Discipleship

Matthew 26:19 - So the disciples did as Jesus had directed them, and they prepared the Passover meal.

The disciples did as Jesus had directed them. That’s what makes them disciples. Disciple is just a fancy word for student, which is why they sometimes address Jesus as Teacher. However, the relationship between a student and a teacher in both the Ancient Greek and Roman worlds went much deeper than it does today. In fact, students often shared housing with their teachers and thus learned to live what they were taught in every facet of their lives. They learned the Greek curriculum of mathematics, logic, philosophy, astrology/astronomy, rhetoric. They were being trained to become leaders in their home cities. It was never just a matter of facts memorized, but of virtues lived, which entails discussions of how best to live out their virtues. Of course, students and teachers were usually men, but not always.

We see the same pattern with Jesus and his disciples. They literally follow him everywhere, helping him in his ministry even as they are learning from him. He is showing them what compassion and love look like in the midst of a world more brutal than our own. That is at the core of Jesus’s teachings: compassion and love. Because, as the first letter of John says, God is Love. From the sermon of Matthew 5-7, through every parable Jesus told, to the criteria for being considered a follower in the story of the sheep and the goats, we see the core of his teaching is compassion and love. Feeding the hungry, giving water to the thirsty, getting prisoners out of prison, visiting those who are sick. In general, helping those who need our help. Loving another person through our actions is what it means to be a disciple – a follower – of Jesus.

If we want to be Jesus’s disciples, our relationship to Jesus must go deeper than knowing our Bibles or believing in him. If we want to be Jesus’s disciples, we need to live our lives showing compassion and love for others in all we do. We need to ask ourselves how best to live out the virtue of love and compassion in a broken world. We need to discern with each other, our communities, how we sense God is calling us and where we are being led to show our love. Just as the students of the Greek and Roman schools lived with their teachers, and as the disciples lived with Jesus, we also must live and follow Jesus. We learn to love others by following his direction, by living out his commandment to love others in our actions.

In the midst of multiple crises: the coronavirus pandemic, a terrible economy, endangered healthcare, unemployment, detention camps in which women, men, and children are tortured, and a president who is pulling out all the stops to become a king, it is easy – and probably normal! – for us to narrow our focus to what is in front of us. So much comes at us every day, it is hard to take it all in. However, we can reframe these situations to see them as opportunities to love our neighbors, to follow Jesus’s commandment to love God (to love Love), love ourselves, and love our neighbor. Love is the answer; the only answer. We have seen over the past four years how hate only destroys. It cannot build anything beautiful or lasting. Only love can do that.

Every moment offers us a choice: we can choose to live with Jesus in love or live lonely lives filled with hate. Which will you choose today? Tomorrow? On election day? I choose Jesus and love, now and always. It won’t always be the easy path, but it will always be the more fulfilling, joyful, and love-filled path.

Join me, won’t you?

B

 

Partnership With God

Matthew 26:19 – And the disciples did as Jesus had directed them, and they prepared the Passover meal.

The Passover meal was held in remembrance of the night that the Israelites in Egypt had been instructed to put blood on the lintels of their homes. When the angel of the Lord came to kill the firstborn of every Egyptian human and animal as punishment for Pharaoh’s hardheartedness, they would “pass over” the homes of the Israelites and spare their firstborn. The disciples who spoke with Jesus were in charge of preparing (cooking?) the feast for Jesus and his twelve disciples. The Last Supper. This meal of lamb also looks forward to Jesus as the Paschal Lamb that takes away the sins of the world.

However, in keeping with my thinking about power, I would like to focus on the word translated as ‘had directed them.’ It’s unexpected, because the word, syntasso, literally means arranged with or ordered with. There’s a sense of shared leadership and goals. The disciples were partners as well as students! And you know what that means? We are partners with Jesus, too! I don’t know about you, but that idea gives me great joy!

I honestly have never thought about partnership with God before. I have thought about God in terms of familial relationships – God as Father, Jesus as our brother, etc. But this idea of partnership with God is new to me. The Ancient Israelites had covenants with God: Noah and the rainbow, Abraham made four covenants with God, Isaac and Jacob inherited the Covenant. While that was a partnership, it was not an equal partnership. God promised to take care of the Israelites on the condition that they obey him. The important thing about covenant is that God assured the Israelites God would always be with them and love them. However, God was the more powerful partner in the relationship.

