Directed closure
This week's goodness is on Luke 9:1-6:
Sometimes there are reasons to quit things before they're done to your satisfaction. It goes against our ideas of perseverance, but there are sometimes good reasons behind cutting your losses and moving on. The modern mindset is to yield to any emotional whim that comes up, and in trying to counter that we can often fly in the opposite and equally wrong direction of being inflexible and determined to go in a direction that doesn't lead anywhere.
Back in my nerd "glory days" in college, we did some robotics work with lego bricks, microcontrollers and motors. The idea was to build a robot to hit a certain set of goals on an obstacle course. The first step of that was to get the robot to move. When someone would finally figure out how to get the microcontroller to turn the motors on and got the right gearing to drive a set of wheels, they'd immediately quit working on the steering and sensors and drive the robot right into the wall. The robot, like a remote control car, would just sit there with its wheels spinning, going nowhere, waiting for the wall to disappear so it could continue driving that way until its batteries ran out. At that point, the robot is no longer a robot. It's just a set of unguided motors wasting energy. When we move in a direction that isn't fruitful, when there are plenty of other options that are fruitful, we are like that half-finished robot. We wear ourselves down without getting anywhere.
What had to happen with the robot was we had to write some software to help it interpret its surroundings and find its objectives. It needed to be able to see more than what was right in front of it. Over the course of many dateless nights, while others were drinking themselves into mediocrity like most college students, we enabled our creations to be able to sense light, measure distance with sonar, realize when they'd struck a wall, and to be able to decide when it was time to turn around or change direction. God's done that with us, but we need to be willing to use those senses.
There were millions of people who hadn't heard the gospel when Jesus sent his disciples out. He gave them all sorts of cool powers, but warned them not to get tied up in any one place. That flies in the face of our new modern instincts to persevere despite all odds. That's because God understands people better than people understand people. He designed us, remember?
Lets look at the scenario of three villages. If you want to stay in the comfy robot analogy, think of them as objectives on the robot course. The first village is easy to share the gospel with. They're spiritually hungry and know that there's something better than what they've got. They welcome you in and feed you and call a meeting so that you can tell them what's what. When you leave, they've started having Bible studies and will be keeping in touch. If you're writing your missionary newsletter back to Jesus and your family who think you've joined a cult, this is the story you'd put in there.
Full of idealism and energy, you head on to the second village, only to find that it's not quite like the first one at all. The police show up, wanting to know who you are and why you're talking to people. They don't like you. Nobody wants to give you a place to stay because outsiders are a decadent influence on their youth, and they don't want their kids listening to whatever it is you're probably going to say. The town worships a fish on a board nailed up in the middle of the square and that's all they need. Every day, they make blood sacrifices to the fish so that it won't detach itself from the board and eat their children. It obviously works, because no fish has eaten their kids for generations. So, they don't want some outsider coming in and shaking up what has worked for them and their ancestors. In fact, you're looking like a great candidate for the next day's blood sacrifice, because all of your blather about Jesus is probably making the fish pretty angry by now.
So, you could do the modern thing and stay in the village despite all odds, yammering at a bunch of people who don't care, about a Jesus they don't want, eventually getting yourself martyred. Then you'd get a nice memorial service from the folks back home, and your picture in the church newsletter that month, maybe even a nice plaque someplace. Meanwhile, everyone in the third village misses out on the gospel because you wanted to play chicken with a wall, robot-style.
Is that the best use of your energy? Your final score is one win, one loss, game over. Can you do better? Absolutely. If you gave up on the second village, and went to the third village, you wouldn't be any worse off than if you'd stayed and died in the second village. Potentially you'd be even better, because if they weren't idiots like in village two, they'd accept Christ and your final score would be two wins, one loss, and the option to proceed to the next level. That's the kind of big picture thinking Jesus is telling his disciples to have.
Our modern stubborn thought would tell us that Jesus would not want us to let the second village go to hell. It is our responsibility to share the gospel. It's our responsibility to make them believe, even if it means our own life. They will go to hell if our own personal efforts fall short. Dig your heels in, steel your gaze, and wait for them to blink first. The problem is, people don't work like that. God knows that.
