Old Dog, New Tricks?
My 12-year-old is trying to teach me how to throw a football. No one else in forty years has accomplished this feat, but I find it endearing that he is trying. Something about the spinning, and the flick of the wrist, all whilst trying to actually make the thing go in a certain direction… I don’t know, it certainly isn’t my natural state.
I pretty much know my lane, friends. Reading and writing: put me in the fast lane. Athletics and arithmetic: better take a back seat and let someone else drive. I’ve come to accept this truth. It’s not that I can’t do them, it is simply that I do not excel in them. The older I get, the less I want to learn new tricks!
Now, here is my son, standing beside me, showing me how to hold the ball and move my fingers just so…telling me that it took him a long time to get the hang of it too, and encouraging me when I do a decent job with a throw. “And also, mom, can you bring me another snack, I’m hungry.” He’s eating me out of house and home, but he is, as his librarian said to me, “a wonderful human.”
There’s something in the Bible about this. About the feeling of abandoning what is comfortable and trying new things. About being mentored in how to do something, then going out to put what is learned into practice. Remember when Jesus sent the disciples out (two by two I might add) to practice teaching and healing in his name? For the full story, read Luke 10:1-24. He tells them not to take anything with them, but to walk into a town and depend on the people’s hospitality. If the people are receptive the encounter will be peaceful, but if the disciples are rejected, Jesus tells them to dust the sand off their feet and move on. The disciples returned to Jesus after their travels rejoicing that they had been able to heal people and send Satan’s spirits packing. Jesus told the disciples that he had given them incredible authority and power, but the real gift is that their names are written in heaven.
However, a time is described in Matthew 17:14-29 in which the disciples could not cure a boy possessed by a spirit. Jesus calls them an “unbelieving generation!” and angrily asks how much longer he has to put up with them! When they ask Jesus later why they could not cure this child, Jesus tells them, “This kind can only come out by prayer.” What this tells me is that there is always something new to be learned and that we never perfect things on the first try. Jesus gave the disciples enough information and authority to lead, but he also let them struggle and fail so they would learn a lesson.
Maybe that is why we call the things we do to enhance our faith experience, “spiritual practices.” Because it takes practice! This morning in Sunday School, Ken Wolfe said, “I know it isn’t that we should set aside time out of our day for God, but that God should be first and we should ‘set aside time’ for everything else, but it is hard to do.” Yes, indeed it is! But each morning is a new day, a new opportunity to practice our faith. To practice prayer, to practice studying the Word, to practice seeing God in creation. To practice hospitality, generosity, compassion, openness. What new thing might the Lord be trying to teach you?