Accountable

Accountability is one of those things we like to talk about … for others. Let religious leaders or politicians get into some kind of trouble and you will hear calls to hold them accountable. Rightly so.

Yet we don’t always want to talk about accountability for ourselves. Accountability is inconvenient and difficult. It restricts our freedom and makes us less able to keep secrets. But because at the tree in the garden we inherited the inclination to make consumer choices instead of the correct moral ones it is necessary, even if we don’t like it. Whether we are young, single, and courting; in a position of leadership and trust; or managing a business for someone else; we need reliable structures of accountability to reduce the temptation of forbidden fruit. There will always be a tree in our garden. We will always struggle with choices. We will always be tempted to turn moral choices into consumer ones.

The Pharisees of Jesus’ time liked to hold others accountable. They had strict standards of conduct, and when people didn’t measure up the Pharisees quickly labeled them “sinners.” More than once they measured Jesus against their code. Jesus grew weary and disgusted with their flawed rules about hanging out with “sinners” and turned the tables on them with a series of rabbinic stories to let them know just what he thought of them. First he told them God loves and pursues those people the Pharisees loved to hate. 

Then Jesus held the Pharisees accountable. In today’s Lectionary text  Jesus told a story about a manager, with a trusted position and responsibility to run the estate, who abused his stewardship. He wasted the boss’s goods on himself. Apparently there was no accountability structure, but someone told the boss about the manager’s mis-management. Immediately the boss called the embezzler in and told him to hand over the books and get out.

Put off by the prospect of manual labor or begging, and realizing that no one would hire him for his preferred type of employment with this on his resume, the disgraced CEO hatched a scheme to manipulate others into hiring him once he left the master’s employ. To pull it off he had to rely on the master’s good nature.

He urgently called for the master’s chief tenants, the farmers in town who leased land from the master and paid rent with a portion of the harvest. After confirming previously agreed-upon rents, he offered to cut each bill in half.

Here is how the manipulation worked: Each farmer called to the steward’s office would be able to sense something was up. It was very uncommon for rents to be adjusted downward in the middle of a growing season. They knew a shady deal was being offered. However, if they asked no questions they could reap the benefit of lower rent and greater profits from the yielded crop. That is, the consumer choice (lower rent, higher profit) overshadowed the moral choice (doing the right thing). There was no accountability and they couldn’t resist.

Publicly they would be able to say what a generous landowner the master was, lowering rents that way. In the honor-based society the master would not come back and complain. He would honor the changed contracts, take the hit, and enjoy his enhanced reputation for being so generous. Privately, because the farmers knew they were in on a shady deal, they would hire the manager to keep him quiet, and put his manipulative skills to work for them. Of course, in the new situation, they would hold him accountable to keep him from embezzling from them.

The cheated master said, “I have to hand it to you …”

Jesus finished the story by implying that the Pharisees were just as unaccountable but not as smart. “The children of this world,” he said, “are more shrewd in their generation than the children of light.” He went on to emphasize the Pharisees’ unfaithfulness and disloyalty to the God who set them in place as managers of the kingdom and stewards of his word. In other words, he held them accountable. Their conflict of interest hindered their stewardship, which was being pulled from them. The discredited Pharisees sneered at Jesus, knowing they were caught. But unlike the “unjust steward” they didn’t have sense enough to use their position to win favor with those who might receive them.

Together, as the Church, we have the stewardship of God’s kingdom. That stewardship entails a significant responsibility to manage the grace of God on behalf of the kingdom. That is, we join God in the chase for them and we stand ready to receive them when they return. 

The resources at our disposal are not for us to spend on ourselves, or to waste in pointless efforts. These would be consumer choices, measuring benefits to ourselves. Rather, our resources are for increasing the work of the kingdom. The Discipline of The United Methodist Church describes our mission as “making disciples for the transformation of the world.” We may dream of more people in our worship services and classes, but like the Pharisees and Sadducees of Jesus’ time, we are accountable to the mission to transform the lives of “sinners” by the love of Jesus Christ. That is what Jesus will hold us accountable to.

What if we were to ask about every proposed activity or program, “How will this transform hearts and lives?” What if we were to hold ourselves accountable to benchmarks that actually measure the level of transformation of lives? What if we were to hold ourselves accountable to higher authorities? Wouldn’t that influence the type of things we do at church?

Because I am aware of the constant presence of that menacing tree in the garden, with its tempting fruit of self-benefit and good feelings, I am pleased to have accountability structures in my life: as a husband and father, and as a pastor. Are you accountable? Do you have someone to help you avoid the deceitful tree?

I am pleased to be part of an ecclesiastical body like The United Methodist Church which, in the Wesleyan spirit, holds us accountable for ministry and outcomes. Members of our congregation today will go to an annual accountability group called a charge conference where we will hold ourselves accountable for our work. We will be reminded of ways we can do our work better, to transform more lives for God’s kingdom.

Grant to us, Lord, we pray, the spirit to think and do always those things that are right, that we, who cannot exist without you, may by you be enabled to live according to your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (BCP)

Luke 16:1-14 (Proper 20 C)

Chase

It seems God puts a lot of energy into chasing after us. Since we turned a moral choice into a consumer one God has been after us, pursuing us, chasing us down, so that he can restore us to right standing with him. It started in the garden, when, after we ate forbidden fruit, God came looking for us. He found us hidden in the bushes, trying to conceal our newly discovered shame. It continued when Jesus came to live among us, to chase us into his kingdom.

Webster defined chase as “pursuit with the ardent desire to obtain; earnest seeking.” The verb is equally active and passionate: “to drive, urge, press forward with vehemence; pursue with the purpose of taking.” That is exactly what Jesus is doing, and we are the objects of the chase.

The concept is lost on the Pharisees, both of Jesus’ time and ours. Pharisees boast the attainment of self-righteousness and look down their noses at those who haven’t made it. In Jesus’ time they made clear distinctions between themselves and those whom they labeled “sinners.” They couldn’t understand why Jesus would want to keep company with “sinners.”

When Jesus invited Matthew into discipleship Matthew threw a party and invited his tax collector friends to meet the new rabbi. Pharisees complained. “Why do you eat with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus responded, “Those who are well don’t need the physician. Those who are sick do.”

Later, as Jesus passed through Perea en route to Jerusalem he again spent time with the common folk. And again Pharisees criticized him. “This man receives sinners, and eats with them!”

By this time Jesus could take no more of the self-righteous arrogance of the Pharisees. He unloaded on them with a series of parables that left no doubt what he thought of them. He berated their hypocrisy and decried their disloyalty. He revealed their greed and pride. But with the first two Jesus made it clear God is all about chasing after the “sinners” they loved to look down upon.

First story. A shepherd (low-life sinner, according to the Pharisees) has one hundred sheep. One goes missing. He leaves the 99, presumably with fellow low-life sinning shepherds, to chase after the one that is lost. Because he is regarded a low-life sinner, he knows he must recover that sheep or be accused of stealing it. He searches high and low, and when he finds the sheep he returns to the sheepcote. He calls friends together and they celebrate the recovery of the one that was lost. His friends know all too well how important that one sheep is. The kingdom is like that, Jesus said.

