I receive a friend request from a former student on Facebook. I look at the name and the picture of the nearly unrecognizable young man and remember nearly 10 years ago being on a mission trip with him. I can vividly remember my eyes welling up as he spoke gently to folks with special needs and worked hard to clean up dinner. With eagerness, I accept the request and go to check out his profile. What I find is meme after meme of racist slurs and sexist remarks. What I find is a commitment to atheism and self preservation. What I find is not the kiddo I remember who had so much potential.
*****
I see a student I had as a camper on the news. She's at a demonstration downtown and proudly waving her atheist and anarchist flags. I wish I saw the beautiful, eager, and spiritually hungry girl I saw at camp, but I see an angry, bitter young woman who has walked away from the seeds that were planted.
*****
I'm on a mission trip, and I find out that my seniors, whom I've worked with for five years, are lying to me and keeping their cell phones. Although they are hard workers and have good hearts, they can be found lounging on work sites and leaving others out of their conversations. Five years of work, five years of love and kindness and discipleship, and here they are, disrespecting me and others in the group.
*****
After three years of discipleship and intimate relationship, Jesus kneels at the last supper to wash the feet of his disciples. Jesus washes the feet of men who will run away merely hours from now as he's arrested. Men who will deny him in public. A man who will betray him for 30 pieces of silver. A man who will doubt when he is miraculously resurrected. This is not the Olympic team of disciples; these are not the close followers that perhaps Jesus could have hoped for, perhaps that he deserved.
#DiscipleshipFails and other things I learned last week
Last week, I had the great privilege of attending the annual Disciple Making Conference put on by Presbyterian Mission Agency in St. Pete Beach, Florida. The speaker, Rev. Jeff Eddings, a dear friend and mentor to me, focused our time on the spiritual disciplines and musings of St. Ignatius of Loyola. I have learned a lot from this, and I'm sure that it will bleed into much of what I talk about over the next several weeks, but one of the greatest pieces of insight we discussed was a movement from the phrase "disciple-making" to "disciple-allowing."
Failure:
I'm rather competitive. I don't like to fail. I constantly assess my progress and skills. When I ran the half marathon in Pittsburgh 3 years ago, I was disappointed because I ran it two minutes slower than my goal (never mind that I ran the whole thing and still managed an 10:30 min/mile pace, which was great for me). I'm absolutely inconsolable today as I mourn the Steeler loss to [Bill Belle-cheat and the] New England Patriots [the refs were paid!]. As a child, I would do anything to convince my brother to swim races with me because I knew it was the only sport I could beat him in. I don't like failure and I have a high standard of what it means to succeed.
I think many of us have been conditioned this way. Nearly every week, I am asked by congregation members how many youth are attending youth group each week. When our youth shared life-transforming stories on Youth Sunday, many of us were moved to tears hearing our young people standing up for their faith. That day really felt like a success, and I heard many folks tell me such.
In 10 years of youth ministry, I honestly can't say that I don't have a minor panic every time a kid stops coming to youth group or gets in trouble for something or disappoints me in some way. I ride the high of Youth Sunday with vigor, and I crash along with my youth when I hear about their mistakes and unhealthy decisions. Sometimes ministry feels like one step forward, three steps back.
At the Disciple Allowing Conference, we had a discussion about #discipleshipfails. We talked about how failure is never the last word, but also how success is actually not the last word either. We talked about how we are obsessed [a disordered attachment] with whether or not we consider a ministry a success or failure; we are molded and sculpted by our production and consumerist society.
Is God calling us to constantly produce? To produce perfect, cookie-cutter disciples? To produce seamless mission projects? To produce and produce and produce and for our congregation to consume consume consume?
Scripture: The parable of the sower
I have been reflecting on Matthew 13.1-9 and 18-23. In this parable, Jesus tells of a farmer who sows seeds in a variety of places: along the path, in rocky places, among thorns, and on good soil. Of course, in the less ideal places, the seeds do not take root and they are snatched up or wither and die. In the good soil, the harvest is plentiful.
