We were heading to church. I took some meds to keep everything in that is supposed to be in, and we squeezed into Kent and Shay’s car. We were heading to a rural, meaning black (?), church.
Kent was excited about one of us preaching and he was excited about dancing and excited…Kent just lives excited. I mostly looked out the window and kept a mental checklist of all the reasons I did not want to go to church and all the reasons I was not going to preach.
Linnea and Stephanie actually seemed excited about the opportunity to speak, as discipleship is so fresh on our minds. (check out L’s and Steph’s most recent blogs). I was going to sit in the back and endure.
We walked into the church, and sat in our pews, which are actually benches made from the lumber of old pallets. We sat behind a couple of young men, one in a leather jacket and praising God with all that he had. I stood and put on my best ‘worship’ demeanor and said, “Jesus help me”.
I guess I just don’t understand this ‘self’ thing. It is like those times where I am in a miserable mood, and I know it is just because I am hungry or tired, but at that point I am not able to all of a sudden say “I’m just hungry, be happy”. No, at these times, I hate everyone for everything. That is how I walk into church, almost determined to walk out the same miserable son of a gun as I came in.
Then I see the smiles. I love the music and dancing (again, I am not much of a dancer, but I do the English Wooden Leg Shuffle as well as anyone). I love the soul. I love the little babies and the kids dancing like crazy and wiggling and giggling. I love when the oldest people are up front dancing, stirring up the dust. Again, I just don’t have the proper defenses to ward off this type of joy.
We were asked to come up and introduce ourselves. I went last and shared how nice it was to be there and all that…and I really meant it.
We had sung that song: “Thank you, Jesus,….thank you, Jesus,…..etc. Siyabonga (Siswati for thank you); and then “buy a donkey…buy a donkey etc.” (afrikaans, I am not sure how to spell it their way, but that is how they say thank you Jesus, I guess) And while we were singing, I actually thought about what I had to be thankful for (how often do I just daydream?). I had a lump in my throat, some tears in my eyes, I was truly thankful to be with these people, who looked so different, who are totally different than me. People who could teach me so much, if I were actually open to learning something new (check out Seth Barnes’ blog, on my links,- “too white…”). Maybe people who really aren’t all that different than I am, we have just been placed in such different worlds.
I shared the usual…that I believe we are family, yada…. we will truly be with each other, feasting for eternity, yada, yada….and took my seat, ready to relax for the rest of the service.
Linnea and Stephanie were discussing thoughts (while we listened to the two young men, the guys who were sitting right in front of us, sing Josh Groban, check out Steph’s blog) on tag teaming the message, and I did not want any part of it, but God would not let me give a definite “no”.
We were then called up to share the ‘word of God’.
Because we have spent so much time discussing and thinking about discipleship, it was natural for us to discuss this. Linnea started and she discussed abandonment. As Linnea was speaking, my mind was racing. (maybe this is God’s way of speaking to me?) Suddenly, my mind was full of ideas on what to share, how do we discuss abandonment with this crowd? Discipleship?
Then Stephanie spoke. I did not even hear her, because my mind was so preoccupied, then it was my turn. I shared a little on how God has led us over 6 months. Shared my fear of speaking in front of others, that one thing I have had to abandon is some fears there, I have had to abandon who I think I am. I have had to risk being embarrassed, shaking and sweating in front of a crowd. That I had never really preached before doing this, that my first 10 times preaching on this trip, I had to write it out word for word and then just read it to the crowd.
I shared that our God is a God of process, we are in a process of becoming more like Jesus. He is faithful to complete the work he began in us.
We read from Matthew 14:22-33. Jesus walking on the water. Peter asking Jesus for the invite to join Him (Jesus will always answer yes if we ask to walk with him. Many are invited..Mt. 22:14.) Peter getting out of the boat. Peter walking on water. The risk of abandoning the boat to walk with Jesus.
Then to Matthew 25:14-30, the parable of the talents (I have heard so much of this idea of ‘just be’, that we don’t need to earn God’s love, which of course I agree with. But sometimes I feel like people say those things to justify inaction. Jesus did seem to say that being his disciple would require more from us than ‘just being’. ‘Remaining in Him’ seems to have some required ACTIONS and SACRIFICES.) In this parable, three men are given different talents. I explained that we have all been given different lives, that discipleship will look different for each of us, that in one of our personality tests, they are able to test for 40,000 different types. So I figure there must be more than 40,000 different ways being a disciple of Jesus looks.
The one thing that matters is what we do with what we have been given (how you play the cards you are dealt? God can do miracles with what we think is a bad hand). People who have been given much, much is required, and to the people who have been given much, more will be given. But this does not let anyone off the hook in the discipleship process. Even the one who is given the least is required to bear fruit.
It seems to me that Jesus almost never condemned anyone. He did not even call the pharisees wicked and lazy (he said the pharisees are full of greed and wickedness, in Luke, but I think this is still different than actually calling someone wicked). The poor, scared, one-talent servant was called wicked and lazy simply because he did not live up to the life or expectations handed to him, which were so miniscule. (how many of us are paralyzed by fear? we don’t want to be the wicked lazy servant…but getting out of the boat is so scary) This seems pretty important to Jesus.
So I shared that, to Peter, Jesus said “you of little faith, why did you doubt? (Jesus said with the faith of a mustard seed, we can move a mountain…Peter walked on water with ‘little’ faith, maybe it is not so much how much faith we have, it is who that faith is in!) How is this supposed to be understood? Did Peter fail? I know in my life, I would love to take a few steps on the water with Jesus, risking humiliation and failure, and WHEN (not if) I fall, to be lifted by the hand of Jesus. Peter, the man of little faith, and many failures, was the rock that Jesus proceeded to build the church on.
The eleven disciples who stayed in the boat? Ten of them also fulfilled the discipleship process. (Judas was the one ‘real’ failure, because he did not trust Jesus with little faith, Judas seems to have trusted his own wisdom) But at some point each one had to take a risk.
It seems that taking a risk is so central to faith, maybe that is why it is called faith. Faith needs to be acted out in ways that don’t really make sense, or it isn’t faith. We can TALK about faith forever…
As our leaders love to say, and I want to learn to actually walk it: “I like what I AM DOING more than what you are TALKING about doing”. I hope my life will be a continuous decision to get out of the boat every chance I have, because I have been given much and much is required of me.
I think this is a question we all need to ask. Are we willing to hear from Jesus, after getting out of the boat, taking a few steps, and then taking a swim, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” or, are we content to hear, after burying our talents, “you wicked and lazy servant…”? In verse 30 the wicked and lazy servant is thrown outside into the darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. A high price to pay for inaction.
At the end of this time, everyone in the church wanted to be prayed for, that they would get out of the boat and serve God with what they have been given. For me this was the most amazing service we have had. People were genuinely excited about taking a risk, excited about discipleship. This is so different for me than a message where people come running up for financial blessings and ‘their best life now’.
