Becoming apprentices

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

On a certain Sabbath in the synagogue in Nazareth, Jesus quoted this passage from Isaiah and declared that he was fulfilling this prophecy, that this is what he was going to be about. He was setting his agenda for his ministry.

And his agenda is our agenda. This is what we want to be about at Headwaters.

Jesus’ whole deal was that he chose twelve guys to follow him around and learn to do the things he did. And he told them to do the same: make disciples. The idea is that Jesus trained people to be like him, who would train others to be like him, and so on, and so on, and so on.

The world used to work like this—you had a master craftsman and a bunch of apprentices learning to be like the master. You had fathers teaching sons the family business. And this is exactly what being a disciple is about. Christians talk a lot about Jesus being “Lord.” Lord just means master. And not just “boss” in the sense of someone who tells you what to do. No, we’re talking about master in the sense of someone you emulate, someone you learn to be like.

Probably where we see this in our culture most readily is in…yes…Star Wars. Jedi Masters with their apprentices following them around learning to be like them. Learning how to use a light saber and the ways of the force and how to do Jedi mind tricks on the weak willed…

So when Jesus says he’s about proclaiming good news to the poor, we better get on board with that. He’s the master. If the master is about proclaiming good news to the poor, we as a church better be about that, too. If we think that Christianity is just believing in Jesus so that we can go to heaven when we die, we’re missing a big part of what Jesus is all about. When Jesus says he’s about setting prisoners free and releasing the oppressed, we better be about that as well. Christianity can’t be just about Bible studies and fellowship and fun. It’s about working for justice, showing compassion, offering mercy. Jesus’ agenda is our agenda. He’s the master and we’re learning to be like him, learning to care about what he cares about, learning to prioritize what he prioritizes.

Check out pictures from our preview worship over at our Headwaters blog.