Second story. A woman (low-class peasant woman, not too important to Pharisaical eyes) has a cherished ketuba, or dowry, worth ten days wages for the average day laborer. In our money at current minimum wage it amounts to just under $600. That money is all she truly owns and is intended to be her life insurance policy if her husband dies. She loses one of those treasured coins and turns the house upside-down in the chase to recover it. The extra housework pays off, and she calls her friends to celebrate. Her friends know all too well how important that coin is. The kingdom is like that, Jesus said.

In each case the seeker experienced loss of something important and saw the need to drop everything to chase, that is, search diligently for the lost item. Each did not rest until the lost item was recovered, and each rejoiced in celebration in the recovery of something important and precious. The kingdom is like that, Jesus said.

God’s heartfelt loss is relationship with us. The tragedy of sin is broken relationship, not broken law, and God in his mercy desperately wants to repair that. So he chases us down to offer the means of restoration.

The psalmist was aware of the chase. “Where can I go from your Spirit,” he asks. “Where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend into heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in hell, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.” You can’t get away from God’s chase.

The chase is Jesus Christ himself through what we call the incarnation. God comes to us in human form, the second Adam. Paul the apostle, describing his pursuit of the higher calling in Christ, wrote “I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me” (Philippians 3:12, emphasis added). Jesus had chased Paul, and caught up with him on the Damascus road. His life was forever changed.

When Jesus catches up to us our lives are forever changed. Over time grace repairs the broken image on the inside, gradually restoring us to the image of God intended from the beginning. And as that happens all of heaven celebrates, because cherished relationship was restored and renewed.

Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the saving knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your name. Amen. (BCP)

Choices

Our Christian life is full of choices. In fact, God made us to have the ability of moral choice. I believe the image of God within us is the ability to choose and to be responsible for our choices and their consequences. The tree in the garden, with the command to not eat thereof, was the activation of our moral choice. Instead we made a consumer choice. Big mistake.

Jesus, second Adam and image of God, came along with the same ability to choose. He came not only to atone for our poor choice, but to show us how to make the right choice. First he faced the devil in a wilderness contest where the adversary presented Jesus, weakened from a forty-day fast, with tempting choices. Unlike the first Adam, he didn’t take the bait. Instead of taking the tantalizing consumer choice, he chose the more difficult path, and left the wilderness in the power of the Holy Spirit. He went on to embrace probably the most difficult choice of all: he chose to take up a Roman cross and give his life to atone for our poor choices.

It should be no surprise that Jesus leads us into the same situation. In today’s lectionary text, Jesus left the region of Perea after several testy confrontations with religious leaders. Healing on the Sabbath and hanging out with “sinners” appeared to them to be the wrong choice, and they told him so. Not one to be too concerned about the good opinion of the Pharisees, Jesus did what he needed to do. Of course the Pharisees were fit to be tied, but the crowds loved it.

So when Jesus decided to leave that area and continue the journey to Jerusalem, many of his new fans came after him. They wanted to follow a rabbi that stood up to the Pharisees on their behalf and did such wonderful things for people. But instead of the warm welcome they expected they got a stern warning … about their choices.

Stopping dead in his tracks, he turned to them and said, “If you come to me and you cannot choose between me and your family, you cannot be my disciple. If you cannot bear your own cross, you cannot be my disciple. If you cannot forsake all you have, you cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:25-26, 33).

That is strong language. A tough challenge full of difficult choices. Far from consumer choices, the decisions Jesus requires here are loaded with difficult, life-changing consequences.

Deciding between Jesus and family was a huge deal. In first-century Israel one’s first obligation was to one’s family. To breach that obligation was unthinkable, yet necessary in Jesus’ kingdom.

Luke tells of another time when Jesus invited a young man to follow him as disciple. The man replied, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” What he meant was, “Let me wait until my father dies and my obligation to him is finished.” Jesus replied tersely, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.” Another fellow signed up but asked for a few minutes to hug his mama goodbye. Jesus rudely said, “If you look back you are not fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:59-62). Jesus is serious that there is a price to pay for following him.

Taking up a cross was equally threatening. Everyone in the Roman-occupied world knew the horrors of the cross. It was state-of-the-art torture and execution reserved for those who would challenge the authority of the Roman state. Anyone caught resisting Caesar in any kind of uprising would be made an example of what happens when one resists the Caesar. Victims were forced to carry a heavy cross through a crowded street of jeering, spitting spectators toward the execution site. There they would be nailed to it and hung a few feet off the ground. Nails penetrated the main nerves of arms and feet, causing severe and unrelenting pain. After several days of hanging that way the victims would finally suffocate to death.

And Jesus said followers must be willing to take up the cross. Two things jump out at me. First, one must go against the grain of accepted thought and behavior for Jesus. We don’t follow Jesus the same way we follow a popular fad. Jesus is not a consumer choice, he is an against-the-grain lifestyle. Second, one must be willing to face painful consequences for following Jesus. Unfair treatment, brutal torture, jeering spectators, and slow agonizing demise.

Forsaking all is not a pleasant thought. It refers to the radical renunciation of all possessions. It means setting aside all things that would hinder from following Jesus. “You can’t serve God and mammon,” Jesus said several times. All must be surrendered.

All these things … family, life, and property … must be laid on the line to follow Jesus. It is a high cost to be carefully considered. Underestimating here brings heavy consequences in itself.

Jesus illustrates: A man plans to build a tower in his vineyard, but underestimates what he will need. The unfinished tower reduces him to the role of village idiot and brunt of all jokes. A king goes to expand his territory by declaring war on his neighbor, only to discover that his neighbor’s forces greatly outnumber his own. He winds up losing his kingdom to the one he hoped to supplant, and that without a fight.

There is no room for presumption in the serious matter of the kingdom. We cannot afford to be consumers, for we’ll wind up like Adam and Eve, considering the benefits of the fruit we’ve been offered. Following Jesus cannot be the latest fad, as it became in Perea when Jesus stood up to Pharisees and befriended common folk. It must be seriously considered, and seriously carried out.

The multitudes came after Jesus because it was the popular thing to do. It would be fun to follow him, they thought. Not so fast, said Jesus. Have you considered what this means? Are you ready for these consequences? Your choice …

Almighty God, you have given your only Son to be for us a sacrifice for sin, and also an example of godly life: Give us grace to receive thankfully the fruits of his redeeming work, and to follow daily in the blessed steps of his most holy life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (BCP)

The mystery of Epiphany: God with us

We do not know much about the mysterious magi from the east who looked into the night sky and discovered a message about the newly arrived king of the Jews. We don’t know who they were, how many there were, or exactly from where they came.

But we can know they were a proud priestly class who took the arrangements and movements of stars and planets seriously and saw them as effecting world events. We can gather they were magicians, and astrologers who made a good living off superstitious, self-absorbed, and insecure pagan kings. They were pompous and showy, and liked to attract a lot of attention wherever they went.

