Apprenticeship to Jesus: Love, Action, and Transformation

"Apprenticeship to Jesus as being with Jesus becoming like Jesus and doing what Jesus did and in the very last episode we talked all about ultimately spiritual formation ending at becoming a person of love yes you know and so I think when defined as becoming a person of love people could say yes I can get there but doing what Jesus did I mean isn't he God you know how can I do that what does that mean so could you add a little color here yeah well I mean again you have to Circle back and Define love love is not a nice feeling in Jesus Paradigm it is an action it is not that it's not something you feel but it is ultimately something you do you know it is the flow of Love through you so yeah I think this is where the apprenticeship metaphor or Paradigm is incredibly helpful because if you are an apprentice whether you're an apprentice of Jesus or an apprentice of a mechanic or an electrician or an artist or a business person you are learning from a master how to do what the master does so you know in our church there is a plumers Apprentice who is in a four-year-long training program to become a plumber and I would assume that his goal is not to get to the end of that four-year program and just know how to answer a test on plumbing code right or even repair the occasional leaky faucet I would imagine that his goal is to know how to Plum a house from scratch and um the trick is a lot of Disciples of Jesus don't think that way about the life of Jesus but we are apprenticing under Jesus not just to become kind and patient but to actually say and do the kinds of things that Jesus said and do you know in apprenticeship learning theory there's this four-stage process see if I can remember it between master and apprentice and it's I do you watch I do you help you do I help you do I watch and you could almost map that on to Jesus relationship with his disciples in the four gospel yeah like step one I do you watch come and see come and spend the day with me come and follow I will go out heal the sick preach the gospel teach the way cast out demons stand up against Injustice all the things Jesus did say all the things Jesus said you just follow me around and watch and what happens by the very end Jesus marching orders go and make disciples of all Nations which is you do I watch or I help you know Lo I'll be with you always to the End of the Age so I just think reframing apprenticeship as learning from the master how to say and do the kinds of things that Jesus said and did now you have to bring disclaimers to this like I'm dating myself here but um I was there in the Glory Days the late 90s of the wwjd movement Y what would Jesus do in the bracelet was all the rage yeah I was rocking one of those I was I thought I was too I was rocking several of those actually I played in an indie rock band I was like I'm not wearing that you know but I remember uh you know it's a good question and that all the certain preachers were all mad about it it's not about what Jesus would do it's about what he did you know all of that stuff but at some level a more helpful question is what would Jesus do if he were me because most of us are not a celibate Jewish rabbi from the first century right you know you're a university student or a mom with a 2-year-old or an entrepreneur or a landscape architect or whatever you know we we do our things we have our life our job our relationships the driving question of an apprentice of Jesus is in each situation what would Jesus say and do and how do I train under him to become the kind of person formation who naturally would speak and act and live and love as Jesus would in this situation yeah on the pages of the New Testament we read about the Fruit of the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit right which sometimes there's an unhelpful dichotomy drawn between the two obviously they're intermingled with would you name what some of those are for those listening that are new absolutely fror yeah so the fruit of the spirit would be love joy peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness and self-control inner dispositions of the heart right as as defined in Galatians 5 it's all about our character right and the gifts of the Spirit are things like encouragement and Leadership and prophecy and healing and teaching and miracles so forth and and so it's essentially the character of Jesus and the stuff Jesus did so all all of these things are embodied in Jesus and I imagine that if we were talking about doing what Jesus did exclusively on the fruit of the spirit side exclusively on the or even on the like relational side or emotional side yeah then then people might say totally that is the aim and destination of spiritual formation but if you're talking about the stuff he did I mean isn't this the guy that like walked on water and turned water into wine do I need to keep weddings going if you know so so can you explain a little bit more on that new practice coming from practicing the way is turning water into wine so like week one exercise take a jar of water and stare at it yeah I mean we're really unfortunate in some ways to come after the Enlightenment and fortunate in other ways but if you know kind of Western yeah there's a lot of ways I could count as for yes I think that would more Pros than cons but I think you know if you have a kind of cursory grasp of Western philosophical