The Hermitage
October 13, 2019
It’s been two weeks since the New Wineskins Conference, but it just won’t leave me alone. I’ve been flooded with multiple streams of possible meditations, which has been strange since I really remember very few specifics of the presentations. Struggling with this, I even worked for several days on a meditation I thought was really important. Then I woke up one morning, read what I had written, realized it was pure garbage and erased it with one keystroke.
The image that kept coming to mind was the Mississippi River — “The Big Muddy.” In my usual style I Googled for background. 2,340 mile long it drains a basin equal to ⅓ of our nation, includes at least three major drainage systems (Missiouri, Ohio and Atchafalaya,) and has literally thousands of lesser rivers, streams, and creeks.
Why am I telling you this? Because I realized my ADD mind was trying to trace even the humblest of drainage ditches from their headwaters to where those combined trickles become 600,000 cubic feet per minute discharging into the Gulf of Mexico.
It was then that my friend, Johann, sent me a video, Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus, with the simple message, “This is an excellent example of how long it can take to make a disciple of Jesus! Four years!” The tape is two hours long, but Naabeel Quareshi’s testimony only takes about forty-five minutes, and his conclusion is the summation of the disquiet that has been going on in my soul and spirit for the past year since I began to emerge from dormancy.
It reinforced the messages from SAMS Family Day and the New Wineskins Conference, garnered in snippets of overheard conversations in the hallways, standing in line with various missionaries, and table conversations with others. Not to mention the convicting messages from the Plenary Bible studies and presentations.
Each encounter presented me with the challenge, either overtly or implicitly, “Are you truly being a follower of Jesus?” I distinctly remember walking out of Johann’s MAP talk on making disciples who make disciples and trying to remember, “Have I ever made a disciple for Jesus, who made another disciple for Jesus?”
In forty-five years of active pastoral ministry, in its various shapes and forms, I believe I’ve made disciples in many different ways...evangelism, spirituality, missionary outreach...but — and this is in many ways a statement of ignorance, not fact — I couldn’t recall one whom I personally brought to Jesus and stayed around long enough to see him or her bring someone else to faith in Christ. I pray there’s someone I don’t know about.
At the end of Nabeel’s impassioned testimony recounting having to forsake everything upon which his life and culture was founded (see Matthew 19:29) he, too, issues a challenge. “Jesus died on the cross because He and the Father love us so much. And He said, ‘Love one another as I have loved you.’ Are you willing to love the literally millions, if not billions, of strangers who have never heard the Gospel? Love them enough to die for them?”
And two things immediately came to mind:
All the times I have failed to follow up on openings God gave me to share my faith facing no greater risk than embarrassment.
The missionary I personally know whose life is in danger every day because of his ministry. I thought, too, of the missionaries at the Conference wearing security badges, letting other attendees know taking pictures or otherwise compromising their identities would put their lives in danger.
But there is the other side of the coin.
I thought back to the month long trip Fr. Eapen and I took to celebrate the centennial of the Church of South India. (In his younger years he was a missionary in India, trekking over the mountains for days to get to the congregations he served. His story is phenomenal, but much too long to tell here.)
At one point we went to a village where the first missionaries, a husband and wife, served, caring for the people of the community. It was twenty-five years before they converted their first disciple. Built on their foundation of love, that village today has a hospital, a seminary, a bible college and various social ministries teaching people skills to raise them out of poverty.
One of the bible students took us to a village where she held a bible study for about 10 people. She rode her bicycle three hours each way twice a week to spend an hour or two with the group. On our arrival, Fr. Eapen and I were treated with great honor. The father disappeared only to reappear as we were finishing the study, and graciously offered me a banana. As I pondered declining the gift, Fr. Eapen nudged me and I accepted, thanking the group profusely for their hospitality. Fr. Eapen later explained the family had no food in the house and so the father had walked an hour to the market and back to buy the only thing he could afford...that single banana...which he gave away. To this day I look back and think, “Would I offer every dollar I own to entertain a guest I would never see again?”
So what does it mean to ‘really be a disciple, living like Jesus lived?’ Some of the streams that swelled the river were recalling Thereau’s quote about “lives of quiet desperation;” John, Denny, and Sheila’s new book on Christian nonviolence, The Two Hands of Yes and No which highlights the number of times their ministry of healing put them in mortal danger; and a treatise on Foucault, Power is everywhere, showing how using the methods of discourse analysis can identify language to help the disenfranchised change society by shaping alternative framings (the very methodology used to shape American society’s views of such issues as sexuality and gun violence.)
And, finally, was a conversation Chris and I had about the pastor’s sermon at the new church they were attending. It was about Phillippians, Chapters 2 through 4. The pastor quipped, “You probably won’t know this passage because we don’t have it emblazoned on our Christian coffee mugs.” And he was right. I had to look it up. Paul is sending Timothy and Epaphroditus back to the Phillippians after receiving a gift from the congregation. Among his points; many of us believe we can’t begin to measure up to Paul’s status, or maybe even to Timothy’s faithful ministry. As for Epaphroditus? Mentioned only once in the Bible, leaving no further history or memory, he’s a “nobody” who is a “somebody” (my language.) An everyday person doing an everyday thing. Doing a simple favor for Paul — taking the Phillippian’s gift to him — he almost lost his life in the process. Humbly, he didn’t even want the Phillippians to know about it.
Since everyone seems to have their own take on what it means to be a follower of Jesus — feeding the hungry; caring for orphans, widows, and those in prison; dying for the Gospel; being one with the oppressed; making disciples of all nations; — and I obviously can’t do all these things, not to mention the multitude of other admonitions in the Gospels, how do I resolve this conflict?
The lazy Mississippi suddenly became the Niagara River and I was being swept toward roaring Horseshoe Falls, clinging to a dead tree branch.
And then...peace. It was as though I “heard” that still small voice saying, “Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. If I need you to do one of those things I’ll let you know. Until then, I’ve given you your slice of the pie...your mission in life. Be content with that.” And, once again, came the message I seem to be hearing over and over these days…
“Just BE who I’ve created you — uniquely you, and only you — to BE.”
Epilogue:
Nameel’s book, Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus, is available from several sources, including Audible and Kindle. I urge you to read it. You’ll learn amazing things about Islamic culture, the differing world views of the East vs. the West, and what a Muselim will face if he or she converts. You will also hear one of the most cogent presentations of the Gospel I’ve ever encountered. I’m a trained theologian, steeped in apologetics and evangelism, but as the story unfolded, with every question Nameel throws at David to discredit Christianity I found myself wondering, “How would I have responded. Would I be able to express “the hope that is within me” so clearly and convincingly?”
Till then,
Thanks for journeying with me.