GO & DO

The life of the disciple is not easy. It wasn’t easy when Christ called His twelve and it wasn’t easy when His followers were beaten and ridiculed for their supposed heresies. The life of the true disciple is a dangerous one. It was never intended to be safe and that is because Jesus is not safe. He calls the disciple out of a life focused on self and whim. He radically alters their heart and births an allegiance solely to Himself.

He then empowers the disciple with His spirit and sets them their marching orders. “Go out into the world.” This world is indeed a dangerous place which you know for yourself. And Jesus is dangerous because He says to His disciple, Go out on the road and “Take nothing for the journey—no staff, no bag, no bread, no money” Luke 9:3 The disciple then is forced to falter or to develop a radical trust that their Lord, unseen to the human eye will provide and give them shelter and the words to speak.

And yes He is good, but He is still dangerous because He will let that disciple come to the very end of himself. Now when he or she is past their last crumb and starving unto death or at the edge of his rope where the threads are quickly unraveling and destruction is sure, He comes in. Always at the last moment. He does this to break our independence and to develop the sinewy muscles of faith. Sometimes though He doesn’t come at the last moment and we feel He has let us down. His reasons we can’t always understand no matter how we might try to learn them.

As I walk my own growing rocky and dangerous path I am coming to learn that there are two types of follower. The one like the servant who hides his talent in the ground to make sure it’s safe for his Lord and the true disciple. True disciple? Yes. The true disciple is the one who goes and does. He or she is the one who braves the dangerous path even though in their flesh they are fearful and even though His commands our fleshly selves might not agree with. That servant hiding his talent in the soil afraid to lose it is like todays Christian holed up within their comfortable churches with others of like mind feeling safe and pleased that their talents are safely tucked away from the hands of thieves.

I myself am recovering from the malady of the servant of the hidden talents. I have worried about the safety of my family or disease or threat of war and by my own admission I have retreated from the world at times because of this. I have opted to not live my life and in years past I have kept untrusting eyes on those different from me. Because of the spiritual darkness of their lives I made myself separate because didn’t scripture say to be separate? I have looked at others who claim the same faith and who held to His tenants but have judged them because they didn’t step the same as I did. I looked down at them. That was myself years ago, but the fear was myself up until this year when the Lord gave me The Hard Things. You see living life like the worker who hid his talent is sin and completely opposite of the gospel. We are so concerned about staying clean and avoiding sin that we have become our own little club hidden away from the mire where we are content to look out through our pristine windows with judgement and fear in our eyes and where we huddle together to pray for one another’s safety.

That life was never the way of Jesus, nor His disciples. His greatest rebukes were for the religious society who strained at gnats and made sure their hands or eyes never set on anything unclean. Be in the world, but not of it. We forget this, we have made our faith weak so that we are no good to a world that He gave His life for despite how we might say otherwise.

Christian, rather than being so set against a fallen world perhaps we should go into it and love it. Rather than demonize and place conspiracies upon other men’s heads go and break bread with someone wholly other than yourself. Instead of calling out the sin of a fallen world and shaking your head at their lost ways, perhaps go and meet them in the rough streets and hear their pain and offer your shoulder for the tears of a hurting person not of your race, sexual orientation, creed or other beliefs. Maybe, just maybe set your ears to hear the story of someone of differing political persuasion and try to understand why they believe what they believe and don’t try to change their views or condemn them within your heart or with your words.

As Paul said, we must be about the ministry of reconciliation. 2 Corinthians 5:11-21

And this can never happen if we decide we are the ones always right and what they believe doesn’t matter. Jesus was holiness incarnate, sinless and pure and a Lord who hates sin. But, perfection took up frail flesh and ate and lived among people who were of the world. The drunks, prostitutes, thieves, the dregs and lowly who the respectable religious sorts stayed away from.

We preach about His saving hand to the lost and try to bring them into our safe and warm enclaves so that we might make our own versions of Jesus who look like us, speak like us and believe exactly like us. We shouldn’t go to bring them, we should go to live among them, to meld with them and live amongst them so that they might see His light within our lives. This is radical Christianity.

Perhaps and just maybe we as a body put away our judgements and go as the disciples went, perhaps we go just as the missionaries we so eagerly support do, we go. Out to the streets and fields and set up our tents among them, becoming one of them, loving them and earning their acceptance and the trust into their own tribes. Perhaps we teach the changing power of the gospel by His example in the small and everyday things, be among them but allow them their own distinct beliefs and humanity rather than saying they must be homogenized just like us.

There are no coincidences in His Kingdom and He speaks through faulty jars of clay like myself. Take this as His call to you to do away with the life of the servant of the hidden talents and take up the mantle of the disciple who goes out and does. Despite what anyone says behind your back or to your face. He is calling you into His radical love, He is calling you into a new way of being. He is calling you to put away your grievances and justifications and pride and division for the life of a true disciple. He walks past you on the crowded road and turns back to you and proclaims, “Follow me. Do not follow institutions or what men say is virtuous, follow me.”

Heed His call while you still can for the time is short. And as always, go out today and be the healing balm to someone who is desperate, someone who needs a kind hand or word. The gospel can be given without words. I believe in you. Always have.