“Home Grown Disciples”

Matthew 28:16-20

Matthew 28:19-20a: Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.

[prayer]

Whenever we baptize a small child here at Grace some serious questions are asked of the parents and the congregation. Among other things we ask the parents to answer this question: “Do you intend for your child to be Christ’s disciple, to obey his word and show his love?” Then we ask the congregation, “Do you, the people of Grace, promise to tell this new disciple the good news of the Gospel, to help him know all that Christ commands, and, by your fellowship, to strengthen his family ties with the household of God?”

In other words, we’re asking parents to make a covenant promise to raise their child to be a professing Christian, and we’re asking the congregation to make a covenant promise to assist those parents in the process of raising up a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ. Explicitly we’re promising to teach and model Christ for the baptized children of our church. Implicitly we’re promising to teach and model Jesus for every child who comes through our doors.

Those are big promises. They are so big that Brian Woodward has suggested, that as part of our 50^th Anniversary celebration next year, we contact every person baptized at Grace since 1957 and ask them whether or not Grace lived up to its promise to set them on the path of faithful Christian discipleship. Did Grace model Jesus for them? Did Grace teach Jesus to them? Did Grace hold them in prayer? Their answers will be interesting.

On this Youth Sunday 2006, just like on Easter Sunday, we have the privilege of seeing and hearing how well we’ve kept our baptismal vows to our children in recent years. From my perspective as your pastor there continues to be a lot of positive evidence of how seriously we have taken those vows. I continue to be amazed and impressed by the depth of faith and knowledge in this church’s children and young people. We do nurture them in the faith. We do teach and model Christ. And it shows.

And that’s as it should be. It makes no sense for a congregation to be about the business of making disciples of all nations while neglecting to teach its own children discipleship. Going forth into all the world to do mission and witnessing while ignoring the Christian nurture of our own children would be extremely hypocritical.

This is not to say that we shouldn’t be out in the world making disciples. We should. We have been commissioned by Jesus to do so. We have been given a biblical mandate to do mission and evangelism. At the same time, however, we must tend to our home grown disciples; the ones who live under our roofs, play in our nursery, attend our Sunday school classes, take part in youth activities, and join us in worship. They, too, must be discipled.

One of the major reasons the Presbyterian Church (USA) is dwindling is its past failure to make disciples of its own children. Many of those children have grown up to be adults who want no part of church. Many of them are raising their children outside the church. Those who do continue their membership in Christ’s Church quite often have no idea what discipleship means in terms of their lifestyles, priorities, and stewardship. No one ever taught them what discipleship requires of them and can sometimes cost them. On a denominationally wide basis mainline Presbyterians have failed to keep those promises made to its baptized children.

Christian children need Christian parents, teacher, mentors, and examples. I wouldn’t be here today if some folks, including my parents, back there in Christiansburg, Virginia had not kept their promises. There was Gladys Smith, who taught me to respect church property. To this day it’s hard for me to chew gum anywhere in a church building. There was Tom Johnson, who brought me out of my shell, gave me permission to express myself, and at the same time taught me to make sure that what I was expressing was more than just an opinion.

There was Mr. Shelton, who gave me my first job, and who, along with his fellow Presbyterian elders Bob Hickok and Clifford Costigan, taught me everything I know about business ethics. From them I learned that one could live out one’s Christian faith even in the sometimes-cutthroat world of retailing. I learned to treat every person who walked into Mr. Shelton’s store with respect, regardless of race and social status. On more than one occasion I saw firsthand acts of Christian compassion that cost his business money. I was surrounded by people who tithed, worshiped every Sunday, and sought to live as Christians.

Then there was Nicolo LaMoscolo, our good Catholic choir director, who made me aware that I could actually sing a little bit. There was the pastor, Vernon Miller, who first pushed me to seriously consider the notion that God might be calling me to ordained ministry. And his wife Edna Ruth, who upon listening to me question my place in the world after the disaster that was my brief career as a public school teacher, told me she knew exactly where I belonged. She never once mentioned the word seminary. She didn’t have to. I knew what she meant.

I’m talking about people you don’t know, but odds are you’ve encountered people just like them along the way of your Christian journey. There are people in your lives who kept their promises to raise you in the faith, or maybe who shared Jesus with you after you’d grown up. There are people who loved you, taught you, and mentored you in the faith. Maybe there are people who lovingly confronted you about your need to repent of this, that, or the other. I’ve had a truth or two I didn’t want to hear spoken to me in love.

Whatever, here we are. It’s our turn to raise up the church’s next generation of disciples. Which one of us will be some child’s Sunday school teacher at a critical moment in his or her life? Which of us will carry out the task of Christian encouragement for some confused or depressed young person? Who among us will knowingly or unknowingly speak that word or make that gesture that might be just what some kid needs to begin turning his or her life around? Who here today will be the one whose life is the model upon which some child may very well build his or her Christian life?

Whose Tom Johnson am I? Whose Gladys Smith are you? Who might be the Nicolo, Vernon, or Edna Ruth that God places in the life of some young person struggling with his or her sense of identity, vocation, or call? For whom is God preparing one of us to be the Mr. Shelton, Hickok, or Costigan some young person desperately needs to encounter on a job or in a classroom? We never know exactly when or how God will use us in raising up faithful disciples, but we do know that he will use us. When the time comes, will we be ready?

In today’s text we are told that some of those first disciples doubted. The resurrection was still so new. Their preconceptions of Messiahship had been so thoroughly shattered. Their heads were still reeling from the horrible shocks of Good Friday and the wonderful news of Easter. Still, Matthew tells us that they worshiped Jesus, doubts and all.

Which is what a faithful disciple does. And even as we go faithfully about the task of disciple making, we do so knowing just how imperfect we are in our own Christian lives. We doubt that we can be an effective mentor, role model, or teacher. Those of us who have children aren’t even always sure that we’re doing a good job of raising them in the faith.

But Jesus never demanded that we be perfect in our disciple making, he just told us to go do it, doubts and all, warts and all. He also promised to be with us. And he is with us. If we’ll trust him enough to follow him, he will provide us with what we need to make disciples of all nations. He will give us the tools we need to keep the promises we’ve made to our children, those promises we’ve made to teach them his commandments. Amen.