So when the night sky brought forth a new star in the Israelite constellation they knew something was up. The metaphor of sun, moon, and stars in the middle east is descriptive of governmental order and the balance of power. When something metaphorically happens in the sky it means to them something earth-changing is taking place on earth.

And so it was. With the new star on the horizon God revealed to these pagan flim-flam artists to the rich and famous that the king of kings was born. The Torah tells us God is not fond of astrology, but apparently he was not beyond using it to get his point across. The magi’s mastery of the superstitious arts, combined with perhaps a little knowledge of bits and pieces of ancient Hebrew prophecy, helped them figure out that a trip to Jerusalem would be worth the effort.

It was as if they were drawn to a distant light, to uncover the mystery of the heavens. Finally they arrived in Jerusalem with great fanfare only to find a befuddled and paranoid Herod, without a clue of the celestial sign and the newborn child to which it referred. I am intrigued with their statement to Herod: “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star at its rising and we have come to worship him.” That is a strong word for these proud men to use. They were used to taking advantage of clueless sovereigns for a fee, not worshiping them. But the kind of worship they intended is serious falling down on one’s face and giving ultimate allegiance. Life-changing devotion.

The scribes were called and the Scriptures were consulted. “The child is in Bethlehem,” Herod reported. “Go there to worship him. Be sure to tell me where you find him, because I want to go too. Later.” They followed Herod’s instructions and newly reappeared star to the house in Bethlehem where mother and child were. True to their word they fell to the floor, prostrate in worship and homage. They presented costly gifts testifying to their revelation of the Christ child as prophet, priest, and king. Frankincense for the prophet, myrrh for the priest, and gold for the king. They testify to his royalty, his ministry, and his suffering and pain. They also remind us that genuine worship is not without sacrifice of both personal pride and material possessions.

Through a moving star in the night sky God manifested Jesus, the king of kings, to the pagan magi, and in the process changed their lives. They were compelled to acknowledge him with the sacrifice of worship and prophetic gifts.

The mystery of Epiphany remains for us. Jesus, if we will let him, will attract our attention to the mystery. He will lead us into the presence of God and allow us to see his glory. Christmas teaches us the mystery of incarnation, God with us. Epiphany goes further and teaches us the mystery of the manifestation of Christ as the king of kings and savior of the world. The king of glory is here, building his promised kingdom, and 

asking us to join him.

O God, by the leading of a star you manifested your only Son to the peoples of the earth: Lead us, who know you now by faith, to your presence, where we may see your glory face to face; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (BCP)

Epiphany 2011

The king comes . . . into a messy world

When I read the story of God’s interaction with his people I always have to keep in mind that God doesn’t always do things the way I think they should be done. My decidedly INTJ personality thinks in orderly ways and is most satisfied when everything is just so. I define in my own mind what I will consider “order” and expect to accomplish that. Everything (except my office) is in perfect order.

Matthew’s account of the birth narrative upsets my sense of expected order. It begins, “The birth of Jesus the Christ, the anointed one, happened this way . . .” This after Matthew goes to painstaking trouble to establish the royal connection. Joseph is directly descended from King David and would be sitting on the throne but for the Roman domination and 400 years of bitterly disappointing history.

Jesus is a coming king. You’d expect a proper way to introduce the coming king, the anointed of God, to the world. With a coming king, I think everything should go in a prescribed order, with proper attention to detail and decorum. Jesus is the King of kings, the Christ, the Anointed of God. Anointed ones, prophets, priests, and kings, are set apart and consecrated in a very special public ceremony that everyone witnesses.

Not so with Matthew’s story. After introducing the birth narrative Matthew describes a messy social situation full of scandal, shame, and disappointment. Joseph, the man who would be king, descendant of David, is betrothed to a pretty young girl named Mary. They are in the period between betrothal and actual marriage, when Joseph is preparing a home and Mary is preparing herself for marriage. Before them both are dreams of a bright future together. Dreams that become one great nightmare when Joseph hears Mary is found to be with child.

What should he do? Being a just man, Joseph decides at first he cannot marry her. She is with child, and the child is not his. Through bitter disappointment and feelings of betrayal he decides that he does not want to further humilate her. A bill of divorcement, with the minimum number of witnesses, will be sufficient. He will go on with his life, and leave her to go on with hers. He will forego charging her with adultery.

As for Mary, she bears a stigma she never outlives.

• In Mark chapter 6 Jesus returns home to preach in his home-town synagogue. Upon hearing his wisdom and seeing his miracles the people respond, “Where did he get these things? Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary . . .?” This designation, son of Mary, is an accusation of her supposed promiscuity and his presumed illegitimacy.
• In John chapter 8 the Sadducees respond to Jesus’ assertion that they are children of the devil by charging, “We are not children of fornication!’, leading some scholars to believe this is a slur against the alleged unsavory circumstances surrounding Jesus’ parentage and birth.

A nocturnal visit from an angel set Joseph’s thinking straight. “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.” He goes on to explain from prophetic Scripture this child is the anointed one of God. But even Joseph’s positive response is messy, because he intentionally soils his name in the process of marrying Mary, thereby adopting her child as his own. Essentially he says, “I’m the one who did it.” That is what gives Jesus legal standing as an heir to David’s throne. Now both of them will live a life of public humilation, presumed guilty of something for which they are totally innocent and even favored of God.

My sense of order and decorum is upset by the way God used scandal and disappointment to bring the anointed one, the King of kings into our world. But at the same time I am also relieved, because it reminds me that God can also use the messiness of my life, with all its failures and disappointments, to bring grace into this grace-starved world.

God chose the messy social situation of out-of-wedlock conception, with all the social scandal and finger-pointing, to unveil the mystery of the incarnation. To materialize himself to us. As John the apostle writes, “And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

Thanks be to God for challenging our sense of order to bring us the divine order of the anointed one, only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. We need all the grace and truth we can get.

4 Advent A 2010

Don’t lose sight of the Coming One

Our Lectionary text today is full of the sights and sounds of the Coming One. John the baptizer hears in prison about the eruption of miracles, signs, and wonders, and sends his disciples to inquire. Jesus responds by telling them to report what they hear and see. He asks the crowd what they went to see in the wilderness.

It was truly an incredible time. Matthew chapter 9 has an impressive list of things Jesus accomplished in villages around the countryside. He healed a paralytic, dried up a woman’s perpetual bleeding, and raised a dead little girl back to life. He restored sight to a blind man and speech to a man with a demon. Then in chapter 10 he sent his disciples on a mission to more towns to do more of the same.

As John heard about all this no doubt he thought, “But what about me? Isn’t he going to do anything for me?” Maybe this is why Jesus told John’s disciples as he dismissed them, “And tell John blessed is he who is not offended with me.” Essentially that meant there would be no release from prison for John and he would have to deal with it with a good attitude. He would have to live by the words he told his disciples: Jesus must increase, John must decrease, even if it means remaining in Herod’s prison.

