17th June 2024
Following in the steps of the disciples?
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? …But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
Matthew 6:25, 33 (ESV)
When Jesus told Nicodemus about the necessity of being born again, Nicodemus took it literally. When Jesus talked to the Samaritan woman, by the well about living water, her attention was first caught by the possibility of ending the daily grind of drawing water from a well. The day after Jesus had fed five thousand with five loaves and two fish, and he began to teach the disciples to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the disciples thought that he was talking about the fact that they had forgotten to bring bread.
More than once they argued about who was going to be the greatest. At one point James and John dragged their mother into the fray to try to outflank the other disciples and get a guaranteed place on either side of Jesus when he ruled. Even at the Lord’s Supper, they were debating who would be the greatest. At that last meal, as we know, Jesus washed the disciples’ feet. Peter didn’t understand that only his feet needed cleaning. He wanted a full top to bottom wash. Throughout the gospels, we can see that the disciples’ default position of response to many of the things Jesus said was to apply them to their physical lives.
We are so often wrapped up in our physical lives: our ambitions and plans, our comforts and pains and stresses. It’s our natural disposition. Some, recognising the imbalance and our disposition to be ‘worldly’, have abandoned the things of the world, perceived as evil distractions, withdrawn from society, and sometimes become solitary.
But God doesn’t intend life to be an ‘either/or’. It’s Jesus who got the right balance between the physical life and his life with the Father. Through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, he will teach us to get the balance right with the two in harmony. Mind you, the disciples didn’t get it right away, and perhaps it is a life-long journey for us.
Prayer
Father, as we look to Jesus, may we learn to bring our lives, so often full of distracting anxieties, in harmony with life in the Spirit. Amen.
Study by Hilary Buck
About the writer:
Hilary Buck is a minister and pastors the Lewes congregation of Grace Communion International.
Local congregation:
Grace Communion in Lewes
The House of Friendship
208 High Street
Lewes
BN7 2NS
Meeting time:
Sunday 11:00 am
Local congregational contact:
Hilary Buck
Email: lewes@gracecom.church
Like us on www.facebook.com/Grace Communion Lewes
Word of Life contact:
wordoflife@gracecom.church