A major theme in my devotional life and thought over the years has been to ponder the relationship between Jesus and His disciples. So often, when we read the gospels, we are left with a sour taste in our mouth toward the disciples, much of it deserved.
They don’t get it when Jesus calms the storm or when he tells parables or performs miracles. They don’t act in faith much of the time, but in fear, and they have a very limited vision of God’s work in the world. And most prominently, they let Jesus down and abandoned Him when He was most in need, the night before and during the crucifixion. But yet, even in their misunderstanding, fear, and distrust, we do not often give them credit for one important thing. They kept at it.
Most people I know (including myself), if they don’t get something, or if they get impatient learning it, or if they get disappointed, they leave whatever it is that made them feel that way. They go to something they understand, or to a place where things are not so hard to get. But the disciples stayed at it, and continued with the task of being in community with one another and with Jesus. And the rewards for sticking with it were truly remarkable.
We have probably thought about how, in the resurrection, Jesus still chose the disciples, even after they had let him down. But we don’t often think about how the disciples still chose one another. Instead of looking at one another as failures and people to move on from, they chose the hard work of rebuilding relationship with Jesus and with one another.
That, to me, is what it means to be the church. We are all flawed and broken people. We will let one another down, and we will let God down. But the mark of mature Christianity, the mark of getting “it,” and the mark of the church being what it is supposed to be, comes not only when we get it right, when we succeed, and when we live from vision, but also when we re-invest in one another. It comes when we set about the hard work of forgiveness and relationship-mending and –building. When we keep at it, and keep coming back to Jesus and one another, I believe that God blesses that, and provides us the rich rewards he gave to the disciples, the chance to be building blocks of the Kingdom.
I hope that worship today is a reminder of the importance of Christian community, and of the presence of God’s Holy Spirit.
Blessings, Sonny