No Appointment Necessary

David R. Peters

© July 9, 2006

No appointment necessary. Have you ever seen a sign that said that- maybe at a car repair place or at a hair salon? It always seems a bit odd, doesn’t it? No appointment necessary means that we don’t have to plan around someone else’s schedule. We don’t have to plan ahead. It always is a bit strange when we can just go, and we don’t have to think about it too much. Perhaps this is also why following feels so weird sometimes. Jesus just wants us to have faith, and go- go into the world to teach people about God. Not really worrying too much about what’s ahead. Just trusting in God to get us through. God wants us to just go!

It feels strange when we can just go into something, because we are so used to planning ahead for everything. We save our money for a rainy day, in case times get tough. We buy good insurance to plan ahead for those times that we are sick. We try to plan ahead for when we want to retire, and where we want to retire to. The fact is that we look at most of the tasks in our daily lives as things that can be planned ahead for on our calendars. We schedule business meetings, doctor’s appointments, and when we will pick up the kids from their various activities after school. Often times, we also plan ahead for when we are going to have fun. We plan when we are going on vacation, when we are going out to eat with our families, and when we are going to have a family member’s birthday party. We even try to plan ahead for those things that we know that we can’t possibly plan ahead for! We watch the weather forecast each morning, so that we know whether or not to bring an umbrella to work. We try to predict which roads will be the least congested, when we are going somewhere. We try to predict how long it will take us to get to work, get to the grocery store, and get to church. We seem convinced that there is nothing in life that we cannot predict, schedule, or pencil in. Life is a calendar of events, and we plan everything! Or at least, we try, because we know that this is the smart thing to do. We think that planning will lead to efficiency and success in life. We will be able to live our lives to the fullest, if we just plan ahead. So we continue to plan each week, each day, and sometimes each hour of our lives.

And this behavior extends over to our relationship with God as well, doesn’t it? We often make decisions about how we practice our Christian beliefs, on the basis of what the smart thing to do is- what the most well-thought out plan is. For example, when we as the church try to schedule a time for one of our children’s ministries, we try to figure out when we think that we can get the most kids. When we try to figure out what new ministries the church needs, we simply look at who already is in our congregations and tailor our programs to suit their needs. When we worship together, we often go with what we have been doing in the past without even thinking about it. We play it safe. We go with what has worked, or what we think has the best possibility of being successful. Maybe this is even true of our personal spiritual lives as well. Maybe we figure out how much money we need for ourselves before we figure out how much to give to God in the offering plate. Maybe we figure out how much time we need for ourselves first. Then, if there is any time left over, maybe we read scripture or pray. Maybe we put all our energy and talents into doing our jobs during the week first. Then, if we have anything left, maybe we give it to God. We play it safe. We make sure we have planned ahead for what we need first, then we give whatever is left to God. We go with what has gotten us this far in life, or what has the highest probability of allowing us to live comfortably. We plan ahead, and use our brains. We approach our lives in the church the same way that we approach every other thing in life. We play it safe. Now I am not saying that we should start purposely making decisions that jeopardize our well-being, or that we should completely change the way that we worship. However, too often, we think that we can have a successful spiritual life, if we can only plan ahead adequately and make smart decisions. We think that we can play it safe, and still have a spiritually enriching life. We think that Jesus will reward us for good planning- that wise decision-making will equal a fulfilling spiritual life.

But there is a problem here. God rewards faith, not how wise we are. God wants us to be faithful and rely on him, not on ourselves. When Jesus sends out the disciples two by two to proclaim the gospel, he does not say to them, “well, be sure to plan well for the long journey that is ahead of you.” He doesn’t ask them if they have enough money, or if they have enough warm clothes. In fact, he tells them not to bring any bread, any money, or even an extra cloak. The disciples just leave without much of anything. They are forced to take it on faith that God will get them through. And make no mistake about it, that is a scary prospect for them! I mean it doesn’t make much sense for them to leave without any supplies, does it? I mean who knows what is going to happen to them once they get out there! They could get sick! They could get attacked by wild animals! They could starve! Yet this is what Jesus asks the disciples to do, because God does not ask us to plan well. God asks us to have faith. God wants us to trust him enough to follow him, no matter what he asks. God wants us to have faith that will follow God’s call into any situation, whether we feel prepared for that situation or not. God wants us to have faith.

Faith also seems to be what Jesus is looking for from the people in his hometown as well. Jesus heals a few people, but ultimately does very little there. And the reason he does not do much seems to be due to the people’s lack of faith. Immediately upon seeing him in their town, people are skeptical about Jesus. They don’t really give him a chance! They wonder where his power is coming from. They wonder how he knows so much. They even wonder if this is really the same Jesus who they saw grow up. They take offense at him, because they figure that this guy is too good to be true! They figure that he can’t possibly be who he says he is. He must be up to no good. So they reject them. Verse 5 says that Jesus could do no deed of power in his hometown. We know that Jesus has been performing miracles throughout the gospel of Mark up to this point in the story, so it is not that Jesus was incapable of doing any miracles in his hometown. It is not that Jesus could not physically do any miracles. But he probably figured, what is the point?! If people were just going to be skeptical, not having faith, no matter what he did, then what was the point of doing a miracle. They probably would not believe him anyway. The people’s skepticism, their over-analyzing of the situation, was getting in the way of their faith. Does this happen to us sometimes too? Jesus just wanted the people in his hometown to have faith, just as Jesus wants us, first and foremost, to have faith- faith in what God can do in the concrete realities of life. God rewards our faith. God does not reward how skeptical we are. God does not reward how well we can analyze a situation. God rewards faith.