Think of the megaphone guy at his worst. You can only shout the gospel at the same people for so many days before the ones who want to be saved have done so. Anything after that point is actually having the opposite effect. It will cause the unbelievers to believe their falsehoods all the more intently in justification for having ignored you. People bitterly hate the megaphone guy and will go out of their way to counter him, because he's overstayed his welcome, not because they want to go to hell, or aren't hearing what he has to say. They've made their decision. The only rational decision for the megaphone guy is to go elsewhere and talk to people who haven't heard the good news. Leaving the mockers and blockers behind isn't deciding that you're cool with them going to hell. It's deciding that there are other people to be reached, and that you're not getting anywhere with these people.
People get caught up with this in church evangelism. They have a finite amount of time to reach as many people as they can, but every now and again someone takes a stranger's unwillingness to accept Christ personally, and will expend their entire time talking to that one uninterested person instead of shaking the dust off of their feet and moving on. If we're going to bring the whole idea of being willing to let people go to hell into it, they could just as easily be deciding to send every single person that walks past their stalemate to hell. See how that works? It's OK to move on and come back later if you have time.
God has given you power and authority. If you encounter a problem, after a certain point you have to believe the problem is with the person who is not accepting Christ, not with your not trying hard enough. The same can go with personal relationships. After a certain point, all you can really do is pray for them and try again later. Are you going to chase away your family, friends, and coworkers because all you want to talk about is the Jesus they're not ready for yet?
When you make a decision to change direction, or move on, it's hard. It feels like you've wasted your effort. Maybe you think the person will go to hell and it'll be all your fault. Maybe you take it personally and think it reflects on your lack of charisma and that people have no respect for you. Maybe you feel like a quitter. The truth is that you're making a strategic decision to reinvest your limited time and energy into something that'll turn God a greater profit. Jesus is no fool. If he directed people to keep their eyes open for this sort of thing, there's a good reason why.
When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. He told them: "Take nothing for the journey—no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra tunic. Whatever house you enter, stay there until you leave that town. If people do not welcome you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave their town, as a testimony against them." So they set out and went from village to village, preaching the gospel and healing people everywhere.
Sometimes there are reasons to quit things before they're done to your satisfaction. It goes against our ideas of perseverance, but there are sometimes good reasons behind cutting your losses and moving on. The modern mindset is to yield to any emotional whim that comes up, and in trying to counter that we can often fly in the opposite and equally wrong direction of being inflexible and determined to go in a direction that doesn't lead anywhere.
Back in my nerd "glory days" in college, we did some robotics work with lego bricks, microcontrollers and motors. The idea was to build a robot to hit a certain set of goals on an obstacle course. The first step of that was to get the robot to move. When someone would finally figure out how to get the microcontroller to turn the motors on and got the right gearing to drive a set of wheels, they'd immediately quit working on the steering and sensors and drive the robot right into the wall. The robot, like a remote control car, would just sit there with its wheels spinning, going nowhere, waiting for the wall to disappear so it could continue driving that way until its batteries ran out. At that point, the robot is no longer a robot. It's just a set of unguided motors wasting energy. When we move in a direction that isn't fruitful, when there are plenty of other options that are fruitful, we are like that half-finished robot. We wear ourselves down without getting anywhere.
What had to happen with the robot was we had to write some software to help it interpret its surroundings and find its objectives. It needed to be able to see more than what was right in front of it. Over the course of many dateless nights, while others were drinking themselves into mediocrity like most college students, we enabled our creations to be able to sense light, measure distance with sonar, realize when they'd struck a wall, and to be able to decide when it was time to turn around or change direction. God's done that with us, but we need to be willing to use those senses.
There were millions of people who hadn't heard the gospel when Jesus sent his disciples out. He gave them all sorts of cool powers, but warned them not to get tied up in any one place. That flies in the face of our new modern instincts to persevere despite all odds. That's because God understands people better than people understand people. He designed us, remember?
