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March 9, 2016
Trinity Lutheran Church, Cottage Grove, OR
James L. Markus
Learning Discipleship from the Disciples: Simon – The Zealot
John 15:12-21
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that
someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call
you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have
heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that
you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he
may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another. If the world hates you, know that
it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you
are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said
to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my
word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not
know him who sent me.”
The challenge of doing a series on the 12 Apostles is that we know quite a
bit about a few, and very little about a few. As we’ve seen, Philip and Andrew
show up in 3-4 different bible stories. Peter and John who we have yet to consider,
show up in even more. And then there is Matthew who we think we know, but
after last week, we realize that we know more about the profession than the person.
The last name mentioned in all of the lists of the disciples is Judas the
Betrayer who we are familiar with and will consider on Maundy Thursday. But the
three names listed before him we know little if nothing about. There is James the
son of Alpheus, who is also called James the less to distinguish him from the
brother of John who we will consider next week. Then there is Thaddaeus AKA
Jude or Judas (we can understand why he would want to go by a second name)
who speaks just one time in the gospel of John. But tonight we consider Simon the
Zealot.
This is what we know about him: he was an apostle of Jesus; his name is
Simon; and he is a Zealot. What then are we to do with those disciples who we
know little more than their name? Since I have only 9 times to preach in this
series, and since there are 12 apostles, the problem is easily solved. I can simply
ignore them. But since I don’t want to do that, I have just given them brief
mention as we also want to honor these men and their untold stories in following
Jesus.
Though not specifically mentioned, they were with Jesus over the course of
his public ministry. They witnessed Jesus’ miracles. They were with Jesus on the
stormy Sea of Galilee and watched him still the storm. They assisted in the
distribution of the bread and fish in the feeding of the 5,000. They saw Jesus heal
the blind, the deaf and the lame. They also heard his teaching about the kingdom
of God. The kingdom of God is like a sower… The kingdom of God is like a king
giving a wedding feast… The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed… These
otherwise unknown apostles received Jesus’ supper in the upper room. They fled
from him in the Garden of Gethsemane and they witnessed the resurrected Christ
and saw him ascend into heaven. They were part of the early church and bore
witness to Jesus. We could reflect on any of those stories and consider the great
impact that Jesus had on his disciples.
But we have something more we can say about Simon. He is called Simon
the Zealot, certainly to distinguish himself from the other Simons mentioned in the
Bible, including Simon Peter. Just as Matthew is known as the tax collector,
Simon is known as the Zealot.
The Zealots were a political group within Judaism. When we think of
Jewish parties, we are more familiar with the Pharisees and Sadducees who are
often mentioned as the chief opponents to Jesus. They were threatened by his
message. They enjoyed their positions of power. The Pharisees were the party of
the synagogue and the Sadducees were the party of the temple. Then there were
the Herodians who were loyal to King Herod. The Essenes, while not mentioned
in the Bible, are mentioned by the Jewish historian Josephus. They lived separate
from the world in communal living. They focused on a rigid understanding of the
law and focused on what they considered to be the holiness of life. We best know
them as the community that hid, what would be called, the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Simon was a Zealot. What do you think of when you hear the word Zealot?
Passionate. Committed. Enthusiastic. Extremist. This word does not describe his
personality, but his political party. To confuse things further, Bible scholars argue
over whether Simon was a member of the radical Zealot party or whether the term
simply referred to his religious zeal. I take the former view.
The Zealots were a fanatical religious-political group, a clandestine band of
Jews who imagined themselves to be super-patriots, and their battle cry was: "No
king but God; no tax but the Temple tax; no friend but the Zealot." They hated the
Roman occupying power.
Josephus, the Jewish historian, states that the Zealots began with Judas the
Galilean seeking to lead a revolt over a census for taxation purposes (A.D. 6). He
is mentioned by Gamaliel in Acts 5: “After him Judas the Galilean rose up in the
days of the census and drew away some of the people after him. He too perished,
and all who followed him were scattered.” Since the census was for the purpose of
taxation, we can understand why the Zealots would revolt.
That revolt was crushed by the Romans and its leaders were nailed on
crosses along the roadside. As Jesus walked among the hills of Galilee, as a young
boy, perhaps he saw those crosses, (2000 of them by one reckoning), and so knew
perfectly well what he was talking about when he spoke to his followers about
taking up a cross to follow him. And it was the Zealots who in A.D. 66, led the
Jewish revolt against Rome which Rome snuffed out with the destruction of
Jerusalem and later Masada.
Consider the change that Jesus brought into the life of Simon. Instead of
taking up the sword, Jesus taught "All who take the sword will perish by the
sword." He taught Simon and all his disciples to turn the other cheek and love
their enemies and pay their taxes to Caesar.
Simon was attracted to Jesus whose hatred of oppression was just as strong
as that of Judas of Galilee. Only gradually did it dawn upon Simon that Jesus had a
different way of dealing with His enemies, a radically different way, which was
absolutely foreign to everything Simon had grown to believe. Again and again
people tried to make him an earthly king, but he refused, saying, "My kingdom is
not of this world...else would my disciples fight...." (John 18:36) And Simon came
to realize that he either had to give up his sword or give up his Savior.
Simon got to work this out in relationship with the Romans and also in
relationship with one particular disciple – Matthew the tax collector. If tax
collectors were despised by other Jews, they would have been hated by the Zealots.
Jesus transforms relationships. The barriers that separate people are broken down
by Jesus. Matthew the former tax collector and Simon the former Zealot found a
commonality in Jesus and his message. That is one thing of what it means to be a
disciple of Jesus Christ. Jesus breaks down the barriers that formerly separated
unrepentant people.
I’m sure you noticed that our reading tonight does not mention Simon.
That’s because Simon isn’t mentioned specifically in any of the gospel stories. But
he would have been there to hear these words of Jesus, “This is my commandment,
that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this,
that someone lay down his life for his friends."
How has Jesus loved us? By laying down his life for us. He reconciles us to
the Father and he reconciles us to one another. The vertical piece of the cross
reminds us that we are reconciled to God. The horizontal piece reminds us that we
are reconciled to each other. Jesus has reconciled us to God. He reconciled
Matthew and Simon. Are you out of relationship with someone in the body of
Christ? Jesus who did the greater thing of reconciling us to the Father, can do the
lesser thing of reconciling us to each other.