Saving Private Benjamin
The Rev. Dr. John Judson
January 16, 2011
When Judy Benjamin was eight years old she confessed her deepest secret to her best friend. All Judy wanted out of life was nice clothes, a big house, two closets, a live in maid and a professional husband. So begins the movie Private Benjamin. It opens with scenes of her wedding, and then her wedding night, on which her new husband dies of a heart attack. Bereft she calls a radio talk show to air her grief where she complains that she is now all alone. One of the listeners tells her he can give her friends and meaning to her life. She is intrigued and so meets with him the next day. It turns out that he is an Army recruiter. When she says that she is not the Army type he tells her that this is the new Army..the Army of the 80’s in which everyone gets their own room and live in condos and get to live in places like Fort Ord in Monterey California. The final part of the pitch is that the Army will get her in the best shape of her life…which Benjamin takes to mean like going to Club Med. In the end the appeal of this life of ease and friendship seems to make sense and so she signs up.
I offer that image this morning so we can attempt to see the call of Jesus’ disciples in a new way. Often when we read this story what we see is a very odd, almost magical sort of tale. Jesus walks along, sees some guys out fishing, says, “Follow me,” and they go. Somehow there is something about that that is not quite right. We seriously doubt that anyone would leave family, home and business to wander around Galilee with a stranger. So let’s take another look at the story. Simon, Andrew, James and John were fishermen. While we may glamorize their occupation, it was not a fun life. It was brutally hard and dangerous. Most fishermen worked at night, setting out on the Sea of Galilee, casting heavy nets, dragging in fish when they could get them and going hungry when they could not. After fishing all night they would often spend much of the day mending nets, with bruised and bleeding fingers, before they could rest just to get up and do it again. Day after day they smelled like fish, struggled just to survive and paid not only exorbitant taxes on their catch, but money for a lease simply for the right to fish. This was not a great life. Then along comes this powerful, miracle working rabbi who says, “Follow me.” Here it was…a life of leisure. No back breaking work. No mending nets. No paying taxes. Like Private Benjamin this alternative life looked really great. It is little wonder that they picked up and followed Jesus.
I have to say that the connections between these two stories, the fictional one of Private Benjamin and the non-fiction one of the disciples are eerily similar to that of the manner in which Christianity is presented in our modern world. One of the great tag lines that has been used over the past thirty years or so is that “Jesus is the Answer.” That line has been on bumper stickers, t-shirts and any other item that could be sold to make a buck on the religious market. The theology behind the tag line is that if we are willing to follow Jesus he will make everything better; Jesus is the answer to all of our questions and all of our needs. When people are invited to follow what is presented is all of the wonderful things that are to come. We are saved. We receive eternal life. And depending on who is doing the presenting we become healthy, wealthy and wise. Believing in Jesus is the panacea which will, if we have enough faith, turn bad marriages into good ones, errant kids in perfect angels, provide instant employment and perhaps even give us whiter smiles. Jesus is the answer and so we need to follow. This way of presenting Jesus became clear to me when at my previous church we had an evangelism event where the presenter was teaching us how to share Christ with others. When all he had was the up-side of faith as did the recruiter in Private Benjamin and as the soon-to-be disciples assumed about following Jesus, I asked him about the more difficult side of believing. His response? You don’t talk about it because they might not choose to follow Jesus, which is the issue at hand.
The issue at hand is that hype and reality are often two very different things. Benjamin joins the military, arrives at boot camp and expects it be like summer camp…sleeping in, private rooms and really, really great food. What she discovers is, well boot camp. She discovers early morning runs, calisthenics, marching, drills and more marching. The picture on the cover shows quite clearly just how she feels about the real life in the Army that she is discovering. That picture is worth a thousand words. In the same way the disciples are going to discover that following Jesus is not all that is appeared to be at first…something that Matthew wants to make crystal clear to his readers even before we read about the disciples joining up. In fact the way Matthew tells his story we should want to phone Simon, Andrew, Peter and John and say, “Don’t do it!” why? Because wherever Jesus goes, trouble follows. Consider…Jesus is born and he and his family barely escape the carnage caused by his death. Jesus is baptized by John and suddenly John is in prison. Remember, that is how this entire section of the story begins. Jesus hears that John has been arrested and so Jesus leaves Galilee in order to be safe. Matthew is telling us that this following Jesus thing is not summer camp. As the disciples discovered it was far more like boot camp with classes and lots, and lots of marching.
The manner in which Matthew tells the story of Jesus is supposed to be a warning up front that following Jesus is no walk in the park. Following Jesus is an endeavor that requires one to be willing to struggle, and work and possibly even suffer. While this idea may seem foreign to us in the land of the power of positive thinking, it is not foreign to much of the rest of the world. The pictures which you will find in your insert are of men and women who were arrested this past Christmas evening. Members of the Iranian intelligence service broke into their homes, handcuffed them and took them away for questioning. And they were arrested for no other reason than that they were Christians. Husbands and wives were separated. Parents were separated from their infants. They are being pressured to give up their faith and convert to Islam. And this kind of pressure is not limited to Iran. In places like India and China followers of Jesus Christ are regularly persecuted, arrested and pressured to give up their faith and become atheists, Hindus or Muslims. Where Jesus is in many places in this world, trouble follows. Even here in this nation, while our freedom of religion is protected, there are moments when choosing to live the Christ centered life puts us at odds with both our friends and our society. Our choices to be loving, forgiving, inclusive and honest cause others to question our sanity.
So why then ought we to do it? Why should we risk so much in order to follow this one whom trouble often follows? Why should we be willing to adventure when safety, going along in society to get along, might make our lives much easier? Well, perhaps we ought to allow Private Benjamin to show us the way. As the movie progress we watch Benjamin struggle and often fail at being a soldier. It becomes apparent that she is not cut out for the military life. Everyone from her family to her drill instructor is trying to convince her to quit. Then however in the midst of the struggle something happens. She begins to discover that there is more to her own being than she had ever believed. She discovers that she has the mettle and the ability to become not only a soldier, but a very good soldier. It is the struggle that allows such a discovery to take place. The same is true within our life as followers of Jesus. As with much of life, those things that are easy seldom help us discover the person God has created us to be. It is only in the midst of the struggle that we can come to discern our true, God given, God created identities. The disciples had only seen themselves as fishermen. They could never have imagined themselves as anything else. Along the road they often want to run away and give up, as many did. Yet in the crucible of the journey, we will watch them become men and women who even when facing persecution and death became capable of being co-workers with Christ in building a new community and new world for the future of God’s kingdom. This is what is happening in Iran, India, China and even in our midst. In the struggle to follow we discover the persons whom God has created us to be.
You and I have been warned. Matthew makes it clear that anyone who walks with Jesus runs the risk of encountering moments of struggle and doubt. Yet as we make this journey will also discover that long the way, we also have the opportunity to become more than we ever thought we could be; we can discover the persons that God has created us to be. So the challenge before us is this, to ask ourselves, “Am I willing to take the risk and bear the struggle in order to live into my God given identity?”
