In a lot of ways, our schedules reveal our theology.

Last night Katrina and I went to poet and author Kathleen Norris’ presentation entitled, To say “God is Love” is the same as “Eat Your Wheaties”. It was a fascinating conversation about the importance of keeping our words sacred, rather than flattening everything to the marketing principles of a commercial.

Toward the end of her Q&A Session, she made the comment, “We are teaching our children theology all the time. Not just when we are with them in Sunday School, but also when we help them with homework or give them a bath. We may say that God cares for them, but if we, as their parents, stay late nights at work, and regularly worry about money, we teach them something quite different about God.”

I may not have children, but I do have many people that I care for. What sort of theology am I presenting to them? When I only bump into them once a week at church; a place where we “have to go” to “get our card punched”, am I really stepping out and saying that I “came here specifically to see and love you”? What does my denial of their existence the rest of the week say about my God? What if Jesus only came to earth because “he had to” so he could “get his card punched”? Dangerous…

I am currently wrestling with how best to spend my time. Am I first a student, or minister? Am I first a husband, or do I first categorize myself by what I do? Am I first a follower of Jesus Christ, or first a minister to others? The answers to these questions are wrapped up in my internal values – these values are what drive my actions. I only hope that my actions, values and theology are coherent.

Each person is uniquely gifted with a social network. These networks, which are spread all over the various hills and valleys of your life, are portions of land that God has given to you as your “field”. As farmers sowing seed for the Kingdom, (“brother!”), our fields become our place for direct and indirect mission. In 2 Corinthians 10:13, Paul makes mention of this “field” (Greek = metron); “We, however, will not boast beyond measure (metron), but within the limits of the sphere (metron) which God has appointed us – a sphere (metron) which especially includes you.”

Every major relationship in you life is a part of your field. Paul obviously had a large, extended field that wrapped around the middle part of the globe, connections between Christians ran from Jerusalem to Rome and beyond. But even his field had limits. As a farmer, it is dangerous not to respect the boundaries of your field. What would happen if you started harvesting the crops of someone else’s field? Take that to our own lives; trespassing on each other’s fields results in the staggering divorce rate we see in America – many times someone has stepped over his field into someone else’s. Similarly, parents have certain responsibility over their children; police have certain authority over their “beat” – an authority that should not be tested even by other police!

Paul saw the limitations on his field (Gal.2:7-10). He had been called to preach to the Gentiles. Peter however was sent to work with the Jews. As tensions increased between the two groups, their ministries began to cross paths, and fights were breaking out between the two groups. Eventually, some of the elders of the Jerusalem church (James, Peter and John) “acknowledged the grace that had been given” to Paul. They eventually sent him off to preach to the nations.

I got two things from this text:

1. Sometimes when ministries begin to clash, it is the Lord’s working. This may mean that the Gospel message is about to spread into new places! It is not bad to say farewell to fellow ministers for sake of God’s Kingdom. If both parties are called to sow the Gospel seed, but frustrations are building, it may be time to plant seed elsewhere on your field.

2. Our field is a portion of our “grace” given to us by God! Eph. 4:7 says, “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ has apportioned (metron) it.” Each and every person whom grace has been extended, is also receiving a field for mission in God’s work. We don’t know how big our field is, until we step out in faith. “To those who use well what they are given, even more will be given, and they will have an abundance. But from those who do nothing, even what little they have will be taken away.”

What kinds of soil has God graced you to work with? What types of nutrients are needed to develop the seed of God’s Word? Who are your farming neighbors, and what is your relationship with them like?

Jesus caught up with those who would soon be his disciples on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. These men were frustrated and exhausted from a full night of fishing but not catching anything. Such was life for them. They were fisherman, not a cushy job back then. They must have overheard Jesus’ powerful teaching as he taught the crowd nearby, because when he addresses the fisherman, they respond by calling him “teacher”.
I know that when I am done with a job at the end of the day, especially when it has been a humiliatingly fruitless job, I want to cut my loses, tuck my tail, and return home licking my sores. If there is one thing I hate doing, it is finishing up a long day’s work only to be told by my boss that there is still work to do – especially whenever everything is cleaned and put up, like it was for Simon and his fellow fishermen. So it must have felt just a little crazy to heed Jesus’ words by hopping back into the boat, with freshly cleaned fishing nets for one more try. I would have had a nagging sense of doubt running through my head the entire time!
Even as they began to pull the impossibly heavy net back onto their boat, I would have doubted. “It’s full of sea sand, or rocks.” I would have had myself convinced. I’m not sure if I would have responded the same way Simon did. Recognizing whose presence he was standing in; looking to the left to see a boat sinking in the water under the sheer weight of the fish caught, and looking to the right to see a strange teacher who seemed to know all of this was going to happen, I would have been less concerned about my sin, and more excited about the day’s income! Just think, this was like hitting jackpot at the slot machines! What would my family say when I rode up on a new Mercedes camel? What would the competition say when they saw us selling all these fish in the market later that morning? Finally, their “ship had come in”, and as the fisherman were dreaming about their summer vacation in Havana, Jesus spoke up.
“Soon you’ll be fishing for people!” he said. Something inside these grungy fishermen broke. The disciples caught a glimpse of the end of their lives, peeking cautiously into their final moments. They may have thought, “What good would it do to spend a life casting and reeling in nets? Our whole identity has been wrapped up in catchin’, guttin’ and sellin’ fish, working endlessly every night just to start it all over again the next night! Such a shallow, short sighted life will only leave me without a real life to look back on. There has to be something more lasting, more meaningful to life that a day’s work. I’m tired of living so day to day – I want a life’s purpose, a purpose I can participate in that is so much bigger than myself.”
This story ends by saying, “And they left everything and followed Jesus.” I’ve got to believe that the heaping pile of flopping fish lay stranded on the shores of Galilee. Maybe there were a few from the crowd Jesus had been teaching who are picking a halibut or a trout from the nets for a free morning’s breakfast. As a fisherman, it would have been difficult to leave that pile of potential cash just laying there in the morning’s rising sun…but not if I had my sights set on a higher purpose, an eternal one.

What will I look back on as I lay on my death bed? What are the “eternal things” that give my life substance and a purpose beyond myself?

Just a quick reflection before I turn down the bed covers for the night –

Katrina and I had a good talk this evening about Christian “evangelists” or “missionaries” who find their self-worth in being able to relate to new cultures. Many people sail to far away lands to “share the Gospel” but only after years and years of language training, people group acculturation, and loads of money to travel back and forth during furlough.

Why not instead of priding ourselves in our ability to reach out to other cultures, and spending TONS of money to do so, let’s live deeply into the culture we are already a part of. We know the language, the customs; the redeeming and broken qualities in our own culture very well. Why not use our years of experience in our own culture to truly speak the Gospel in our own language?

My wife and I are both from the Midwest. We know some of the tendencies and customs of the people there. We know that there are countless workaholics who have forgotten the blessings of Sabbath. Knowing that, we can speak the Gospel in such a way that addresses the very core of their brokenness. Isn’t that what the Gospel is supposed to be? Isn’t it supposed to be GOOD NEWS? What’s so exciting about something that doesn’t seem relevant to you? Who cares about something that happened 2,000 years ago? Give me something that matters to my life today. If its true that Jesus “will be with us always”, then he must have something to say to the corporate executive living in Lincoln Park, Chicago, and the single mom living in Hyde Park. As a fellow Midwesterner, he has something to say to me.