When I was in high school, people used to tease me and say if you looked up “gullible” in the dictionary, my picture would be there.  I do learn from experience, and so some years later someone once asked me “where did you get to be so cynical?  All of which, I think, just points out that we humans have a wide range of responses when we are confronted with information or challenges or opportunities.

Sometimes, we’ll believe anything and do the most ridiculous things in response.  Marketing of products that don’t work depends on our gullibility.  Scams that get us to send money to people we’ve never met for reasons that don’t make sense depend on our gullibility.  We seize false hope so easily; yet we so often allow cynicism and skepticism to prevent us seizing real hope; real opportunities for meaningful change and growth.

It occurs to me in this section of John’s gospel, when the voice of God is described, that it’s the cynics who say, “oh, it was just thunder,” and those who immediately say, “oh, it’s the angels!” might be just a little too gullible.

So what is the way that John is trying to lead us here?  As we move through John’s gospel we are being asked with every encounter, with every sign, with every conversation, “Are you going to follow Jesus or fall away?  Are you with Jesus?”  Or, by the end of the gospel, John will say, “if you’re not with Jesus, you’re against him.”  We are being asked at every turn of the narrative to follow Jesus; to be among those who believe; to participate in the life of God that is present in Jesus in the here and now.

Why should we do this?  What right does Jesus have to ask us to lay down our lives, to talk to us about dying to self?  What right does Jesus have to ask us to give up looking after our own interests first, follow him where we do not want to go and, in the words of John, “hate our life in this world”?

How do we decide who’s credible and who’s not?

Last week, I got home and had a message on my voice mail.  The person gave his name and he gave his phone number and he said, “I’m calling with regards to the open matter that you have with the Franklin County Municipal Court.  You must call back within 24 hours.  Mrs. Stevens, it is within your best interests to return this call within 24 hours.”

Now, of course, its eight o’clock at night, and no one is going to answer my return call.  So, I start thinking, “what open matter could I possibly have with the Franklin County Municipal Court?”  It didn’t occur to me to think (at least not right away) that they had the wrong person.

Well…there was that parking ticket.

Why was it that I first thought “what have I done wrong?” instead of “these people don’t know what they are talking about.”

Of course, when I called them back, they immediately checked my address.  They had the wrong address.  I suggested to them that they could have cross checked my address and telephone number by simply looking at the publicly available and widely published telephone book and saved us all quite a bit of time and trouble.

The point is, whenever somebody tells us something, we usually have aprocess for figuring out if that person has integrity.

We want to know:  Is this person authentic?  And so we want to know, do Jesus words match his responses?

Well…there are lots of cynical responses to Jesus suffering.

With Jesus, one way out is to say, well…he really didn’t suffer.  He’s God, so he just appeared to suffer.  But the suffering and the humanity of Jesus cannot be separated.  A physical body crucified is inevitably a body unified with a suffering soul.

Another way out is to say, well…he knew in the end he would be resurrected, so it was only temporary.  Maybe he did or didn’t know…but it doesn’t alleviate suffering.

Lots of us have walked into things knowing that at the other end it would be better, but understanding that in the middle it wouldn’t be very much fun.

We know as we listen to Jesus ask us to hate our lives in this world; we know that in the end, Jesus will lay down his life.  And in John’s gospel there is a clear sense that this is a voluntary thing.  Jesus agonizes over this decision.  “Shall I take up this cup of not?”  With John, it is clear more than in the other gospels that Jesus chooses.

Did you ever think that Jesus had another option?  Imagine if he had said to the disciples when the heat was on in Jerusalem…“well, you know, things are getting pretty tense here.  The civil authorities are aligned with the temple authorities and I’m not all that safe here, so you all carry on, now.  Remember everything I’ve taught you.  Keep the faith.  I’ll be leaving by the dark of night to escape to Egypt in order that they don’t arrest and kill me.  I am right, and they are wrong, and I am not about to die because of it.  So you all carry on, now, and I’ll write when it’s safe.”

