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Mathetes "a way of life"

When you have had a long day at work where do you go to to replenish your reserves?  Food?  Beverage?  Book?  Movie?  Do you have a pattern you get into that kind of restores your energy levels? 

Jesus knew how exhausting life can be.  He saw Peter stressing over his taxes.  He happened upon the crew one day mending nets from an exhausting and unproductive night on the Sea. He watched his associates scrambling and fretting as they realized they invited more people than they could feed.  In disbelief and frustration at their predicament they groan, "Where can we get food for 5,000 people."  There was the pressure and scrutiny of the system, "You can't pick grain on the sabbath and eat it.  Shame on you!"  And yet with the same demands and frustrations you and I face in life, he challenged them to embrace life as a mathetes, a disciple or learner.

What I want to point out in this post is something I discovered a couple months back at Graduate Theological Union.  I was studying Sylvia Collinson's Making Disciples (Theological Monograph) and reading Harvey Cox's When Jesus Came to Harvard at the same time.  And I became convinced that Jesus' command "Matheteuo all the nations" was the method of teaching that he was commanding his disciples to use as they built his kingdom.  Matheteuo (verb) was not a curriculum.  When we read metheteuo we often read into that word activities like 'soul-winning' or 'evangelism'.  There are some that take it a step further and have a few classes and kind of 'school' people into the church's theology and rules "do's and dont's".  Usually there is a set curriculum (e.g. 101, 201, Navigators, etc.) we school them in.  Schooling is Western.  Jesus did not have 'schooling' in mind when he said make disciples.   

Its how we learn in the West so we just kind of use the same method of learning (schooling) that we have always used and put a 'discipleship' curriculum with it.  This method of learning uses:  lectures, discussions, QandA, audio/visuals, reading assignments, covenant or commitment paper we sign.  The class, as we do in the West, sits facing forward while someone stands or sits on a stool and lectures the group.  We meet in a church classroom.  And the program is set/fixed.  There are maybe 6 or 7 lessons.  The goal is to attain a certain level of knowledge (cognitive) with the hopes that our life will bear some fruit.  Does anybody see anything wrong with this beside me?  Is this what Jesus did?  Did he 'school' people into a relationship with him?  Did people learn how to live his way of life through lectures, sermons, class discussions?  (someone is going to go off and say that i am advocating for the dissolution of preaching and teaching.  that is not what i am saying.  I am saying that that is not what disciple (verb) means.)

Is the church offering its world a less hectic and stressful life?  And is the church showing its world how that less stressful life can be lived?  Or are we merely making people do more stuff, add more rules, attend more events . . . . .  Is it possible we are adding to their burdens.   Jesus didn't merely offer people some additional knowledge to help cope with their trials and difficulties, stresses and fears!  He offered a whole new way of living.  And that whole new way of living was not acquired by lecture.  It was acquired by a tribal apprenticeship and a familial nurturing, through Kingdom activism and meal-time reflections, by creedless stories and prayerful gatherings.  It wasn't knowledge through classes and sermons.  Yes, they taught all people Jesus' sayings and life-lessons, his story and resurrection, but how they taught it was radically different from anything we do today. 

So how did they pass The Way on to the nations?  Who were disciples (noun)?  What was discipling (verb)?  Before we can explore what it was I want to establish what it wasn't.  It wasn't a student curriculum, church program, evangelists-4 spiritual laws or 3 steps to salvation or sinners prayer.  Disciple was a word soaked in a rich etymology (with both Jewish and Greek hues).  The Galilean tapestry wove at least 7 different patterns into its disciples cloak.

Next week we will explore the first of the seven:

Mathetes

I feel compelled to cry with desert rumblings to my generation.  Its not as though I think or feel like I am the lone seer in the Country of the Blind.  Quite the contrary!  My own eyes have been gouged and plucked.  I too heard the call, followed the Voice, crucified my soul to the Story.  Somewhere along the way, I allowed men to define the Voice's meaning, I sold my soul to an ecclesiology measured and weighted with quantitative reasoning.  You know, "How many people do you run?"  "What was your budget last year?"  "What is the square footage of your building?" It was subtle.  At least no one ever explicitly stated this, but conversations revolved around this.  Results and numbers were the final say at the end of the day.   The church became a business.  My holy vocation bartered for a career.

Dandelion Whiskers . . .

Artists abound in our beloved community.  Thespians and bohemians creating and imagining joyful ascents of Fog City.   There are the Japanese flutes and African drums, flamenco guitars and piano bikes,  beat poetry and cotton candy melodies.   You can see old worn-brushes sticking out of torn denim pockets and tightly stretched canvases tense with waiting,  and hear the sounds of shutters and time-captured stills.  

Artists see the here.  Tricycle boy, peddling his legs into a frenzy, careening down a path of eye-opening splashes, his heart brighter than the Phoenix sun.  They feel the now.  A father's and daughter's butterfly kiss.  A mother's first dandelion bouquet.  The vanishing guilt in the Father and Prodigal's crying embrace .    Artists give us cadence and voice.  They  rub the crusty sand from our eyes and let us see.   They cause our numbness to feel again, and give our soul permission to smile. 
 
Imagine what we could see or hear if the artists were prophetic?  If their vision and art peered into the shadowy tomorrow?  The hope of a restored universe.   What if the Spirit raised up thespian Prophets and bohemian prophetesses.  Raffish seers of a different sort,  stroking tomorrow with brushes of life and sculpting a feel for future hopes.  Daughters born of the Spirit.  Sons dreaming in the Wind. Their words and visions bursting with the Sun’s corona.  
 

Go forth and fail . . .

From where i was seated I couldn't hear the sermon well.  I sat on the platform at Western Seminary's graduation listening to Dr Stiles, the monitors turned 180 degrees away from me.  Bits and pieces floated and settled in my palms where i began to reconstruct what the Spirit reconstructed to me: Jeff, you need to be a better failure in life.  It occurred to me that successes in God's society happen on the otherside of failure.