Introduction
Last week we began to unpack the concept of spiritual success by delving into the act of forgiveness as one exercise to help us achieve such success.
Today we are going to continue to go deeper into the ideas of spiritual success by unpacking how a disciple finds spiritual success by leaving. Be it leaving and going far away, or leaving right where we are.
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At a hospital in Galveston, Texas, a Filipino nurse named Rosalie works the night shift. One of her patients a 92-year-old engineer has a broken arm. Another, an 82-year-old man with renal disease. A third patient is 52 years old with diabetes which caused him to lose his left foot.
The diabetic had been a Baptist preacher in an African American church, along with running a car-detailing business. But then his disease began to rule his life. He took only a portion of his insulin, telling Rosalie he knew his body best. With a smile she says, “I’ll let the doctor know,” wanting to avoid an argument.
The man then softened and told her he would try to be a model patient, saying, “Your job is hard enough. You don’t need someone acting the fool.”
Then things got busy. A bed change for the engineer, instructions for the man with renal disease, a shot for the diabetic, and a new patient arrived—a man from Mexico who spoke limited English. But Rosalie was still able to make a connection despite the language barrier, because it was revealed that she had once thought of becoming a nun, and they discovered they were both Catholic.
All through the night, Rosalie worked hard, caring for her patients, and then “she went out into the sun-scrubbed morning with a satisfied yawn.”
This quote comes from a book about Rosalie, written by Jason DeParle, who further writes saying, “Celtic pilgrims talk of ‘thin places’ where the distance between heaven and earth narrows and the presence of God is more readily felt. Rosalie, the almost nun, worked in a thin place.”
DeParle’s book is called: A Good Provider Is One Who Leaves: One Family and Migration in the 21st Century. In it he follows Rosalie and her family over the course of 30 years. Members of the family migrate around the world in search of work and then send money back to their relatives in the Philippines.
DeParle says, “The money migrants send back to their families is three times the world’s foreign-aid budgets combined. Migration is the world’s largest self-help program, the world’s largest anti-poverty program. It’s hugely important to the people who are relying on the money they get for education, for health care, for food, for shelter.” Because of this, a common Filipino expression—“A good provider is one who leaves”—became the title of the book.
Normally we think of good providers as people who stick around. But in a world of global migration, a good provider is one who leaves.
Jesus and the Disciples show us this is the way of spiritual success.
Move 1
At the beginning of the Gospel of Mark, Jesus was walking along the Sea of Galilee, and there he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea. Jesus said to these two fishermen, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” (Mark 1:16-17)
And what did they do? Mark says they “immediately they left their nets and followed him” (1:18). They left their nets and presumably their families as well.
Then Jesus saw James and John, the sons of Zebedee. They were also fishermen, sitting in their boat and mending their nets. Immediately, Jesus called them, and they “left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him” (1:20).
The original followers of Jesus created problems when they took off. After all, fishing was a family business, and Zebedee could not have been happy to be left holding the nets.
Simon had a house in Capernaum, which he shared with family members that included Andrew and Simon’s mother-in-law, at the very least.
The disciples simply left. It’s an example and a teaching of the extremes for sure, but Jesus we know also called his disciples to stay where they were, which means we have to ask… So, what does it mean to be a spiritually fit disciple today?
We may not be challenged to quit fishing and follow Jesus, but still we are supposed to leave. And that leaving may be to go far away, but it most certainly means leaving behind much of what we know and walk with Jesus in a new direction.
Move 2
From our text for today we can glean three ways that can give us guidance for spiritual success through leaving.
First, a good disciple is one who leaves the workplace to serve.
Many of us spend a great deal of time on the job, laboring in ways that provide income for our self and family. Such effort is certainly needed, but we must be careful that our job doesn’t take over our life.
That’s a consideration asked by a career guru Jenny Ungless who would ask, “How’s your work-life balance?” She points out that “The pace of our lives today, and the fact that modern technology means we’re always contactable, can make it very difficult to ‘switch off’ from work. If work takes up all of our time and energy, we are going to resent it instead of enjoying it. Not to mention there won’t be anything left of us for others.”
Jesus calls us to switch off, leave the workplace, and serve.
This might mean tutoring an at-risk kid. Teaching English as a second language. Swinging a hammer for Habitat for Humanity.
Putting a few hours a week into serving others will give us a sense of satisfaction that we cannot find at work.
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Next, a good disciple is also one who leaves the comfortable for the uncomfortable.
At Fairfax Presbyterian Church in Virginia, a mission team travels to Honduras for week-long mission trips, where the encounter extreme poverty everywhere, with squatters living in shanties by the side of the road.
