The Jesus Gap 1

There are some lines of scripture that just stop me in my tracks.

Matthew 10:42, whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these
little ones in the name of a discipletruly I tell you, none of these will lose
their reward. is one of those. On Sunday, I talked about the question, what
does it mean to be a Christian? My conclusion was that admitting our
inadequacy was a key part of faith. I also mentioned my struggles with
living my faith publicly. Todays gospel reading is the final section of
Matthew 10, and it gives us more ways to answer the question of what it
means to be a Christian. It also brings up another question: what does it
mean to be sent?
Todays gospel mentions three categories of people: prophets, the
righteous, and the little ones. It is tempting to put ourselves and others into
one of the three categories as a way of understanding what living our faith
means. The idea of prophets is fascinating. In the Old Testament reading,
two prophets, Jeremiah and Hananiah, are fighting. Jeremiah had been
wearing an oxens yoke as he prophesied to symbolize a seventy-year
burden that Babylon would place on Judah. Hananiah, on the other hand,
told the people what they wanted to hear; that God would never fail his
people, and that Babylon would only be a problem for two years. Jeremiah
points out that prophesies need to be fulfilled if they are to be useful. Today,
there is less emphasis on prophets as tellers of the future. In fact, many of
us spend our time prophesying about the past If only I had done this,
then my life would be different. Jesus was often called a prophet, although
he was also seen as the fulfillment of prophecy. We would likely use the
prophet category to describe public religious people like pastors.
The category of the righteous would be populated by everyone and
by noone. We might include all people, since Christ died for all people. We
might limit our definition to those who actively claim God, or we might
chose some other arbitrary definition of righteousness. The little children
might be all the helpless of the world, those who have not yet met our
criteria for righteousness, or we might include everyone since we are all
dependent on God as the source of all.
Fortunately, the scriptures dont ask us to divide faith into a
hierarchical strata. In fact, we are all charged with something much greater
-- people are to identify us with Jesus and Jesus with us! In John 14, Jesus
 The Jesus Gap 2

says, anyone who has seen me has seen the father. This weeks gospel is
asking us to say, If you receive me, you receive Jesus. How can we
possibly say this without turning ourselves into idols or trivializing Jesus?
One way to think about Jesus is as a bridge between sinful man and divine
God. However, dont many of us think of Jesus as a role model who we
cant possibly live up to? Yes, Jesus was a man, but he was a far better
person than any regular person would ever be, so we focus on the gap
between who Jesus is and who we are. When I was a teacher, we often
talked about closing the achievement gap. That talk focused around
categories that came from standardized testing like: exceeds, meets,
partially meets, or does not meet expectations. The temptation was to
focus on the partially meets because the exceeds and meets were doing
ok and there was no reward for turning does not meets into partially meets.
The biggest flaw with this strategy was that it did not take into account the
humanity of each student. Sometimes it feels like the conversation about
religion and faith goes the same way. Those who attend church regularly
and serve on boards and committees, teach Sunday school, and do other
church activities exceed expectations. Those who attend church regularly
meet expectations. Those who attend at Christmas and Easter or have
their children baptized at the church partially meet expectations, and the
rest of the world does not meet expectations. Where should we put our
ministry resources?
Personally, I struggle with this question daily. Is my responsibility to
serve those who meet and exceed expectations, to work on the partially
meets, or to wander into the vast, uncharted waters of does not meet
expectations? Although I dont find it difficult to admit that I am a hopeless
sinner in need of Gods help daily, and I take great comfort in the earlier
passage in Matthew 10, do not worry about how you are to speak or what
you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you at that time; 20
for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through
you., I still wrestle with how to best live into my calling.
One thing that I find helpful is the idea that few people will ever be
willing to receive Jesus presence into their lives if they are not willing to
receive those who represent that same Jesus. Another is the coupling of
words and deeds. We are not only to provide the little child with a cup of
 The Jesus Gap 3

cold water; we are to do it in the name of a disciple. The last verse of an old
VBS song called We are the Church, goes: The church, it is the people
living out their lives, called, enlightened, sanctified for the work of Jesus
Christ. What would happen if we stopped expecting people to come on
their own initiative through our church doors, and instead took seriously our
calling to bring the gospel to them? What would happen if we truly believed
that we bear the presence of Christ to every person we encounter, in every
home, workplace, or neighborhood we enter? What would happen if we
saw every conversation as an opportunity to speak words of grace, every
interaction as an opportunity to embody Christ's love for the neighbor? I
have to admit that I dont know and that the possibility of doing this terrifies
me. I also know that the survival of what we call church depends on just
such a thing. We are the church. AMEN