tradition in the enlightenment you know a couple hundred years ago in Europe there was this whole wave of skepticism around anything that's where the language Supernatural comes from a lot of people don't even realize that's not historic language it's not biblical language it's an Enlightenment Paradigm that some things are natural and can be proven by some science and other things are Supernatural and cannot be proven by science they have to be taken on faith that's not the worldview of Jesus at all but that is follow the laws of nature and transcend the law law of nature which is science and of course quantum physics is now blowing up that dichotomy right but um you know that's an Enlightenment Paradigm and there were all these people that basically said hey we used to think that when the sun came up in the morning God did a miracle every day and it was God that made the sun come up and God that made the rain come and the props grow so we don't die now we know better now we know that there are natural laws in the universe actually so this is whole Enlightenment Paradigm and then there was this whole group of intellectual Elites many of them the founding fathers of America who didn't want to throw out all judeo-christian morality or even all theism you know you have the deism movement back that time which is kind of gone now the Divine watchmaker yeah God's the yes exactly it's like he made the watch and now it runs on its own he made the world and now the world runs without God which is now like a just it's a historical idea very few people think that way but out of this world view there were all these people that basically said hey we we believe that Jesus was a good teacher but uh but he didn't do these other things walking on water say nonsense prophecy healing resurrection and then what happened from those that were really staunch like followers of Jesus is the comeback was well-meaning like the heart was right but it intellectually like fatally flawed was basically yeah but like look at the miracle stories of Jesus in ordinary teacher or Rabbi doesn't walk on water doesn't come back from the dead doesn't heal the sick doesn't raise Lazarus that's proof that Jesus was God right so this is language that still lives in the western church as you know um the problem with that logic is there were lots of people prior to Jesus in the library of scripture that did the exact same same types of Miracles right like Elijah walked on water and you know called down fire from heaven and raised the dead and there were lots of people after Jesus namely his own disciples Peter who raised the dead and Paul and who did the same thing but yet we don't read a story of Elijah or Peter doing a miracle and say that's proof that Peter was God or Elijah was God so there's this fatally flawed logic to it just at a theological level that then has this unintended disastrous consequence where of course the logic is if Jesus did this miraculous stuff because he was God then naturally we can't do these types of things because we are not godh but there's another way of reading these stories you know the Theologian ENT Wright calls the the gifts of the Spirit the miraculous kind of stuff in the gospels as signs of the in-breaking kingdom of God yeah like don't when Jesus heals a sick person just like Elijah did and Peter did later and Paul and many people do today in the TR Christian tradition don't read that as that's proof that Jesus was God there's truth of that that does you know validate Jesus claims to be one with the father that's not all wrong but read that as this is what it looks like when the kingdom of God breaks in it looks like blind people seeing again and lame people walking and ostracized people being brought to the table that's what the kingdom of God looks like and um under this rubric Jesus then you have to ask like where did Jesus get his power and I think the gospel writer Luke's answer to that question is by the Holy Spirit I this beautiful lines in the Gospel of Luke Jesus full of the Holy Spirit fill out fill in the blank of the story and then as the New Testament kind of develops at a theological level and this is a key part of your life in works I'm saying this to The Listener not to you yeah but you know a key key facet of New Testament theology is that that same spirit that was on Jesus to empower him to do all of these things whether we would call them natural or Supernatural again not biblical language miraculous or not is now on you and me it's on all of Jesus followers so I'm not saying that we go out tomorrow and you know go to the local morg and start praying really hard but I am saying an aspect of our apprenticeship to Jesus is training under him to continue what he started right maybe I could offer a couple of brief thoughts here that love that might be helpful too one is we started with that four-part process of apprentice ship like that you would apply to anything that I watch yes or you do or I do you watch yes I do and then it ends with I watch you do also you know in the gospels Jes Jesus has an encounter with Nathaniel in I think John chap 1 um but at the beginning of one of the gospels if it isn't John and and Nathan he says oh you're amazed because I said I saw you under the Fig Tree you'll see even greater things than these so he's saying you're going to watch me do so much bigger things than that and then Jesus later says in that same gospel yeah you will