My first adult job was all lined up for after High School Graduation. It was exciting-scary. My first week as Junior Accounting Clerk was marked with a deluge of information. I was timid, new to the job and to the building, had a group of 50 clerks to get to know (each with his/her eccentricities), and a series of assigned tasks, all of which seemed screaming urgent (as in yesterday!). The accounting office was on the third floor. The mailroom was on the fifth and had its own, um, flavor, and set of rotating, unspoken expectations (I think I was the scapegoat for every Junior Clerk preceding me). Several days in, one of the clerks came in late, and while he was hanging up his coat, the entire 50-person office broke out in applause, with clerks saying things like, “Glad you could make it!” “Late night?” “How was the party?” A cold chill ran down my spine and I inwardly vowed that I would never be that person! (this was typical office entertainment, as I was soon to discover).
Jesus’ disciples, too, as he met with them after his resurrection, had tons of things to learn, to understand, to apply, to dare to believe. While Jesus was tender and gracious and longsuffering, there was a new urgency in his voice, too. Just coming to grips with a back-from-the-dead Jesus was mind-blowing. But additionally, it was like they were having to catch up on all the lessons he had taught, lessons at best only partially understood, lessons now seen as being of prime importance if they were to step into the roles Jesus was setting before them. It was a super stretch for them to think about becoming who Jesus saw them to be. What they already knew kept getting in the way of their fledgling faith because knowing was familiar while exercising faith felt very foreign, beyond their paygrade, the task of holy people, and therefore, for folks not of their ilk.
We view those first disciples in the rearview mirror, post-Pentecost, after two millennia of church history. Our perspective is massively other than that of those guys. We can see and understand and appreciate the work of the Kingdom in a way impossible for them. And yet, isn’t living by faith, even after all this time, an activity which often feels foreign, considerably beyond our paygrade, the task of holy people, and therefore, for folks not of our ilk? The mission of the Holy Spirit in us today is one of revelation, one of persistence, one of encouragement, one of, (Praise God), empowering! Looking forward to seeing you saints of my ilk tomorrow, 10 AM, 3 PM UK, 4 PM ES. PD
