Friendship precedes Discipleship

A sermon preached at St Martin-in-the-Fields on 29 June 2025 by Revd Andrew Woodward

Reading for address: 2 Kings 2: 1-2, 6-14

The story of Elijah and Elisha is a favourite of mine. It isn’t simply a story about the passing of the mantle from Elijah to Elisha but rather a reflection on true friendship and a depth of relationship between these two prophets. Elisha is confronted with the possibility that Elijah might be taken away and, in that moment, he exclaims ‘As the Lord lives and as you yourself live, I will not leave you’. And he repeats the same phrase again. And we read that ‘the two of them went on’.

It resonates with the story of Ruth and Naomi, another story of friendship where Ruth speaks to Naomi the words ‘Do not say that I must leave you. I will go with you wherever you go, I will live wherever you live’.

Being with the other on our journey of faith opens new possibilities where we can truly be ourselves and express something of our own feelings without being judged or needing to pretend to belong. Elisha’s longing wasn’t for power or prestige but rather “to inherit a double share of Elijah’s spirit.”

Faith is often found through relationship. It is handed down through an encounter with another, through belonging and then believing, through the work of the Spirit in which discipleship becomes a natural progression of that relationship.

I contrast this with the preachers that I hear on a Saturday afternoon outside my window with the constant emphasis on sin and if you don’t repent in that moment you are going to hell. The Gospel however calls us to a knowledge of God in a relationship of love rather than the need to act out of fear.

Discipleship is costly and whilst we find that Elijah and Elisha become physically separated, Elisha inherits the mantle and with confidence strikes the water, which is parted, making way for him to pass through to the other side and to continue to proclaim the realm of God. Their spiritual relationship is unbroken.

This story is a precursor to faith in the resurrection where death is not the end but rather that there is relationship with God well beyond the confines of our earthly living.

Today’s Gospel reading comes midway through the Gospel of Luke. It is one of those pivotal points of choice in the life of Christ and of those who follow him.

We hear the opening words: “When the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” He set his face to go. It is a powerful expression, Jesus has marked out his destination, he is looking up, looking ahead choosing his course and his way forward. It reminds me of the words of God to Abraham “Go to the place that I will show you.”

I believe that we can know in our hearts the call of God in our lives, and that with the discernment of others we are equipped for the journey that awaits us. “Being with” each other on that journey is an adventure that may not always be easy. The call of Christ is to discipleship, of learning to grow together in relationship with grace and maturity. It isn’t something that promises immediate success or self-satisfaction, but rather a call to compassion with integrity.

The journey has begun for Jesus and for those who will follow him, tearing them and us from the green fertility of Galilee into the Judean desert and the city of Jerusalem.

Up until this point the ministry of Jesus has been a dynamic time of miracle and success. He has led with authority, healed the sick, cast out evil, forgiven sins, fed the 5,000 and in chapter 8 even raised the dead.

Indeed, the disciples have been basking in Jesus’ power and glory – Jesus has given them the power to cast out evil in his name, healing all kinds of diseases and preaching the good news of the coming kingdom. This is how many want their religion, a faith which brings signs, wonders, and measurable success. Dealing with diversity, hardship and failure is not on their agenda.

The disciples are full of heady stuff, as if they have a sense of power and control. In response to the Samaritans refusal of hospitality, James and John propose to retaliate with an appropriately hostile response – “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them.”

We see this pattern still outworking in the world. Instead of dialogue and diplomacy we see, as demonstrated by Paul in our Epistle, the constant temptation of humanity to bite and devour the other, by indulging in anger, quarrels, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissentions, factions, and envy.

The Gospel demonstrates that the disciples have missed the whole point of Jesus’ ministry, thinking it to be about power and control and who can demonstrate the greatest use of fire to consume the other side and win.

They are full of the hopes of even greater glories and arguments over which one of them was to be the greatest.

I wonder if they would have had the courage to continue if they fully realised the brutal reality of the events which would later take place in Jerusalem?

Before they realise it, the story has moved on and there is no going back. These mixed assortment of fishermen, tax collectors and sinners have discovered their Messiah, but that discovery is going to change things in a way that is so vastly different from the future they imagined.

They will find that their desire to control and to possess, to be recognised as right and to have status and power are opposite to the values of the realm of God, which is demonstrated by the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

Jesus has set his face towards Jerusalem and turns their heads too in that direction. And he points to a path which uses the language of loss rather than gain, self-offering and a cross rather than success.

Jesus issues a call to a decision that will distinguish this group of disciples from the bystanders. They have followed… on tour as it were, without being fully involved.

But they can’t be tourists on this journey anymore. It’s no longer a question of just having power, sharing success stories, testing the temperature of the water with their toes – the honeymoon period is over – something much more is demanded. Their lives are at stake. And the Gospel passage which we have just heard is without doubt a tough call.

The call to discipleship costs not less than everything.

The demands of Christ in our Gospel are radical and designed to make us consider our priorities.

These are tough words which require an obedience which risks all, calls us to abandon the security of the familiar, of home and possession, even family loyalty, where there is no giving up and no turning back. What seems demanded is a faith which is not an appendage to our lives but the priority at the centre of all we are and all we do together and from which everything else flows.

This calling is not one among many choices as we see evidenced in our consumerist society, it is the direction and orientation of our lives.

And this call to discipleship is costly. Bonhoeffer knew more than any its cost: he wrote:

“Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door which must be knocked upon. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a person his life, and it is grace because it gives a person the only true life. It is costly because it costs God the life of his son.”

We do not realise the full meaning of this call or the realm it promises until we are up against it, threatened, vulnerable or in crisis or forced by circumstances or events to question the very nature of who we are. We see Elijah and Jesus in these stories facing monumental change.

The call of God is a call of trust, one where we are called to move forward in faith, overcoming the temptation to despair and the fear of the unknown. Our calling can involve the stripping away of some of the things that are familiar, a disorientation, coupled with a reorientation.

As Elijah passes the mantle to Elijah, so Jesus, in the power of the Holy Spirit, passes the mantle to the apostles and to us, to continue to proclaim, in relationship, the realm of God, as we live out and share our journeys with one another.