As I have read this parable over the years, I have focused on the meaning Jesus speaks of in vv. 18-23, I have focused on the seeds and how they grow. Recently, however, I have been reflecting on the farmer. I'm not a farmer, but my great grandparents were. My Pap Pap was very organized when he planted plants. His part of the garden was neatly planted and organized and labeled, But my Nunny (and my Uncle Butchy) would scatter their seeds wherever and hope that some of them would grow. As a result we would have sunflowers on the rocky path and tomatoes growing against the house.
I am struck by the fact that this farmer just tosses seed wherever he goes. Each seed has this unlimited life potential as he tosses it in the fields, but he does not protect or control the seeds: he tosses seeds in places where growth might be stunted or unsure. It's almost as thought he isn't sure where the good soil might be or that he has hope for every kind of soil. Perhaps the job of the one sowing the seed isn't to judge the soil or manipulate the conditions for growth, but rather to simply plant the seeds and pray for their growth.
Indeed, that seems to connect to 1 Corinthians 3. 6-9:
I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building.
Perhaps those of us who devote a part of our lives to making youth into disciples [youth advisors, pastors, friends, parents, teachers], perhaps we are trying to control the growth of disciples too much. Perhaps we are trying to take the role of God. Perhaps it is not our job to understand the quality of the soil or the progress of each disciple; perhaps it is our job to indiscriminately spread the seed of the gospel. Perhaps it is simply our job to create a situation where faith might grow, should the seeds decide to accept the nutrients of the soil and to transform into a plant.
Rev. Jeff Eddings described this another way: he said he thinks of our faith much like the story of the three little pigs. For many years, he felt as a pastor it was our responsibility to stand between the houses of the three little pigs and prevent the Big Bad Wolf from blowing them down. Perhaps it was even his job to help the piggies trade straw for brick.
Through his ministry, Jeff has learned that the Big Bad Wolf comes whether he is standing there or not. The piggies's houses blow down, whether they're made of straw or wood, or even brick. His job as pastor isn't to manipulate or prevent the wind or the building of the house. Rather, the job of pastor is to sit with the piggies in the pile of rubble that once was their house (their faith) and to sift through the mess to find what is good, to find the new beams and bricks upon which the new faith might be built. Ultimately, however, the piggies have to build their own houses.
By their own initiative...
A little over a year ago, the Youth Ministry Team prepared 5 goals for youth ministry at Unity Presbyterian Church. In my personal opinion, the best, most comprehensive one is the first one:
To create opportunities for youth to develop personal relationships with God by their own initiative.
So basically, our goal is to spread some seed. No matter how many Montreats I go on, Confirmation classes we teach, youth groups I run, Bible Studies we lead, Sunday School lessons one attends, or mission opportunities we offer, I can't be the Holy Spirit. I can't force a kid to fall in love with Jesus. I'm imagining Bruce Almighty as he stands in the street and stares at Jennifer Aniston yelling, "Love me!!!!"
Love doesn't work like that. Neither does faith. Neither does discipleship. Each person has to develop a personal relationship with God by their own initiative.
This means I'm just a farmer. This means I just toss the seed out there and pray it takes root. This means, I don't judge the soil or pull the weeds or prevent the Big Bad Wolf from coming; it means that I am present, hopeful, and faithful. It means that you, also, as parents, as pastors, as educators, as advisors and mentors, you are just farmers, just folks doing the planting and the watering...y'all can't control the growth. Only God controls the growth of the seeds. This is both extremely frustrating as one who wants to make everything work perfectly, and extremely liberating in knowing that I have limitations. It's ego-deflating and humbling. It reminds me that God is God so that I don't have to be. It reminds me that when discipleship seems to #fail, the weeds and the thorns and the birds do not have the last word. The Holy Spirit continues to work.
****
If Jesus can look Simon Peter in the eye and wash his feet, and serve him as his disciple and friend, knowing that in a matter of hours this man would pretend that he didn't know Jesus, if Jesus can do that, who am I to place discipleship in a box? The rock on whom Jesus built the church chose self-preservation over discipleship in the most critical moment, the moment when Jesus, as a human, needed him the most. The man that Jesus chose to spread his word to the Gentiles was Paul, exactly the man who was trying to kill Jesus' disciples and followers.
I don't get to decide how these discipleship journeys end up. I don't get to evaluate whether we are succeeding or failing in our ministries. I don't get to force kids to love Jesus. I just get to spread the seed and make the opportunity possible. I just get to watch as God's garden grows.
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