Lets look at the scenario of three villages. If you want to stay in the comfy robot analogy, think of them as objectives on the robot course. The first village is easy to share the gospel with. They're spiritually hungry and know that there's something better than what they've got. They welcome you in and feed you and call a meeting so that you can tell them what's what. When you leave, they've started having Bible studies and will be keeping in touch. If you're writing your missionary newsletter back to Jesus and your family who think you've joined a cult, this is the story you'd put in there.
Full of idealism and energy, you head on to the second village, only to find that it's not quite like the first one at all. The police show up, wanting to know who you are and why you're talking to people. They don't like you. Nobody wants to give you a place to stay because outsiders are a decadent influence on their youth, and they don't want their kids listening to whatever it is you're probably going to say. The town worships a fish on a board nailed up in the middle of the square and that's all they need. Every day, they make blood sacrifices to the fish so that it won't detach itself from the board and eat their children. It obviously works, because no fish has eaten their kids for generations. So, they don't want some outsider coming in and shaking up what has worked for them and their ancestors. In fact, you're looking like a great candidate for the next day's blood sacrifice, because all of your blather about Jesus is probably making the fish pretty angry by now.
So, you could do the modern thing and stay in the village despite all odds, yammering at a bunch of people who don't care, about a Jesus they don't want, eventually getting yourself martyred. Then you'd get a nice memorial service from the folks back home, and your picture in the church newsletter that month, maybe even a nice plaque someplace. Meanwhile, everyone in the third village misses out on the gospel because you wanted to play chicken with a wall, robot-style.
Is that the best use of your energy? Your final score is one win, one loss, game over. Can you do better? Absolutely. If you gave up on the second village, and went to the third village, you wouldn't be any worse off than if you'd stayed and died in the second village. Potentially you'd be even better, because if they weren't idiots like in village two, they'd accept Christ and your final score would be two wins, one loss, and the option to proceed to the next level. That's the kind of big picture thinking Jesus is telling his disciples to have.
Our modern stubborn thought would tell us that Jesus would not want us to let the second village go to hell. It is our responsibility to share the gospel. It's our responsibility to make them believe, even if it means our own life. They will go to hell if our own personal efforts fall short. Dig your heels in, steel your gaze, and wait for them to blink first. The problem is, people don't work like that. God knows that.
Think of the megaphone guy at his worst. You can only shout the gospel at the same people for so many days before the ones who want to be saved have done so. Anything after that point is actually having the opposite effect. It will cause the unbelievers to believe their falsehoods all the more intently in justification for having ignored you. People bitterly hate the megaphone guy and will go out of their way to counter him, because he's overstayed his welcome, not because they want to go to hell, or aren't hearing what he has to say. They've made their decision. The only rational decision for the megaphone guy is to go elsewhere and talk to people who haven't heard the good news. Leaving the mockers and blockers behind isn't deciding that you're cool with them going to hell. It's deciding that there are other people to be reached, and that you're not getting anywhere with these people.
People get caught up with this in church evangelism. They have a finite amount of time to reach as many people as they can, but every now and again someone takes a stranger's unwillingness to accept Christ personally, and will expend their entire time talking to that one uninterested person instead of shaking the dust off of their feet and moving on. If we're going to bring the whole idea of being willing to let people go to hell into it, they could just as easily be deciding to send every single person that walks past their stalemate to hell. See how that works? It's OK to move on and come back later if you have time.
God has given you power and authority. If you encounter a problem, after a certain point you have to believe the problem is with the person who is not accepting Christ, not with your not trying hard enough. The same can go with personal relationships. After a certain point, all you can really do is pray for them and try again later. Are you going to chase away your family, friends, and coworkers because all you want to talk about is the Jesus they're not ready for yet?
When you make a decision to change direction, or move on, it's hard. It feels like you've wasted your effort. Maybe you think the person will go to hell and it'll be all your fault. Maybe you take it personally and think it reflects on your lack of charisma and that people have no respect for you. Maybe you feel like a quitter. The truth is that you're making a strategic decision to reinvest your limited time and energy into something that'll turn God a greater profit. Jesus is no fool. If he directed people to keep their eyes open for this sort of thing, there's a good reason why.
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