All of this goes together to tell us it is not about us at all, but all about Jesus. He must be the focus of everything and the center of everything. The things he does for people are to call attention to Jesus. Paul reminds us that the whole of creation was made by him and for him.

When Jesus told John’s disciples to witness to the things they had heard and seen he was telling them to witness to Jesus as the Coming One. All these things were prophesied about the Coming One, possible only through the Coming One.

It is so easy for us to be distracted by nonessential things. We don’t like the music or the way the preacher does things. We place importance on trivial programs and issues and feelings that don’t really help anyone see Jesus. In the American South in particular we are masters on making the focus trivial things. Like football, boring Sunday evening services, and endless parties, fundraisers, and time-wasters. It seems we like to come to church to be at church, as if physical presence inside the church building is going to point us to Jesus.

None of the things Jesus did to let people recognize him were done in a church building. They were done out and among the people. They were done in ways that changed lives, and pointed to the unmistakable Coming One. It is only when we exchange the focus on Jesus for focus on ourselves and our trivial pursuits do we get confused.

Don’t lose sight of the Coming One. Jesus comes. Now, to tell what you hear and see.

3 Advent A (2010)

Is this the king of the Jews?

Dr. Luke presents a brief but grim depiction of the crucifixion of Jesus, charged and convicted of the crime of being the king of the Jews. In fact, over his head, written in three languages, is the charge against him: “This is the king of the Jews.”

In a matter-of-fact way Luke simply notes that they came to the placed called Calvary, and crucified him with two insurrectionists whose plans for violently overthrowing the Roman government backfired. At this point condemned men usually confess their sins and ask God for forgiveness. Jesus prays, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

People stand around looking on. Some, like the remnant of his followers brave enough to stick around, are devastated. Others are bewildered, confused. Elders and priests, members of the clergy, look on with contempt and arrogant self-satisfaction for getting this deed done. “Let him save himself if he is the Messiah, the chosen of God!” they sneer. Is this the king of the Jews?

Jesus wears nothing but the crown of thorns fashioned for him by insolent and rude soldiers the night before. He watches them divide his clothes and shoot craps for certain ones. They don’t get too many rabbis on this detail so his rabbinic wear attracts a lot of attention. Most of the “messiah” figures they get are the rough violent type from the caves of upper Galilee. Not much of value from their raiment. As the soldiers offer the rabbi sour wine from their rations, they mock him as they do all the other “messiah” types: “If you are the king of the Jews save yourself.” Is this the king of the Jews?

Jesus hangs between two insurrectionists caught and convicted for attempts to overthrow the government. They are passionate, violent zealots, giving their lives for the Jewish nationalist cause. Some would regard them as patriots and heros. One of them begins to curse and slander Jesus. “If you are the Messiah save yourself . . . and us!” Is this the king of the Jews?

The apostle Paul tells us Jesus is “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation” (Col. 1:15). All things, visible and invisible, were created by him and for him. He is the head of the church, the first-born from the dead, and preeminent in all things. He is not only the king of the Jews, but King of kings and Lord of lords.

Paul further tells us that it was through the blood of the cross that all things were reconciled to God. Clergymen who accuse, governments that victimize, and zealots who slander. All of creation, in and under the earth. “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Somehow Jesus used the cross, the Roman instrument of shame and torture and example of what happens to those who oppose the government, as the means of coming into his kingdom. I think the other criminal beside Jesus saw a glimpse of this. After rebuking his rude compatriate, he said to Jesus, “Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

We need occasions like Christ the King Sunday to remember that the cross is the gateway to God’s kingdom. We need to remember that we follow Jesus into the kingdom by way of a cross of our own, taken up at our baptism when we relinquish our own lives for the sake of living within his. Death to self, life to Christ. Remember, it is not about you, but about what God wants to do in and through you.

Suffering from a superiority complex

According to the famous psychologist Alfred Adler, a superiority complex occurs in one who has an unrealistic and exaggerated belief that he is better than others. It is manifested by persistent attempts to correct others, discredit their opinions, and dominate them. It results in pride, over-sentimetality, snobbishness, arrogance, and narcissism (extreme self-centeredness).

This is how Jesus pegged the Pharisee in the story he told in Luke chapter 18. Two men, a Pharisee and a tax collector, went to the temple to pray. The description indicates the daily prayer for forgiveness, where a priest offered a sin offering, a sacrificed lamb, in front of the congregation, and then went into the holy place to light the altar of incense. As the incense burned people outside in the congregation were to offer prayers of repentance, asking God for forgiveness of sin. The service was designed as a means of grace, a means of returning to right relationship with God.

The superior-minded Pharisee thought he had nothing to be sorry for. As he stood to himself, avoiding contact with the unwashed masses for fear of risking being defiled, he thanked God for his piety (a common practice among Pharisees), and that he was not like others. In general terms he lists extortioners, unjust, adulterers. Then he comes out and says what is on his mind. “Thank you that I am not like that tax collector!” In his mind there can be none worse than he who stoops so low as to earn a living from the occupying Roman government, collecting taxes for them.

Then Mr. Pious backed up his claim to piety by listing his better qualities: fasting more than required and tithing more than required. In his mind he was really something. He went further than the law with actions, visible to all, that prove his piety and imagined right standing with God.

Herein is his presumed superiority. He attacked and tore down others in general, and the tax collector standing nearby in particular, in a prayer that made pretence of thanking God for his grace. All when he was supposed to be asking to apply the blood of the just-sacrificed lamb to his miserable condition.

In all their religious living, the Pharisees forgot that in God’s eyes the worse thing about sin is the broken relationship, not the broken law. They kept laws, even the ones they made up for themselves, and looked down their noses on everyone else who couldn’t measure up.

We get that way in church sometimes. We have a superiority complex when we look down our noses on the sin, living arrangements, ethnic origin, lifestyle, or economic status of those around us. Like the Pharisee we thank God we are not like “them.” Like the Pharisees we live according to rules of our own making, criticizing those who don’t. All the while we are totally unaware of the gaping breach in our relationship with God.

No one is fooled by our alleged superiority. In fact, many people say they don’t like church because they can’t abide the hypocrites. Younger generations are telling us they like Jesus, but can’t stand Christians. So they avoid church to avoid Christians. Oh, and by the way, telling folks there’s room for one more hypocrite doesn’t help. At all.

The tax collector, on the other hand, backed away from the altar, beat his chest in a gesture of great anguish, and asked God to atone for his sin. To somehow let the shed blood of the slain lamb cover for his sin. Jesus said the penitent tax collector went home justified and made right with God. Unthinkable to a Pharisee, but necessary to a mission-oriented God.

The Church preserves for our use in its prayer books the prayer offered by this tax collector. Known as the Jesus Prayer it goes, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

A good place for us all to start.

Jesus, Patriot

Today we observe the Fourth of July and the birth of our nation. Sometimes we remember the historical significance and we might read the Declaration of Independence. We speak of patriotism and sing patriotic songs. Playing Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes Forever” on the stereo is an annual Fourth of July ritual at my house.

