keeping a safe distance from Christ.

We understand. We do that also. Most of us start as admirers of Christ. “Yes, these are good teachings about the Golden Rule and practicing compassion and not resorting to violence and forgiving people and not demonizing our enemies. But look, Jesus, we have to live in the real world and sometimes we have to cut corners and go along to get along and you can’t ask us to do anything risky or costly even if we did say that we want you and your teachings to form our lives.” We understand what it is to follow Christ from a distance.

It reminds me of the old line from comedian Flip Wilson who said that his religion was that he was a Jehovah’s Bystander; they asked him to be a Witness but he was afraid to get that involved.

We are afraid, like Peter, to stand too close to Christ, so we try to follow from a distance. If we followed closely, what would happen? We would have to really look at ourselves, our selfishness, our addictive behaviors, our desire to hold grudges, our love for things. We might look at Christ and look at ourselves and have to change.

Remember the story about the wife who brought home the plaque from the gift store and put it in the family room; it said, Prayer Changes Things. Several days later she noticed it was missing. She asked her husband what happened to it, he said it put it in the basement. She was angry and accused him of not believing in prayer. He said, “I believe in prayer. I just don’t like change!”

If we follow Christ more closely, more faithfully, we might decide to change some behaviors, some values. We will know more about integrity and about right and wrong and we might not cut corners or compromise ourselves so easily. We might see Christ’s courage and find some courage in ourselves that we did not find before.

Did you read the last two days about some of the safety inspectors with the FAA who found their courage and integrity and risked their job by telling the truth about Southwest Airlines safety violations even when their bosses wanted them to keep quiet, even when one boss made a veiled threat to the family of one of the whistleblowers?

One of those inspectors who apparently knows the difference between right and wrong and who refused to compromise on the truth and on the safety of the flying public was Mr. Bobby Boutris. He testified before Congress last Thursday and talked about the lack of commitment to safety from at least one of his bosses at the FAA. I don’t know about the faith affiliation of any of those inspectors who advocated for the truth to be known, but the ethics they seem to be living by is consistent with the ethics of Christ, and the courage and risk they have taken on behalf of your safety and mine is the kind of courage that we find when we don’t just follow from a distance but when we really follow, when we become more than admirers of Christ and become disciples.

We will have a chance the next few weeks to follow even more closely as we commit more of our personal resources for the work of Christ in making room for people and in expanding our ministry, widening the circle—that is all we are doing by building more space. We have been praying, Lord, what do you want to do through me? How can I use my time and my money to be a disciple and not just to follow from a distance?

The song we are singing at the end of the service is so important for us if we want to be followers and not spectators or admirers of Christ:

Will you come and follow me if I but call your name?

Will you go where you don’t know and never be the same?

Will you let my love be known,

will you let my name be known,

will you let my life be grown in you and you in me?

—Words from The Summons

The Faith We Sing, Page 2130

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