When members of the church group serve in medical clinics, they find that care is delivered with love but is outdated by a generation.
When members do construction in a small village they discover good tools and supplies are hard to find—Lowe’s and Home Depot are not around the corner.
And yet, leaving the United States for Honduras is worth the discomfort.
The joy of the Honduran people is infectious, and their faith in the face of daily hardships is inspiring. As a result, strong bonds have developed over nearly two decades of visits, linking Americans and Hondurans in deep and loving friendships along with a change in attitude and deeper gratitude.
For some members of Fairfax Presbyterian, an uncomfortable week in Honduras is the best week of the year.
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And third, a good disciple is one who leaves the familiar for the unfamiliar.
In the United States today, people are seeking out like-minded friends and neighbors, and the result is terrible political polarization.
Jeremy Adam-Smith and Zaid Jilani, in an article that appeared in Greater Good magazine titled, “What is the true cost of polarization in America?” write, “Americans are increasingly segregating themselves by political party and ideology even in their residential communities. This segregation makes us more likely to demonize each other, as more and more people live alongside people who hold similar political beliefs to them.”
But a good Disciple is one who leaves the familiar and seeks connections with people who do not share their race, religion, political party or ideology. Such a person understands that Jesus did not begin his ministry by talking only with like-minded Galileans. Instead, he and his disciples immediately faced “a man with an unclean spirit” (1:23). Then Jesus “cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons” (1:34). And instead of staying at home, Jesus said, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also” (1:38).
Jesus and his disciples did not remain in familiar places with like-minded people. Instead, they moved into new areas and did the work of helping, healing, teaching and preaching. Yes, they had difficult confrontations, which is to be expected when lines are crossed, but disagreements are natural and healthy, while polarization and staying with only those we are comfortable with, is not.
Conclusion
Jesus wants us to get stronger and healthier by making the decision to leave—leave the work place to a place of service; leave the comfortable for the uncomfortable; leave the familiar for the unfamiliar.
An inward only focus; seeking only to be comfortable; surrounding ourselves with only the familiar leads to our faith being undermined where we are less likely to help each other, judgment is more likely, leading to greater polarization where it is harder and harder for us to get along let alone solve problems.
Disciples are going to have to make sacrifices and face hardships, like migrants who travel the world in search of work. But a willingness to leave the workplace, leave the comfortable, and leave the familiar will have a powerful and positive impact.
When we have a willingness to take the risk of leaving, we discover that the words of Jesus are true: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near.”
And we have opportunities available to cultivate this kind of spiritual success for ourselves and others before us right now. Serving at our monthly Loaves and Fishes Plus Pantry, getting involved with our Youth Group and Christian Education, the Scout Programs, or Membership Team—these choices, and others like them, increase our faith, they increase our personal power—they bring forth spiritual fitness that can heal the world.
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Rosalie, the Filipino nurse, has on the wall of her Texas home a 6-foot crucifix that proclaims Jesus the “Redeemer” and “King of Kings” and next to it a wall hanging of a nurse’s prayer for a “compassionate heart.”
Each day she passes these icons as she leaves her house and goes to work at the hospital. And each day they reminder her that a good disciple— one who is spiritually successful—is one who leaves. Amen.
Pastoral Prayer, January 31, 2021
Loving God, your touch can heal the broken places of life, and so we pray you touch us today.
God of peace, your spirit of peace can quiet our spirits of confusion and despair, and so we pray you reassure us today.
Forgiving God, your call to repentance promises grace upon grace, and so we pray you place your mercy in our souls today.
God of new ways, your Son called us to follow him along a new path, a path that would lead to healing and goodness, and so we pray you help us hear his call again.
Through your Son O God, you heal the sick and liberate the imprisoned, you bring justice in the midst of oppression and strength in the midst of weakness; you pour out your spirit of power upon us giving us the assurance that life with you is always better and good, even amidst that struggle it will lead to.
But even now, despite all interpretation and study, we are so like the disciples of old, unable to contain the fullness of Gospel Truth. Yet we long to be like them in their willingness to leave behind the ways of this world and follow you and your Son.
So we confess our need for you, and we turn to you with hearts filled with hope, remembering these promises you have made to us. We pray you open our hearts to new faithfulness by redirecting our waywardness and holding us gently in your goodness. May your name be glorified in us and through us. May the Spirit regenerate a new vitality in our minds, bodies, and spirits so that we might be living stories of Jesus Christ, unique, but united before the world to proclaim Good News to all .
Hear now the prayers we have in our hearts, readied to be lifted to you in this time of Holy Silence.
All this we pray in through Christ Jesus, your only begotten son, who is our Lord and our Savior, and who taught us to pray, saying, “Our…”