Webster defined patriotism as love of one’s country, and the passion with which one aims to serve his country, either in defending it from enemies, protecting its rights, or maintaining its laws and institutions.

Someone forgot to tell that to Jesus. I looked for a passage in the Gospels speaking of Jesus’ patriotism and I drew a blank. In fact, Jesus said very little about nationalism and civil government and our role in it.

The closest thing I could come to was a passage in Mark chapter 12. The Pharisees tried to trap Jesus with a trick question about taxation. “Do we pay taxes to Caesar or not?” Jesus’ response was brilliant. After looking at Caesar’s likeness on the coin they would use for paying taxes, he replied, “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar.”

Jesus was not the kind of patriot the Pharisees were looking for. They wanted someone who would organize an insurrection and rid territorial Israel of its hated Roman oppressors so they could establish their idea of God’s country. They were most displeased that Jesus did not even so much as criticize the Caesar, much less organize a rebellion. Jesus was not very passionate about restoring Israel’s fortunes.

Jesus had bigger things on his mind. The vast Roman empire, most powerful civil government ever known, was small potatoes to Jesus. He wanted to establish a new nation without political borders or tribal boundaries or ethnic distinctions. He wanted to establish a government that went far beyond powerful empires. He wanted to bring his kinsmen the Israelites into it, but they were distracted by the little institution they wanted to build. He wants to bring us into that wonderful kingdom, too.

To that end Jesus is a true patriot. He was so passionate about his kingdom that he promoted its laws and ideals. He defended it from the adversary, the devil. He gave his very life that it might advance forcefully in the hearts of men.

Today I hope you we remember our Christian heritage and the significant sacrifices our forbears made to establish a God-fearing nation. But more importantly, I hope we will see beyond the red, white, and blue to the eternal kingdom Jesus seeks to found in our hearts. I pray we will be most passionate about loving, advancing, and establishing Jesus’ kingdom. That is the patriotism of Jesus.

Baptism and covenant

We return to the concept of covenant commitment this week, with the church calendar and Lectionary taking us to the Baptism of the Lord. In Luke’s gospel, John sets up shop along the banks of the Jordan River, in the wilderness away from cities. People come to him by the droves, where he demands that they prepare for the Messiah by submitting to water baptism.

This is loaded with cultural and theological meaning. Jews understood baptism to be initiatory, the rite to be undertaken by Gentile newcomers into the Jewish faith. After a lengthy catechism the priests would initiate proselytes into Judaism through an immersion rite that signified death to the former -- religion, national ties, family ties -- and rebirth into a new new life in a new kingdom. For a Jew to hear he must be baptized to retain the favor of God was deeply revolting.

Luke tells us people began to wonder if John would turn out to be the Messiah, and he flatly denied it. “There is coming one after me mightier than I!” he thundered, “He will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire, and he will separate wheat from chaff!”

Jesus made the 70-mile journey from Nazareth in Galilee to the wilderness of Judea to meet up with John and be baptized into the kingdom of God. As he was praying the sky opened and the Holy Spirit descended in the bodily form of a dove, and rested upon him. God spoke, “You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased.”

The church adopted baptism from the Jews to signify personal transformation, leaving the old and coming into the new. It signifies a deep commitment to leave the old pagan life, severing all ties with the past, dying to the old life, and being born anew into the kingdom of God. As with Judaism, the church historically carefully trained converts in the faith, fully told them the commitment they would have to make, and elicited covenant promises or vows at baptism. These involved renouncing spiritual forces of wickedness, accepting the freedom God gives to walk in the light, confessing Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, and promising to remain faithful and committed to Christ through the church.

We approach baptism as a means of grace, or an act of obedience administered by the church wherein God does something wonderful within us. The Holy Spirit is present in the application of water, and his power begins in our lives to thoroughly purge us from the chaff of our old ways and to purify us to live in God’s kingdom.

Renewing our baptismal covenant means we remind ourselves of baptismal commitments we made (or made for us, if we were too young). Remembering our baptism means we place ourselves back at the point of entry into the kingdom, remember the work of grace God began in us, and renew our promise to live faithfully and holy before him.

This week remember your baptism, and be thankful.

Covenant with God

Sunday at my churches we will deviate from the Lectionary to observe a new year covenant service on the order of John Wesley’s covenant service. Wesley first celebrated a covenant service for Methodists in 1755, and repeated it often thereafter. They were most often conducted at the new year.

According to The United Methodist Book of Worship (1992), the heart of the service is focused in the Covenant Prayer which requires persons to commit themselves to God.

Here is the main part of the prayer:

I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed for thee, or laid aside for thee,
     exalted for thee or brought low for thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
     thou art mine, and I am thine.
So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,
     let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.

To mark the occasion, Charles Wesley wrote a hymn to be sung at Covenant services. Consider the deep words of Come, Let Us Use the Grace Divine:

Come, let us use the grace divine, and all with one accord,
In a perpetual covenant join ourselves to Christ the Lord;
Give up ourselves, through Jesus’ power, His Name to glorify;
And promise, in this sacred hour, for God to live and die.

The covenant we this moment make be ever kept in mind;
We will no more our God forsake, or cast these words behind.
We never will throw off the fear of God Who hears our vow;
And if Thou art well pleased to hear, come down and meet us now.

Thee, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, let all our hearts receive,
Present with Thy celestial host the peaceful answer give;
To each covenant the blood apply which takes our sins away,
And register our names on high and keep us to that day!

Our Western culture does not fully understand covenant. Covenant requires deep commitment and invokes a promise so binding that one would rather die than break that promise. Covenant is in some ways a death to self, preferring the covenant partner over one’s self and ensuring that covenant commitments are kept regardless of personal cost or inconvenience.

Christian discipleship is that kind of covenant. Just as Jesus called 12 young men from their chosen professions to follow him into life-changing discipleship, so he calls us away from the cares of this life to take up a cross to follow him.

Unfortunately, American Christianity more often teaches a religion of self-pampering. Jesus did it all for me, God is there waiting to answer my prayers for personal convenience and parking places and blessings of every kind. Too often we live reckless lives, and when we get ourselves into trouble we go to God to get him to bail us out.

Covenant means I set my own interests aside, and remember that it is not about me, but about what God wants to do in and through me.

Jesus did not go to youth group

The Lectionary text for Sunday gives us the only snapshot of Jesus as a young person. There Jesus joined his family and others on the annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Passover celebration. As the family returned home, mom and dad assumed young Jesus was following along with the other young people, and did’t really miss him until evening. They were horrified when they couldn’t find him and rushed back to Jerusalem for a frantic three-day search.

When Joseph finally caught up with young Jesus he was in the temple, holding his own in serious debate with doctors of the law. All were amazed that this 12-year-old demonstrated such knowledge and spiritual depth. “Why did you do this to us?” Dad asked in a voice filled with both fright and anger. The precocious youngster quipped back, “Didn’t you know I had to be about my Father’s business?”