do even greater things than you've seen me doing so I'm going to watch you do even greater things than the things that you have been watching me do and so this is that same uh sort of trajectory that we began talking about and it includes both the fruit and the gifts of the Spirit and then secondly I think people often get really hung up particularly when it comes to the more miraculous gifts of the Spirit like take physical healing for example a good example with I'm not sure how this works works and so it produces mystery and disappointment and all of that is so so real and must be acknowledged and it must be acknowledged that every sign of the Kingdom we don't know quite how it works and involves mystery and disappointment interesting so for instance um we regularly share the gospel with other people we evangelize we we preach the gospel to people sometimes we see people respond to that message having a Transcendent encounter with God and it's as if these puzzle pieces in their inner World align where this message just makes sense at this moment and other times we don't and I am a preacher who regularly like shares the gospel with people and you can't tie the effect to like how good the sermon was or how good the conversation was no and and a mystery to and I don't stop preaching the gospel if no one comes to Faith on a Sunday right I don't say well I don't know I don't get it that method doesn't work and I've been broken by the disappointment I don't understand why it seems to land some way sometimes in others there's so much mystery wrapped up in that but I know my part is to preach the gospel I have seen people miraculously physically healed and I've prayed for a lot more people that I've never seen healing from and I don't know when God is forming someone with his presence through suffering I don't know when the tragedy of sin is just wreaking havoc in the world in our in our physical bodies and God is weeping and grieved and I don't know when God is stretching out his right hand to do what only he can do in the body of someone else it's almost like like baking a cake like I know the ingredients that have created the equation but I couldn't actually tell you the proportions of those ingredients therefore I can't bake the cake um but what I know is I will pray for healing when the that is desired by the ailing person and they have faith to receive it because sometimes God might just do that and if not then I really believe that he is faithful to provide his presence to lead us through so I just think we don't throw the baby out with the bath water on certain aspects of this therefore it doesn't logically follow to this is where like the apprenticeship metaphor breaks down a little because there's not a ton of mystery if you're an apprentice to a mechanic and like how to repair a Toyota Corolla you know what I mean like you just learn the right information ultimately you should be able to sort it out right and there's a lot more mystery when it comes to the human soul yes and to the healing of persons but still the basic category of we are learning from Jesus how to say and do the kinds of things he said and did is just utterly essential to what it means to be an apprentice of Jesus and and I've talked some about the fruit and gifts of the Spirit but I actually think in your book you give a framework a three-part framework work for so do what Jesus did that can seem like an overwhelming amount of stuff yeah he did a lot yeah but I thought that you synthesize that in a way it was really helpful to me could you break that down for us how what did Jesus do I mean it may or may not be helpful this is not there are different ways you could categorize it um different boxes you could put it into I kind of organized it around this idea so key to Jesus so key to the four gospels of the Gospel like the four biographies of Jesus are called The Gospel according to Matthew the Gospel According to Mark The Gospel According to Luke The Gospel according to John and all of those are the gospel which is a a a key learning and so I just kind of organized it around these three basic practices of making space for the gospel preaching the gospel and demonstrating the gospel making space for the gospel is basically just code for Hospitality so one of my favorite things about Jesus is when you read the Jesus stories he's constantly eating meals with people yes like I mean there's this uh Robert Caris who's a new testament scholar with an expertise on the Gospel of Luke has this great line about how in the Gospel of Luke Jesus is either on his way to a meal at a meal or coming from a meal it's like the whole gospel is about Jesus just going from table to table meal to meal and it was interesting when Jesus was dealing with what we would call religious conservatives he would often use preaching as his way of calling them into Deeper Life in the Kingdom but when Jesus was dealing with a tax collector or a sex worker or an uh a disabled person that had been ostracized by the society we don't have a lot of examples of him preaching Sermon on the Mount to them he would normally invite them to a table or invite himself to their table zakus score you know Luke Luke Caris has this also has this idea Robert Caris also has this idea that wherever Jesus went he was always the host not the guest even if he came to our house he would come as the host in a sense yeah and so Jesus ate meals with his enemies