Discipleship Is About Learning and Doing

In the rhythm of the church year, we've covered most of the big events:

• anticipating the incarnation during Advent in December,

• celebrating the birth of Jesus during the season of Christmas,

• exploring the meaning of the Light of the world at Epiphany,

• anticipating God's plan for our salvation during Lent,

• remembering what Jesus has done for us during Holy Week,

• celebrating the resurrection and all that God accomplished for us through Jesus Christ on Easter Sunday

• continuing to celebrate in the whole Easter season that follows,

• receiving the Holy Spirit and being empowered by the Holy Spirit to be the church, the Body of Christ in the world at Pentecost.

These events of the Church year create an important and solid foundation, but Christian living cannot stop there at the remembering and understanding of events and theology. If we stop there, it is like studying pure math or science. Christian living is more like applied science or engineering--we're called to go into the world and DO something.

That's not entirely fair to the pure sciences. One thing we're called to do is to continue learning. At its heart, that's what the word, "disciple," means: learner. This summer in the lectionary, we will be reading the travel narrative of Luke. This is when Jesus has set his face to travel to Jerusalem. Along the way, Luke relates many teaching opportunities for Jesus. Sometimes he's talking to his disciples, but sometimes, the disciples are learning by overhearing what he says to the crowds. Other times the disciples learn by overhearing his debates with experts in the law, Pharisees and Sadducees, scribes, and leaders of the synagogues. The greatest parables occur during the travel narrative: the Lost Sheep and the Lost coin, the Rich man and Lazarus. The Prodigal Son is part of the teachings of the travel narrative, but we covered that one back in Lent.

How are we disciples today continuing to learn? One of the main features of Reformed worship is the centrality of the Word. We read scripture every Sunday. Not just the lectionary readings featured in the sermon, there's scripture in the opening sentences, in the call to confession and assurance of pardon and passing of the peace, in most, if not every prayer, in many of the hymns.

We believe that scripture is the "unique and authoritative witness to Jesus Christ (W-4.0404)." Jesus is the perfect revelation of God. If we want to learn what God is like, we look to Jesus, and if we want to learn what Jesus is like we look to scripture. Don't limit yourself to the sermon for learning; learn from the whole worship service. Of course, right there next to the main scripture reading is the sermon. The Second Helvetic Confession (in the Book of Confessions, part I of the constitution of our denomination) says that the proclamation of the word of God IS the word of God. This is a pretty awesome responsibility on me, the preacher. The thing is that my own proficiency in preaching is not a part of it. The Second Helvetic Confession continues, "the Word itself which is preached is to be regarded, not the minister that preaches; for even if he be evil and a sinner, nevertheless the Word of God remains still true and good (5.004)." Don't try to learn from ME during the sermon; try to learn from the Word.

Of course, there are many additional ways to learn as disciples. In the Directory for Worship, (in the Book of Order, part II of the constitution of our denomination), it says,

Through the Scriptures we hear the voice of God and find meaning, direction, comfort, and challenge for our lives. Regular, disciplined engagement with the Bible may include: simply reading the Word, praying with Scripture, studying commentaries, memorizing key passages, and putting the Word into action in our lives. One should seek to read a wide range of Scripture, always relying on the illumination of the Spirit and the help of the community of faith in deepening our understanding. (W-5.0103)

Back in January, I encouraged you to take up the challenge to read 4 chapters of the Bible per day in your own study time (if you've kept this up, you're in the middle of Isaiah now). Regularly reading scripture and prayer in personal devotion will take you a long way into learning from scripture, but the community is also here to help. Speaking of the Book of Confessions, we also believe that the confessions of the church are "authentic and reliable expositions of what scripture leads us to believe and do (W-4.0404)," so you can complement your personal scripture studies by reading the Book of Confessions. That's the community of the church through the ages. We in the present congregation also help. We provide a few copies of the devotional magazine, the Upper Room, in the narthex. We have a library full of commentaries and resources you can borrow. Dan Barney teaches a fine adult Sunday School, though they've taken a break for the summer. Tina provides an age-appropriate worship service for children to experience and learn from. If you and your family or you and your friends want more help studying scripture, just ask and we'll organize something for you.

As I started to say, all this learning is for doing. Jesus calls us, and the Holy Spirit empowers us to respond to that call. One of the ways the Holy Spirit empowers us for doing is through learning, but one of the ways we learn is from doing. Doing what? Showing God's love in the world; caring for people's physical needs, especially the poor; caring for people's psychological and social needs, especially shut-ins and others who are isolated; working for God's justice in the world, especially for those who cannot advocate for themselves. One easy way to plug into such acts of compassion and service is through volunteering. Samaritans food pantry is always asking for help (just go there on Tuesdays from 10:00am to 1:00pm or Thursdays from 3:00pm to 6:00pm and they'll put you to work!). Delta Community Action and the Ministerial Alliance have other ways to help people, though those mostly boil down to financial support and referrals to other agencies.

When you encounter someone in need, it can be hard to figure out how to help them. Sometimes the best learning happens in the trying and failing. I would challenge you to always keep the person being helped in the forefront. Don't assume you know what it's like to be poor, but listen to them relate their own story. Don't assume that you know what it's like to be shut-in or isolated; reach out and learn from them. Don't assume that it's easy for people to get justice; learn from people what their obstacles are.

Speaking of the community helping to deepen our understanding, if there is a cause that is calling you to action, maybe we could start a book study or other learning group so that our help can become more effective. Want to know what it's really like to be poor? We could study books like Nickeled and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich or $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America by Kathryn Edin and Luke Shaefer. There are many books we could study about racism and racial healing, autism and neurodiversity, society and trends in the church, . . . Again, whatever cause matches your calling, the community can help learning so that learning can help doing. Basically, we can be intentional about exploring--learning about our calling and ways we can live it out by doing.

As disciples we learn, and the person we learn from is Jesus Christ through scripture. What we learn is that we are called to follow Jesus--that's an action verb. We look to where Jesus is going (he has set his face on Jerusalem) and what Jesus is doing (caring for people and showing us how to love selflessly), and we learn to copy him by doing similar things and going in similar ways. As we read we learn; as we follow we learn; as we go we learn; as we do we learn. All that learning empowers us to do the things we need to do to answer our call as disciples.

Blessings on us all as we go.

--Chas