It is apparent Jesus did not go to one of those fun and games youth ministries I described in August. He didn’t demand a gym or softball field and wi-fi internet connection at church. He didn’t have repetitive motion injuries in his thumbs. He didn’t have body piercings and tatoos. He did not allow the culture to influence how he lived his life, even as a young person.

Modern youth ministry, as we like to do it, is terribly flawed. We are doing our kids a disservice when we have it, even if they enjoy it at the time. We are not training disciples we are creating consumers who need entertainment to stay with it. We are teaching them to let the culture drive the way they live.

Modern youth ministry rests squarely on the humanistic assumption, inherited from Darwin’s theory of evolution, that young people are under-developed, sub-humans. As such they don’t have the ability to be mature and responsible, and have to have an “age-appropriate” education delivery system. It is assumed they will be irresponsible, act like children, and not be interested in significant and meaningful study and application. I happen to believe that children and teenagers are not under-developed animals and would rather not treat them that way.

My experience as a home school father, now validated by empirical research, indicates that for proper spiritual development and maturity young people do not need to be isolated into groups their own age but they need regular interaction with mature adults, and they need to be included into the ongoing life of the church. They actually want this! Young people who attend public or private school already spend their entire week shunted away from the real world and isolated into artificial same-age peer groups. They don’t need more of it when they come to church! They need an intentional family life and they need interaction with responsible adults so they can learn to be adult. They need to be adequately socialized to live in a multi-generational world. They need to be challenged to do hard things.

Young Jesus could have tagged with the kids on the way home to Nazareth that day. It was expected that he would, and that is why he wasn’t missed until evening. But Jesus did not want to hang with the youth, playing games. He was fascinated with the things of God, and wanted to talk with the best biblical scholars of his time. More than a good time with friends, young Jesus wanted to be about the Father’s business.

Since we have them at church only a short time each week, shouldn’t we be more serious about ministry to young people. Shouldn’t we encourage them to be about the Father’s business?

A new concept for discipleship

At my churches we are working on a new concept for discipling people to maturity in Christ. It is called the Foundry, borrowing an image from Methodist history and a metaphor from the work of a foundry. John Wesley based his London ministry in an abandoned foundry. A foundry melts metals down to liquid form, pours them into molds with the desired shape, and then removes impurities and flaws.

The Foundry at Burnt Church has in mind the process of shaping and molding God’s people into the image and likeness of Christ, with the goal to bring us “to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13).

Shaping experiences will do more than just pass along information. A three-part foundry-inspired process will be used. First, we will heat things up and melt preconceptions and misinformation that have solidified in our lives and hindered growth. Then we will look to Scripture, particularly what Jesus said and did, to find the truth, the mold, if you will, into which to pour our lives. Then we will chip away things that don’t look like the desired result with real experiences that put our faith to work. The thing about genuine old-time Methodist discipleship is that Scriptural and practical go together.

Shaping experiences will also have varied formats for optimal learning and transformation. Brief lecture, small-group conversation, multi-media, outside reading, and a supporting blogspot with links to resources like articles, videos, and commentary.

The quarterly cycle will have us studying and applying for ten weeks. Then we’ll break one week to have a “love feast” (fellowship meal with no agenda), one week to have a night of working on a mission project of some kind beyond helping ourselves, and one week to do all the church’s business (committees, church council, things like that).

I am convinced that true discipleship does not happen when people come on Sunday for an up-beat “worship service.” Jesus’ application of discipleship required commitment and worked for life-change. If we don’t have those components we are not making disciples, we are entertaining consumers.

Our goal is to apply Wesley’s general rules of discipleship, which call on us to do no harm, do good, and attend to the ordinances of God. It is to allow ourselves to be truly impacted and changed by God’s grace, to bring us to the place of maturity Paul describes in Ephesians chapter 4. The video below helps explain the balanced approach to spiritual formation we hope to achieve with the Foundry.

Jesus comes

Advent reminds us of the ways Jesus comes into our lives. Actually, the ways Jesus intrudes into our lives. He calls us from comfortable situations and leads us into the uncomfortable and uncertain. He expects us to live in both expectation and uncertainty, taking risks and knowing that life forever changes. Someone has said Jesus comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable.

The text for the first Sunday of Advent Nov. 29 took us to the Mount of Olives, where the country-boy disciples looked down with awe on the indescribably magnificent temple complex. Jesus said, in effect, “Don’t get too attached to it. The day is coming, in your lifetimes, when it will be completely destroyed and no stone will be left on top of the other!”

Of course the young men, now in their early 20s, were shocked out of their minds. The center of their religious universe was to be leveled and never restored. Jesus used strong, colorful language to describe the significance. Sun darkened, moon not shining, stars falling from the sky. In Hebraic metaphor he means the event will change their lives forever. Drastic, catastrophic.

Jesus told them that in the midst of that upheaval he would “come.” It would be the “day of the Lord.” He had already told the arrogant Sadducees, priests, elders, and keepers of the temple, “Today the kingdom of God is taken from you and given to a nation who will bear the fruit thereof” (Matt. 21:43).

Yanking stewardship of God’s kingdom from the Jewish temple hierarchy meant doing away with the Jewish temple. It would no longer be needed. The once-for-all sacrifice Jesus made of himself at the cross did away with the need for ongoing animal sacrifice. God would now dwell in a new kind of temple, a temple not made with hands (Acts 7:48; 17:24). The temple made up of those who follow Christ Jesus.

While we no longer worship with animal sacrifice, sacrifice as the center-piece of worship continues. Paul reminds us to present ourselves living sacrifice, untainted from the world (Rom. 12:1, 2). Through our baptismal covenant we follow Jesus into sacrifice by taking up our own cross and following him in discipleship (Matt. 16:24). We remind ourselves of his sacrifice -- and ours -- through frequent observance of Holy Communion.

While some are content to redefine discipleship as gathering a large number of people into a service they enjoy, discipleship described by Jesus involves forsaking personal enjoyments and living a life of total sacrifice, a continual expression of worship. Baptism and Holy Communion, sacraments of the church, remind us of these commitments.

Advent is a great discipleship tool because it gives us cause to hold back on excessive celebration we often see during the holidays. It calls on us to pause to reflect on how Jesus abruptly comes into our lives, changes our entire world, and sets us on the path of genuine worship through sacrifice and life-commitment.

A disciple-making church will keep this in mind as it seeks to win the world to Jesus.

Keep the main thing the main thing

When Jesus went to Jerusalem the last time he spent almost a week in the temple, teaching and contending for the faith. Mostly contending for the faith, because arrogant Pharisees and insolent Sadducees opposed him at every turn.

One particular day the Pharisees hit him with a trick question about Roman taxation. “Do we pay taxes to Caesar or not?” Jesus asked to see the coin with which they would pay the tax and caught them in their hypocrisy. They had the filthy pagan currency on them in the holy temple! Jesus’ response revealed their foolishness: “Render to Caesar the things of Caesar, and render to God the things of God.” Jesus refused to be caught up in their petty arguments.

