Come and See
by the Rev. AJ Ochart
Sermon Notes
Happy New Year! This week we continue in John’s Gospel, with John’s version of the calling of the disciples.
We talked a lot last week about the various factions of 1st Century Judaism, and various expectations for leaders and Messiahs. All of these groups grew out of the relationships between teachers and students, masters and apprentices, rabbis and disciples.
The word ‘Disciple’ is a transliteration of the Latin word, discipulus, literally meaning ‘learner.’ The Greek word used in the the Christian Scriptures is ‘mathetes‘ also meaning learner, follower, or apprentice. To be a disciple, especially in the ancient world, meant more than ‘my favorite teacher in Collage was Mr. Clarke’ or ‘I am a student of Sartrean Existentialism.’ Athens, the center for Greek Philosophy, was literally split into various philosophical schools. To be an Aristotelian, Platonist, or Stoic, did not simply inform someone which teacher you prefer, it informed how you saw the world, how you lived your life. Similarly, within Pharisees the disciples of Rabbi Hillel and Rabbi Shammai had very different takes on the interpretation of Torah.
John the Baptizer, who we heard about last week, had disciples himself, those who thought that his words and ways of being in the world should be emulated. As I mentioned previously, John may have been a disciple of the Essenes, but broke from that tradition to form a new school of thought.
This week we hear of some of these disciples of John who begin to follow Jesus instead, and call others to follow him as well.
We have been called as disciples, not just as those who have some intellectual leanings towards Jesus, but who live our lives in pursuit of his teachings, his way of being in the world, his perspective.
