What is a disciple?

On this weekend when we celebrate the two special occasions of Father's Day and Confirmation Sunday, my memory brings me back to a special Singley family moment that helps me get at that important question, "What IS a disciple?" It is a moment preserved for antiquity in our family's vast eight-millimeter film collection. It is our family's not-ready-for-prime-time rendition of the classic "Little Red Riding Hood."

In the film, my mother stars as…well, the mother. Little Red Riding Hood is played by my sister Karen. The twin roles of Little Red Riding Hood's grandmother and the Big Bad Wolf are wonderfully presented by yours truly. And the heroic woodsman is played by my dad who also doubles as the cameraman.

The movie goes as you might expect. Little Red Riding Hood's mother gives her a basket of goodies to bring to grandmother. Milk. Bread. A bottle of beer.

And then Little Red Riding Hood traipses off into the forest toward the home of her grandmother who, by now, has been eaten and swallowed by the Big Bad Wolf. To this very day, I cannot understand how Little Red Riding Hood could be so stupid as to not realize that the person laying on the couch wearing the wolf mask is not her grandmother. But somehow she misses it. There is the classic silent film dialogue about "Grandmother, what big EYES you have!" and all that other nonsense leading up to my favorite moment when the Big Bad Wolf gets to jump on Little Red Riding Hood and tries to devour her.

But at the last moment -just when it seems little Red Riding Hood has made her last trip through the forest to grandmother's house - the Heroic Woodsman dashes into the scene wearing a cowboy hat and toting a six-shooter. And moments later, the Big Bad Wolf - in an Academy Award winning death scene that goes on for about six-minutes - is history.

Then - after a brief commercial message featuring my newborn brother Steve, the whole cast returns to stage center to take a bow. My mother, the Mother. My sister, Little Red Riding Hood. Yours truly, the Big Bad Wolf. And my father - the Heroic Woodsman.

And I can still picture my father in that very dad-like role. Although the film is scratchy and faded, its memory is fresh and clear. For when I was a child, my father did not really play a role as the Heroic Woodsman. He was the heroic woodsman of our family.

And yet, years later, something profound would happen to my dad. The powerful love of God that pursued him from the time he was born, caught up to him one day, and overtook him. Almost overnight, the very character of his life was changed. Less and less was he the hero, fighting off the forces of evil, the alpha male of our family unit. More and more, he became a healer - praying for the people who worked for him, giving up his own competitive nature and need to win to help a young baseball player who'd lost his leg, calling up people he'd hurt and apologizing. Jesus Christ's presence in my dad's life moved him from hero to healer, and today - on Father's Day - I hold that up to you and to God and I rejoice!

What is a disciple?

The scene is one of those great gatherings of people welcoming Jesus as he travels about Galilee. You'll remember from last week's sermon text that, when Jesus looked out upon them, he felt deep compassion for they were harassed people, helpless people, sheep-without-a-shepherd people.

And in some miraculous way, Jesus is able to peer through all this tangled mass of life-bruised humanity and see what God sees. Beautiful people created in the image of God. Masterworks of his Father's artistic and creative hand. Delightful souls that cause Jesus to smile and laugh and want to attend their dinners and parties. People who - though injured by life and beat up by sin - are cherished by God.

The world sees them as poor people, but Jesus sees that God wants to meet their every need. The world sees them as diseased and faulty people, but Jesus envisions divine resources for healing and recovery. The world sees them as far-away-from-God-people, but Jesus looks out and sees God's kingdom present among them - its doors wide open, balloons waving in the breeze indicating the party is here and inviting them to come in and join the joy!

Jesus does not see them as the chaff of the world as some do. Oh no, he sees them as the wheat of heaven. They are a ripened harvest just waiting to be gathered and brought in.

And so Jesus asks his followers to join him in prayer. A prayer that God will send more workers into the harvest fields. Workers who have a special gift - the power of seeing people the way Jesus sees people.

And in that very moment Jesus prays it, the prayer is answered! Jesus turns to his followers…

And when Jesus is finished, he has identified twelve people as God's answer to this prayer. People who have been given the gift of vision to see people as God sees them. People who have been given the ability to bring in the waiting harvest. We call them "the twelve disciples".

Most of us learned about these disciples when we were in Sunday School. Some of us can recite all twelve names. But, although we have a familiarity with the twelve disciples, most of us have never learned the context of their calling.

When our son Peter was a young child, Sandy looked out the window one day and saw him and his best friend - Todd Corrigan - up on the hill acting kind of strange. Sandy hollered out and asked them what they were doing.

"Playing!" they answered.

"Playing WHAT?" asked Sandy.

"We're playing Jesus and the twelve disciples!" came the reply.

Now, I have no idea how two little kids can become - even in their imaginary world - Jesus and the twelve disciples. Which one got to be Jesus? Which one got to be the twelve disciples? Does this involve walking on water? Will there be a crucifixion? Just what do you DO when you play Jesus and the twelve disciples?

And that got me to wondering. What is a disciple exactly? And what does a disciple do?

I think our traditional understandings of discipleship are woefully inadequate. We have heard that disciples are students, and surely that is part of what they are. We have learned that disciples are followers of Jesus who endeavor to become like him, and surely they are that, too. In some of our churches today, the term discipleship means a program of Bible study. In other churches, it is a guided process by which a mature Christian indoctrinates a young Christian in the ways of the faith.

I'd like to respectfully suggest that, while all of these are indeed pathways up the mountain of discipleship, none of them really reaches the summit. For at the very apex of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus is this wonderful story in Matthew where Jesus looks out upon harassed, helpless and shepherdless people, falls in love with them, and asks God to do something about it. And we read:

What is a disciple, and what does a disciple do?

A disciple is an answer to Jesus' prayer. A disciple is an agent of Christian healing.

Members of our Confirmation Class: You have responded to the call to become disciples. Like the twelve long ago, you also are answers to Jesus' prayer. Over the course of the rest of your lives, you will no doubt forget a great deal of what you learned in our class. The first to go will probably be your memorization of the Books of the New Testament. You will not remember that Corinthians comes before Thessalonians, and that an epistle is not an apostle's wife. The second to go will no doubt be the Ten Commandments - although you will remember a few, but not in order. And although I am afraid to admit it, you will in time probably also forget all about my lengthy and very eloquent description of the history of the Christian Church. In fact, some of you have forgotten it already!

You will forget many things we've learned together.

Above all else, you are answers to Jesus' prayer that God will send healers to those who are harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

You are sent to bring good news to people. You are sent to help them find cures for the things that hurt. You are sent to make dead things come to life. You are sent to remove stigmas from people no one else will accept. You are sent to help people break out from underneath the power of evil that keeps people from being free and from experiencing life as God intends it to be.

In a word, you are sent to be healers!

And just like my dad, God will use you in powerful ways to make others whole.

What is a disciple?

You are disciples.

Now go, and do your job!