Next up were the Sadducees, keepers of the temple. Arrogant in their ignorance they refused to consider the likelihood of a resurrection because they couldn’t find specific reference to it in their version of the Torah. So they also posed the same foolish question they always used to trip up people who dared argue with them about it. In the resurrection, whose wife would the woman be who had been married to seven brothers through levirate marriages? Jesus wasted no time calling them errant, explained to them that marriage would not exist in the future resurrection, and let them know Abraham is living because God would never associate himself with the dead. Thus there is a resurrection! He shut them up.

But then a scribe, a lawyer for the Sanhedrin, filed an amicus brief. That is, he asked a friendly question. “What is the greatest commandment in the law?” I don’t think the man was trying to put Jesus on the spot; I think he was trying to let Jesus explain himself, and bring some order to the feeding frenzy going on at Jesus’ expense.

Of the 613 Jewish laws Jesus immediately turned to Deuteronomy chapter 6:

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one! You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.

He then said there is a second like it, and referred to Leviticus chapter 19:

. . . you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.

The lawyer readily agreed and Jesus affirmed that he was not far from God’s kingdom.

I think the lawyer’s amicus brief brought the conversation from insignificant argument back to the main thing. The main thing is to love God with all within us, and then to live it out by expressing it to our neighbors.

When I researched how we might actually express love for God, the Scriptures repeatedly linked knowing and living his word with actually loving God. It seems to me this is the goal of discipleship, to sufficiently know God’s word enough to apply it as a matter of course in life situations. It is lived out by continuing to do the things Jesus said he came to do when he announced the coming of the kingdom.

Jesus spoke of things like proclaiming economic equity, healing the brokenhearted, releasing the oppressed from disadvantage, and restoring life in a manner of the anticipated resurrection. He spoke of them as current reality and indicated his church would be about that work, bringing glimpses of the hereafter into present reality while anticipating its arrival.

Discipleship is following Jesus into that work. It is sufficiently internalizing the Scriptures and living them out in practical ways so that the world is improved and God is glorified. The apostle James wrote of this and reminded us that faith without works is dead.

I am convinced the discipleship programs in our churches need to have more than an academic element. They must touch our hearts and transform them to love God with every ounce of our being, and then move us to live out our faith in tangible ways that give glimpses of heaven on earth. That seems to me to be the main thing. So let’s work to keep the main thing the main thing.

Discipleship is spiritual formation

As a Methodist pastor I am attracted to the account of Wesley and his disciple-making machine in the 18th century. It is said that Wesley, through his system of small groups and itinerant preachers, helped England address its cultural ills and avoid a massive revolt on the order of the bloody French revolution. He had a passion for discipling the people the organized church missed.

It is more than coincidence that Wesley’s London headquarters was an abandoned foundry. The industrial revolution in Britain and the huge cultural shifts it generated greatly contributed to the societal ills Wesley addressed. It is interesting that he based in a facility that had contributed to the problem to begin with.

But more important to me is the symbolism. A foundry takes a raw element like iron or steel and reduces it, through heat, into liquid form. That element is then poured into molds where it is left to solidify into the desired shape. Once the general shape is formed, the product is taken from the mold and perfected by having all the rough edges and imperfections chipped and sanded off.

It occurs to me that disciple-making is spiritual formation in the same way a foundry forms raw materials into useful products. The church or discipling body is the form into which God pours heated raw material for shaping. Over time the discipled people take shape. Then they are perfected by chipping here, sanding there, taking off all that doesn’t look like the intended shape. And what is that intended shape?

Read it from Ephesians chapter 4: “And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; . . .”

The primary spiritual formation tool we have used in the American church is Sunday school. It began as an educational outreach program, teaching uneducated children employed 18th century British sweatshops how to read and write, using the Scriptures. It evolved into an evangelistic outreach for the unchurched, and finally as a means of spiritually educating children of the churched. Countless children and adults have learned the Bible in these Sunday schools, including me! But the downside is two-fold: (1) its stress is educational, or assimilation of facts over touching the heart; and (2) it has had the unfortunate and unintended consequence of excusing parents from their responsibility to train their own children.

I am wondering if we need something else to supplement this old reliable tool. If we begin thinking in terms of formation, of setting up our own spiritual “foundry,” then I am wondering if we need to add components not addressed well by Sunday school. Things like community between persons in a variety of settings outside the classroom. Or service, where we actually put the biblical texts to work in practical ministry where we are shaped simply by thinking of and serving others. Or contemplation, were we revive and employ ancient practices like daily office and fixed prayers, meditation, fasting, lectio-divina, and living the church year. I’m also wondering if we don’t need to help parents regain their role as primary formation agent of their children, and allow church efforts to come alongside what parents already do as they obey the Lord.

While Wesley was an ardent supporter of Sunday school, the fact is that he helped shaped the lives of tens of thousands (and ultimately millions, I think) through informal groups meeting in homes and public places. That was his primary tool. Faith and practice go hand-in-hand and are part of our Methodist DNA. It was also the way of the early church.

In my churches I am advocating that we think in terms of spiritual formation instead of Christian education. I am also suggesting that we call our overall strategy for spiritual formation the Foundry. May God pour us all into the mold of Christ, that we might be shaped, formed, and perfected to resemble him.

Getting their attention

Simon bar Jonah was not easily impressed. After all, he was a fisherman. He lived a hard, coarse life not known for social graces. As the saying goes, he would “just as soon cuss you as look at you.”

Every night Simon and his fellow fishers risked their lives trawling the lake for fish. Frequently, and without warning, a violent storm would erupt out of the darkness. Many a fishing boat and crew had been lost that way.

One morning Simon and his brother Andrew came in after a hard night on the lake. Their efforts had been in vain. No fish. Nothing to sell at market, no money to take home to the family. They just wanted to clean the nets, stow everything away, and go home for some sleep. The last thing they wanted that morning was to meet the new rabbi. Like most hard living men they weren’t too impressed with rabbis.

But the new rabbi knew just how to get Simon’s attention. He attracted a large, noisy crowd and headed straight for the lakeside, right were Simon and Andrew were finishing their chores.

“Excuse me, is this your boat?” the rabbi asked. “I need to borrow it. Could you do me a favor and push out a little?”

“What?” Simon protested. “I’m getting ready to go home. I’m whipped. Can’t you . . .”

“It won’t take long,” the rabbi insisted. “Come on, push me out a little.”

The rabbi taught. It seemed the rabbi would never finish. Simon was miserable. He didn’t hear a word. All he could think about was how tired he was. Finally the rabbi finished. “Good! Now we can go home,” Simon thought.

“Now,” the rabbi said to Simon, “put your nets in over here.”

“What?” an exasperated Simon demanded. “We’ve been out all night. Didn’t catch a thing. We’re exhausted. We just want to put everything up and go home. What do you know about fishing, anyway? You stick to the rabbi business, we’ll stick to the fishing business.”

“Put your nets in over here,” the rabbi insisted.

