We are in graduation season, that time
when students have completed one season of life and are ready to move on to the
next. We hope they will not stop learning. We all need to keep learning. But
they reach a point where they have achieved a certain measurable outcome. They
have met certain standards. They are ready now to do something for themselves.
Teachers have guided them. Hopefully teachers have not only taught skills and
facts, but they have taught students how to think for themselves and how to
solve problems in real world situations. They are ready to make a difference,
to make their mark on the world.
One of the things children learn in
school these days, is how to work on a team. We know that people have to work
together out in the real world, so in school we are trying to teach our
children what it means to work cooperatively. It helps to recognize that
different people have different gifts. A good team will find a way to use the
strengths of each person to the fullest. Each person has something to
contribute to the whole. One person brings the value of including everyone and
looking for ways to include each one. Another
person brings the gift of being able to look at a problem strategically, taking
it apart, and seeing the pieces. Someone else has the strength of harmony and
helps the team work together.
We used to think that in work
situations, we should identify a person’s weak points and set goals for them to
get better at their weaknesses. Now we have learned that it is better to identify
strengths and just let a person work from her strengths. Put her on a team with
a group of diverse people and let someone else with a strength for what is her
weakness flourish at what he does best.
Jesus had a team. He had some
disciples: Peter, John, James, Andrew, Philip… the other guys. There
were also some women included in his inner circle, even though they were not
listed among the first 12 disciples: Mary Magdelene, Mary and her sister
Martha. After Jesus died on the cross,
he had some resurrection appearances to these close friends. And then before he
ascended into heaven, he gave these final words we heard today. I would call it
his commissioning words to the graduates. He had taught them well, and now he
was sending them out as a team to do the work of ministry.
They asked him a question first: “Master,
are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel now? Is this the time?” They
wanted to know if he was just going to finish all the work for them.
He
told them, “You don’t get to know the time. Timing is the God’s business. What
you’ll get is the Holy Spirit. And when the Holy Spirit comes on you, you will
be able to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, all over Judea and Samaria, even to
the ends of the world.”
Remember? We talked about being witnesses
a couple of weeks ago. He told them: “It’s your job to tell people about God
and God’s love. You are going to show people what it means to be my followers. And
you are going to have the power of my Spirit living in you. So you are going to
take this message to everyone in the whole world.”
There were maybe 25, at the most 50
people who heard that message, and Jesus said to them: “I charge you with the
task of telling the whole world that they belong to God and God loves them.”
It would be like standing in front of
the graduating class of some tiny little high school, that graduates 50 kids
and saying: “You can change the world.” People are making that speech all over
America this week.
It’s like me, standing right here, and
saying to you: We can follow Jesus and change the world.
Really? Really?
I can hear you now. You’re saying:
“Cheri, have you looked around? Our world is pretty messed up.”
Have you seen the statistics about the
economy? I heard on the news this week that the highest paid CEOs in the U.S. make
250 times what their workers make. And guess what? They are not even the most
productive CEOs.
In the United States, the gun murder
rate is 20% higher than that of other developed nations. We have a gun violence
epidemic in our country. We say we don’t know what to do about it and yet other
developed countries do not have the same problem that we have.
“A new report from the U.S. Department of
Agriculture says more than 1 in 6 Ohio households faced “food insecurity” (the
state of being without reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable,
nutritious food), from 2010
to 2012, up 6.3 percentage points from a decade earlier, 2000 to 2002. Only in
Missouri and Nevada did hunger increase more during that time.”
What can we do to make a difference?
These are big systemic problems. When I start thinking about all the big
problems in the world, I don’t know about you, but I just get overwhelmed.
But then, I think about what it must
have felt like to be those first disciples when they saw Jesus ascend in heaven
and just leave them to do the work for the whole world.
“NOW WHAT? WHAT’S NEXT? What are we
going to do? Jesus just put us in charge of the whole world.” How frightened
they must have felt. How overwhelmed.
But do you know what they did? The scripture is very clear. It says:
“ They agreed they were in this for good, completely together in prayer.”
“ They agreed they were in this for good, completely together in prayer.”
They agreed they were together. And
they grounded their work in prayer. They decided to follow Jesus and change the
world.
Now, change did not happen overnight.
They had failures and disappointments. But they worked together, each one using
their gifts, each one working out of their strengths. Each one, figuring out
how they could tell the world about Jesus.
You see, change happens when we
discover what it means for us to live like Jesus.
We have
to discern what it is about Jesus that we love. What is compelling about the
Jesus story? What is it that we wish the whole world could know about Jesus and
his way? What has value for you?
And then we
need to ask: how can we become guides
in living in the way of Jesus? We need
to find core behaviors, and practice those behaviors, and invite others to join
us. It’s a bit like parenting. We set an example and we guide others to
come along with us.
For example, here at The Village we care
about people who are hungry because Jesus cared about hungry people. We know
that people need better access to healthy food. Many people in this country
live in what we call food deserts: an urban neighborhood in which it is
difficult to buy affordable or good-quality fresh food. There are no
supermarkets, no farmers markets where fresh produce can be purchased. In
Toledo, Toledo Grows helps plant community gardens in these food deserts to
make fresh produce available to people. Anyone who lives in these neighborhoods
can volunteer to work in the gardens, plant vegetables, and take home the food
for free. The seed plants are donated for the garden.
Jodi Haney and Amy Ross work in the Maumee
Community Garden every Saturday. Jodi
tells me that some of the produce will be given to food pantries to be given to
people in need. Anyone can come work in the garden and then take produce home.
There are gardens like this up on Broadway in Old South Toledo and all over the
city in urban neighborhoods. Free produce is given to anyone in the
neighborhood who wants it. For people who work in community gardens this is an
example of changing the world.
We live in a city where people live in
poverty for a variety of reasons. Poor people often eat fast food because it is
cheap. It is also unhealthy. Often poor people don’t eat fresh produce because
it is expensive and not even available in certain neighborhoods. Community
gardens are a way to provide fresh produce. But these gardens need volunteers.
What would be the values of Jesus we would live out when work in a community
garden?
There are several: generosity (we are giving
our time); compassion (in providing food for people who need it); Jodi tells me
that she likes working in the garden for a sense of peace. Finding a sense of
personal peace and balance in our own lives is certainly a value and one that
Jesus modeled for us.
She also said she values the sense of coming
together to do something with a community. Building community is a strong value
for us as followers of Jesus. When we do something together, we have fun and we
also get to know one another. We form relationships. When we are in
relationship then we care for one another. We celebrate the joys of life and we
support one another through the challenges. The neighbors who are working
together on a garden get to know one another.
We have become a society where neighbors live
on the same street together for years and do not know one another. We drive our
cars and park in attached garages and go into our houses and never go outside.
We never interact with our neighbors. It’s no wonder that our ability to have
compassion for one another is failing us. We don’t know one another.
Compassion starts with just knowing one
another. Care starts with the basics of community. Something as simple as a
community garden gives us an opportunity to begin to restore some of the basics
of human society that we have lost.
Again, let’s go back to our scripture for
today. Jesus told his disciples it was time for him to go. “Now what?” they
said, “What’s next? What are we supposed to do?”
Jesus answered, “Go and show them how to
live. Show them my love.”
My friends, the call that Jesus gave to the
first disciples is the challenge he gives to us today. What value do you see in
Jesus that you want to live out and model for others? Is it compassion?
Building community? Living generously? What strength has God given you, to use
to make the world a better place?
What’s next? The time is now. Jesus is
sending us. So let’s go. Let’s follow Jesus and change the world.
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