But here, in Jesus arranging with his disciples, they are becoming partners if they’re not partners already. And if Jesus and the disciples were partners, that makes us partners as well. Maybe even more so, because Jesus uses our bodies – minds, hands, feet, mouths – to bring his message and to love his people. That sounds a bit possessiony, but I have to admit Jesus has a way of getting into our hearts and minds and working his magic. I mean, we always have the option of saying no to Jesus, so it’s not as though our lives are being taken over. Jesus’s physical body is no more, so Jesus uses our bodies – actions, words – to spread his message of love for all people.

Like a covenant, a partnership imposes duties and responsibilities on each party. Which means that going to church on Sunday and maybe giving money might not be enough. More might be required of us. I learned yesterday that Alan Boesak, a South African clergyman who was a leading spokesperson against apartheid, has said that his greatest fear is getting to heaven and Jesus asking where his scars are. Jesus wants us to use our lives, every aspect of our lives, to spread his mission of love to the whole world. Following Jesus might cost us more than we think we have. I have found, though, that as I become more willing to give, the more I have to give. In the moment, it doesn’t seem like a sacrifice; it just seems like the next right thing.

Granted, there are many people whose bodies, time, and/or financial resources are limited. That’s okay, Jesus uses whatever we offer. We just have to open ourselves up to doing so, because Jesus doesn’t take. He only wants what we can freely and joyfully give.

Partnership also requires listening and communication. Now I know that many people don’t think that God still speaks or that they’d be able to hear her if she did. But I think God is always talking – broadcasting if you will. But our minds are always as busy as our lives, and it’s hard to hear unless we slow down and listen. Lots of people pray, but I suspect (and I could be wrong) that fewer of us listen. In Al-Anon and other 12-step groups, they call this conscious contact; praying and meditating in order to discern God’s will for us. I got nowhere in my understanding of God and what was required of me until I learned to listen.

How are we doing as Jesus’s partners? Where are our scars?

B

 

 

Communal Power

My last post has me thinking about non-violence and power. What springs to mind for you when you hear the word ‘power’? Do you picture a strong, muscle-bound man? Do you picture a superhero? What about military power? Is technological power – such as guns, nuclear bombs – what comes to mind? I suspect I’m not alone in considering physical power when I think about power. But there are other kinds of power: charisma, the power to charm others; mental power, the power to think clearly and well; emotional power, the power to withstand strong emotions and not crack; mental power, the power to resist temptations; and even communal power, power created and grown by joining with others (also known as shared power or power-with). Communal power is the power of protest. The power that is created when people come together to demand justice.

I wrote my Master’s thesis on (Golden Age) Wonder Woman’s non-violent use of power. Wonder Woman exhibits all the powers listed above in greater measure than the rest of us. One thing that stood out in story after story was her preference for communal power, for collaboration with others, most notably Steve Trevor and Etta Candy. There were some things she would do alone, but those were usually dangerous or beyond others’ capacities or both. This preference for non-violence and collaborative power comes from her theology. Wonder Woman worships the Greek gods and goddesses, and you might be thinking (rightly) that they were anything but non-violent. Well, that is what the Amazons have learned in three-thousand years on Paradise Island; that violence and war are not the answers. Love and connection are what will get us through.

Working on that thesis, I learned a lot of amazing things, one of which is that power resembles human eyes. You see, in binocular vision our eyes work together so that they can see more clearly than the sum of each eye singly. If you’ve ever had an eye exam for glasses, you might have noticed that even when the letters are blurry with one eye, they are clear with both. It’s as if 2 + 2 suddenly = 5! (Is there mathematical notation for ‘suddenly?’) Power is the same way. When we share our power with others by working together, our shared power is greater than our individual power added up. Wonder Woman working with Steve Trevor or the Holliday College women is more successful than the sum of their power. Cooperation creates power. We create power when we use our power with others rather than lord it over others. Power is not finite. It is not a zero-sum commodity. Power can be created.

Jesus knew this. I mean, really, what was his ministry about but creating power among people who thought they were powerless? Not the power to overthrow the Romans – although that is what the disciples thought at first and what they desired – but rather the power to rise above their material condition. He gathered people around him, taught them about love and justice and God, and empowered them to go out into the world, together, and make more disciples, more people loving their neighbors.

Because, as the Amazons learned, love is the true power that we all have within us. What’s more, we have the capacity to grow the love in us, because love, like power, is not a zero-sum commodity. Our capacity for love knows no bounds.