“Alright, alright! We won’t catch anything but we’ll humor you.” Simon threw the heavy nets into the water, where the rabbi pointed. “There. Satisfied?”

Suddenly the boat began to list to one side as the nets filled with fish. Now Simon had a new problem. The nets were breaking, and he and Andrew couldn’t pull them in. Simon called partners James and John to come help. Together they pulled in the largest catch they had ever made.

“Now I’ll teach you to fish for men,” the rabbi said. All four fishers left nets, boats, record catch, everything, to follow the rabbi.

He got their attention.

The search for true spirituality

I have read that today’s unchurched twenty-agers are looking for a dimension of spirituality for their lives. They know there is something beyond the material world, but they do not know what it is. They may describe it as a power or a mystery. They may try different ways to discover true spirituality, and they may conclude that “all paths lead to God.”

Why the interest in spiritual things? It really should come as no surprise. God created us in his image and likeness. This means we have a spiritual component within us that can only be fulfilled in relationship with God. When we disobeyed God in the garden we cut off that relationship and severely damaged the God-image on the inside. Now distorted, it seeks fulfillment in all the wrong places. That’s what causes the sense of guilt, restlessness, and hopelessness. All paths do not lead to God, after all.

What, then, is true spirituality? The apostle Paul testifies of his pursuit of spirituality through prestigious social connections, good education, and religious zealousness. But one day he met the crucified and risen Jesus, and his life forever changed. He wrote to his Philippian friends, “I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ has laid hold of me” (Phil. 3:12). Robert Webber described Christian spirituality as “God’s passionate embrace of us; our passionate embrace of God.”

In Luke chapter 7 the unnamed woman, passionately seeking the divine embrace, interrupts the dinner party given for Jesus. We are told she is a “sinner” and that she honors Jesus in a very crude way. She pours on Jesus’ feet two very precious things -- her bottle of tears (representing her prayers poured out before God) and her expensive funeral ointment. Obviously Jesus’ religious hosts are annoyed, and indignantly wonder why Jesus puts up with her outrageous behavior.

The woman is so intent in her spiritual quest that she ignores the Pharisees’ intimidating resistence. Another time she might back away from their glares, but not today. The spiritual vacuum within has driven her to her shameful behaviors. But now, within Jesus, she recognizes the incarnation of God himself, there to restore wholeness and reach out for divine embrace. Jesus does not disappoint. All those misdirected efforts to find fulfillment, he says, are forgiven.

Misguided twenty-somethings seeking spiritual fulfillment in the wrong places need to hear this story. They need to hear that the void within is filled, not with drugs or Yoga or philosophy, but with the real Jesus who became flesh and blood and now lives within our flesh and blood. Jesus is indeed the only path to God.

It seems our discipleship efforts need to include ways to help people fulfill the spiritual hunger within which point to the saving embrace of Jesus Christ. Our system of providing committed learning relationships needs to go beyond educating the mind (classes) and touch the heart.

I love this collect from the Book of Common Prayer. It helps me focus on what I need to do to extend spirituality to others through discipleship. It is my prayer for today.

Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your Name. Amen.

No such thing as a free lunch

John chapter 6 tells of a great multitude of people, at least 5,000 plus accompanying women and children, thronging Jesus and the disciples for a free lunch. They had eaten their full the day before in the wilderness, and now they had followed Jesus back across the lake to Capernaum for another meal. This time Jesus wasn’t serving loaves and fishes, but the bread of life. No free lunch today.

Jesus told them to stop looking for food which perishes and instead search out the “bread of life,” which is accessed, he said, by believing on him whom God sent. Another place, another time, Jesus had preached to another crowd that they should not be anxious for food and clothing, but instead seek first God’s kingdom and his righteousness.

The stress for discipleship is believing on Jesus. Actually it would be better translated believing into Jesus. Belief suggests a decision in which the old life is left behind and we enter into a new life based entirely on following Jesus. The transition into implies a continual movement from one to another, where our entire life is spent becoming more deeply grounded in Jesus and less involved in the world. Continual transformation.

I think of baptism here, where we transition into the kingdom through the grace of baptism after making a declaration we are leaving the past behind and committing to a lifetime of serving Jesus. We promise to be loyal to Christ’s church with prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness.

This didn’t set well with the “food for lunch bunch.” They wanted fish and chips to go. Many of them began to leave, disappointed and disgusted. Religious folks complained. It looks to me like Jesus was intentionally weeding out the crowds, separating the consumers from the committed. Jesus then looked angrily at his disciples. “Will you leave, too?” he asked.

Since everything Jesus did in his Galilean ministry is for the training of the twelve, I have to ask how this might have affected them. My observation is that it would cause them to realize they have signed on for something far more intense than “vacation Bible school,” with fun and games with a little Bible thrown in. Discipleship under Jesus was more like boot camp than VBS. They had to count the cost and determine if they could stay the course.

It appears by now they had made up their mind. “Where else would we go?,” Peter asked on their behalf. “You are the only one who has the words of life!”

It occurs to me that we do unchurched people a disservice if we lure them to fun things at church and let them believe Christianity is fun and games and free meals. Jesus made it clear the kingdom is not about fun and games and free meals, but about the self-sacrifice of taking up a cross to follow Jesus.

Discipleship is about formation. Forming people into the image of Christ as they believe into Jesus, the one whom God sent.

What is a disciple, anyway?

With all the talk of making disciples, it is a fair question to ask, “What is a disciple?” If our business is making disciples, what exactly will a disciple look like?

At the heart of the word disciple is the word discipline, or the process of committing to instruction, improvement, and correction. We speak of spiritual disciplines that will shape us and form us to the image God intended for us, the character of Christ. We are seeking maturity, going on to perfection.

John Wesley spoke of spiritual disciplines as means of grace. They were practical applications he discovered in Scripture and incorporated into his system of Methodist discipleship with the intention of leading people to perfection, or Christian maturity. Here are the means of grace Wesley advocated:

Prayer is conversation with God. Wesley used a combination of written prayers from the Book of Common Prayer and prayer from the heart. He encouraged both private and corporate prayers.

Searching the Scriptures helps us discover the will of God and grow in the nature and fulness of Christ. The apostle Paul writes, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16, 17).

The Lord’s Supper is the outward visible means through which we receive spiritual grace. We are reminded of the broken body and shed blood of Jesus, we are prompted to self-examination and repentance.

Fasting is abstaining from food to pray and seek God on a deeper level. We set aside material needs to pursue deeper a relationship with God, either through prayer or helping the poor.

Christian conference is regular committed association with other Christians, usually in small groups, for mutual accountability and fellowship. Prayer, Bible study, and care for one another are vital components. Wesley’s class meetings served this purpose and made early Methodism a “disciple-making machine.”

Dr. Luke writes that the first Christians “continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers” (Acts 2:42). They did this in large gatherings (at the temple) and in small gatherings (from house to house).

It seems to me, then, that a disciple is one who is committed to a regular, intentional system of disciplines or means of grace specifically designed to bring him to Christian maturity.