If this Jesus had asked me to give up my life – to walk away from my fishing business and my family and live day to day eating whatever could be found that day and traveling with no luggage and no savings account, and then Jesus did that… the only response I can imagine making is anger.

That scenario sounds ridiculous.  Because that would not be reflective of the character I’m looking for in a God that I am going to trust and obey.

Jesus is obedient, we are told by the scriptures, even unto death on the cross.

And the result of that obedience we now know, is new life; just as the dying of a grain of wheat brings new life.

In the face of Jesus’ invitation to reject living our life according to the values of this world – to hate that life – and to instead offer our lives in obedience – knowing that we will be asked to sacrifice – should we be cynical, or gullible, or should we trust Jesus?

There are risks from the side of gullibility and from the side of cynicism, and there are risks in trusting.

The gullible are apt to follow anyone who claims to know what Jesus wants.  They are apt to follow anyone who will quote a little scripture and promise heaven on earth and that if you just love Jesus enough we can have whatever you want.  That kind of gullibility is what keeps some television evangelists on the air, and it’s what makes people join cults.  So I don’t recommend that kind of gullibility.

The cynical have little tolerance for ambiguity, and will not trust anybody who can’t make absolute promises.  They expect the worst, and when they don’t get the best, they’re done.  No They don’t easily grant second chances, and are determined to hold onto their own belief system no matter how much it is challenged by actual experience.  They cynic in me can be suspicious of anything that challenges me, and almost always my first response is not trust, but mistrust.

But there is a middle way between gullibility and cynicism when it comes to faith.  A way of testing through experience that would help us discern the answer to the question, “can we trust Jesus.”  I would suggest that that way is exactly the way of Jesus:  obedience.  And furthermore, because we are humans with limited ability to sort out our own priorities and motives and involvement in our own self interest, obedience in community is the way.  This is what the church can be.

One of the great gifts of organized religion with a long history behind it is that it can provide a tested context for obedience in community.  It offers opportunities to test the credibility of faith.  At its best, a community of organized religions can have a built in safety net that enables those who are testing obedience to tolerate the risk.

Is it worth the risk of giving up my investment in this world?

This economic system of our world is testing our risk tolerance in new ways.

The gospel invites us to give up our investment in consumerism; in greed; in hierarchical systems structured around winning and losing – We are invited to ask ourselves, “should I give up my allegiance to the structures of the culture as they currently exist, and test another way of living – the way of obedience to the Christ of the cross?”

(we cannot give up our participation in these structures; the question is not participation, it is allegiance and trust)

Today, at Como Avenue, three young people who have studied under Carlene Triplett to prepare for confirmation will be asked to declare their faith in Christ, to reject the systems and structures of this world, and use the power and freedom that God has given them to follow Christ.  And then, they will be asked about their participation in their own congregation.  We will ask them about their trust in the United Methodist Church and in their congregation.  We will ask them about five commitments.

They’ll be asked, will you give your prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness?”

If we want to test the credibility of Jesus claims on our lives in communities, there are worst ways than taking risks with prayers, presence, gifts, service and witness.

And, furthermore, if we are willing to take risks in community around our commitment to Christ through the ministries of the church we can begin to discern a journey that is characterized by obedience.  And as that obedience occurs, situation by situation, day to day, moment to moment, challenge to challenge, we come over time to discern that God can be trusted … and what we thought would kill us in fact gave us life; that suffering that literally felt like hell took us to life.

Prayers presence gifts service witness.

How much of your own self interest do you set aside?  Will you set aside so much of yourself that anyone looking from the value system of the world would say “they hate their own life?”

I’m not there yet, but I see the cross.  I see it coming for Jesus.  If I remain in community, seeking to be obedient, inevitably, I will be confronted with Christ on the cross.  Fundamentally, the question will then be “Can I trust this God?”  But I know that this is the God who, when the going gets tough, is obedient unto death.  And only God’s obedience unto death can deliver us all to life, and open the way for our obedience.  Amen.