he ate meals with people far from God and meals you know were deeply symbolic in Jesus day sociologists call them boundary markers they're still symbolic like even in our quote unquote egalitarian society you know where you eat dinner how much money you spend on dinner who you eat dinner with all are lines of demarcation between what class you're in what kind of person you're in who you're in relationship type of food you eat type of food yeah the grocery store you go to I mean all of this and Jesus used meals not as an opportunity to keep people out but to invite people in not as a boundary marker but as an open welcome of the Father's Love and I deeply believe that in our post-christian cultural moment and what I mean by that is where the cultural tide at least in more urban and Progressive centers has moved from Maybe if there was a day forever ago when it was positive on the Christian faith and then there was a time where it was neutral on the Christian faith hey you do you now we've moved into a time where the prevailing cultural consensus is negative on Christian spirituality so um you know the fact that you would identify as a Christian or follower of Jesus is is a mark against you in the eyes of most people it's not helping me socially very much not at all and again this changes based on your cultural context totally but where you and I live I mean certainly it's like you know you have to be careful who you say that to almost in a sense you know in that kind of a cultural millu I still think the table is absolutely where everything begins it's where we begin to carry out the life of Jesus the table is the center of Christian Community and it's the center of what we would call evangelism what Jesus called just preaching the gospel to people far from God so that's kind of you know Rhythm number one or way of being number one making space for the gospel one thing on that before you move to the next one I think it's so Central and helpful that second Insight from Caris that you named that Jesus is the host everywhere he goes yes because we think when we use the word Hospitality most people think place yes like to be hospitable I have to be bringing people into my place my kin folk or if you're older Martha Stewart they like Fine China and beautiful food and in worthy table set exactly that's not what the New Testament writers mean by Hospitality right it's it's personal not Geographic right it's not to come to this place it's the way I carry my person it's the way you welcome people under the welcoming Heart Of God exactly yeah okay go ahead no so well said thank you for that clarification yeah I mean I think the next Rhythm for me would be preaching the gospel that's New Testament language that's wildly unpopular in particular for people our age you know and younger because it's been done so badly so um ungraciously at times so uh lacking in cultural sensitivity yeah and so I think one of the first things that's really helpful for me as I realize I've developed a bit of an unhealthy emotional allergy to preaching the gospel or evangelism I mean I'm just I've spent my whole life in this very postmodern pluralistic culture where to make truth claims to the World At Large and you know particular about faith and spirituality is just anema to most people around me you know just you believe whatever you want to believe but keep it to yourself and shut up and don't bring it in the Public Square is basically how we feel you know exactly yeah that's the that's the ethic of our that is the ethic yeah and I think it's helpful for me to realize that every single person you know is pre teaching a gospel whether it's the Gospel of Jesus or the gospel of third wave anti-racism or the gospel of Pride and all things queer Theory or the gospel of democratic Socialism or the gospel of fiscal conservatism or the gospel of therapy and trauma-informed therapy or the gospel of winter swimming and Cal plunging or psychedelic mushrooms or habit stacking or you name it every everybody is evangelizing everybody is spreading a message that's what a gospel is it's a word it's a message about what is the good life where is hope to be found how do we become a good person where is there a community we can belong to Y where can we be loved where can we find Salvation even if that's not the language that people would use everybody is everybody you know is preaching a gospel they are talking about where they believe hope lies yeah followers of Jesus are just those who preach his gospel and this is natural like we talk about what we love I mean it's like whenever you see a really good film or TV series or you and I love to swap fiction stories or Memoirs you and I share love for Memoirs whenever I read a really great Memoir I have to tell you about it or if I hear an amazing podcast I'm like oh you got to listen to this podcast on cold plunging or whatever like you need to know about this like like that deep human impulse of I've discovered something good and beautiful and true I need to tell other people need to know about this that is an Impulse that the spirit of God is trying to let out of our bodies in preaching the gospel and the cultural pressure for us to suppress it is overwhelming externally and internally but we need to let it out I mean uh Frank laach who we both love dead now was a missionary many years ago intellectual has this secret law he writes about secret spiritual law where you H he writes to possess God you have to give him away and in order to exper if you want to experience God you have to give him away you have to tell people about him and what you will find is as you tell people about him you will discover him all over again so yeah preaching the gospel and then the third one is what we were talking about early demonstrating the gospel Jesus didn't just talk he would often talk and then go do things or do things and then talk to explain what he just did he would heal the sick he'd prophesy he'd deliver people from demonic spirits he'd stand up against political Injustice and oppression he would speak the truth he would do these acts that demonstrated not just in talk you know but in deed not just in word but inde deed the kingdom of God breaking in which was the center of his gospel and I I think that's where our preaching of the Gospel must also accompany our demonstrating of the Gospel MH okay perfect so all I need to do is be a person of hospitality everywhere I go do the things Jesus did and preach the message J preached obviously it's possible stressed out at all so it's possible this w't be going man that sounds like a lot simply casually talking about Jesus to one neighbor is overwhelming to me how can I think about all this so what would you say to that person well I know exactly how you feel it's how all of us feel um Thomas Kelly who's a now dead Quaker writer that we both love this is beautiful little book on the spiritual life called a testament of devotion and his last chapter he writes about what he calls the joyous burdens of love and he has this Insight that the heart of God is universal literally is for the universe for all people everywhere to experience all of the kingdom of God but that Universal Heart Of God comes through the particular I'm not God we're finite not infinite we're mortal not Immortal we can't express all of the heart of God to all people everywhere for all time we're so incredibly shortlived and mortal and in our body and so he writes about how this Universal Heart Of God will lay on each disciple of Jesus a particular burden and he calls it I love is language the joyous burdens of love so not a burden in a negative sense just like a little thing that God will put on your heart and I think there are daily examples of this like where you just it just comes to your heart to call a neighbor or a friend or to check in with somebody you know that is struggling or to drop a gift for somebody or write a thank you card or send texts and then I think at a larger level part of the discernment process for a disciple of Jesus Is Knowing listen I can't do all of this and I don't need to what is but I do want to Apprentice under Jesus what is it that what's the gift that the spirit of Jesus is wanting to bring to the wider world through me it might be small it might be humble it might have to do with your work or your job it might have to do with a volunteer act it might have to do with your family or your parenting or your relational world might have to do with your neighborhood might have to do with a justice issue um but is there one or two or three just a few joyous burdens of love and it will feel like Joy it will feel not like Stress and Anxiety and oh no I'm already burned out and overwhelmed I can't do it more it will feel like desire it will feel like this little uplift in your heart oh I really wish I could do more to help on this justice issue I really feel feel like I want to spend more time with this neighbor I really feel like when I do this like goodness is coming through me pay attention to those joyous burdens of Love they are likely the signpost to Jesus call in your life yeah and that also ties into to the imperative of community right we know that individuals cannot fully Express the heart of God but the church can because we're all part of a body and so whether the church looks like 5,000 people that gather on Sundays in an auditorium or uh handful of people that Gather in a living room on a regular basis to share a meal and open the scriptures and love one another God has equipped the church to be his body to the world and so as we each play the part that we're given by the joyous burdens of love we trust that the heart of the father is being expressed and no one ever said that more beautifully than Teresa of Avala who said Christ has no body now but yours go out and be Christ's body to the world thanks for listening to season 1 of the practicing the way podcast this conversation was based on John Mark's newest book practicing the way be with Jesus become like Jesus do as he did which is available now wherever books are sold this podcast was created by practicing the way a nonprofit working to integrate the best learnings of spiritual formation into the church at large we offer a library of free resources for churches and small groups including practices four-week experiences designed to be run in community that train you to integrate ancient disciplines like Sabbath prayer and more into your everyday life with God an upcoming practicing the way course an 8-week primer on apprenticeship to Jesus a digital tool called the rule of life Builder podcasts and more we are a crowdfunded nonprofit and all of these resources are completely free thanks to the generosity of the circle and other givers from around the world to join the circle run a practice or learn more visit practicing theway.org" [00:11:08]