It is not just any kind of faith that God rewards either, it is true faith. True faith trusts that God will sustain us. True faith does not always play it safe. It does not always leave us safely inside our comfort zone. It follows God’s call, no matter where it is a call to. A lot of you know that I have been working over the last month and a half as a chaplain at Presbyterian and Montefiore hospitals in Oakland. A few weeks ago, I listened to a colleague of mine describe the toughest visit that he had ever had with a family. On that day, my colleague talked to the mother of a seventeen year old boy who had just died in the intensive care unit after a horrible car accident. My colleague said that he saw the mother in the waiting room crying. He did not know her name, and she was not on his list of people to see that day. He knew that he had a lot of patients to get to that afternoon, but something inside him would not allow him to just walk away. He felt called by God. His heart propelled him over to talk with her. He just sat and listened to her pain. Losing a child of his own to a car accident made it even more difficult for my colleague sit and listen to the woman’s heartbreaking words. My friend felt her pain in his own heart. But he couldn’t walk away. He had plenty to do, and his own pain of losing a child made this situation very difficult to face. But he couldn’t walk away. His heart would not let him. God knew that that mother needed someone, and he had chosen my colleague to be with her. He felt like God had pulled him over to the woman. His true faith made him listen to God, and had put him in the difficult position of listening to a woman who was going through the death of a child, just as he had at one time. True faith had taken him out of his comfort zone. But God got him through that difficult conversation. And the mother thanked him many times for just being there. True faith may call us to some uncomfortable situations. It may involve us being vulnerable to the world. It may leave us in some places that we are scared to be. But true faith propels us to follow wherever God leads, and always trusts that God will get us through, no matter how difficult the situation is.

However, much to our dismay, true faith does not always translate into concrete results. Jesus does not send his disciples out saying that everyone who they teach about God will come to faith. He does not say that his disciples will always be successful in terms of numbers. This is not the promise that Jesus gives them. Jesus makes no bones about it. He tells his disciples to wipe off the dust of their feet in the houses that they are not successful in. Jesus is not ignorant of the ways of the world. He knows that the disciples will not be successful all the time. But God does promise to sustain them. God promises to watch over his people, and guide them through even the most difficult of times. Just like in the Exodus story, God never leaves his people in the wilderness to starve. God doesn’t leave his people in a difficult situation to struggle on their own. God gives them manna to get them by. That is, God promises to sustain those that have true faith. If we look for only the concrete results of our faith, we will probably be disappointed. We will probably get discouraged. We will probably stop trying to live a life of faith. But if we look at how God has guided us in the past, how God has sustained us through all the things that we have been through in life, then we might be surprised at what we see. Jesus did not promise results to his disciples, just like he doesn’t promise us results either. But God does promise to sustain us.

And what an incredible promise this is. When one of our loved one’s dies, God promises to help see us through it. When we are facing a difficult decision in our lives, God promises to help us figure out where to go. In a world that seems to run us over sometimes, God promises to lift us back to our feet again. If we have true faith, God promises to sustain and guide us, no matter what.

So what have we to lose by listening for God‘s call? What have we to lose by having true faith? If we are open to God’s call and we trust God to get us through, we can go boldly into the world to teach the gospel without fear. If we put faith first- before our plans, our skepticism, and our reliance on our own skills, then we no longer have to play it safe. If try to listen for what God is calling us to do, we can trust that God will sustain us. We may be able to give more of our time, energy, and money to God, and trust that God will still sustain us. We may be able start church programs with not only an eye for what this congregation needs, but also what this community needs, and trust that God will sustain us as a church in this new ministry. We may be able to incorporate new spiritual practices that we have never thought of before into what we already do, and gain a greater understanding of who God is. But it all starts with faith- the willingness to get out of our comfort zone, if God calls us to. It is sort of like riding a bike without training wheels for the first time. We know that with training wheels, we are sure not to fall. Training wheels are tried and true. But if we always ride our bike with training wheels, we never really know the full joy of riding a bike on its own. Having true faith grants us the ability to get out of our comfort zone, to lose the training wheels, in order to have a fuller relationship with God. If we are open to God’s call and we trust in God to sustain us, if we have true faith, we can go out on a limb a little. We can live this Christian life more boldly, and trust God to guide us in every step.

Having true faith is not easy. Not even Jesus said that it was. It goes against every principle that we have learned to be successful in this world. It does not require planning, brains, or shrewdness. All of these might go along with faith, but faith comes first. And faith requires that we follow God’s call boldly, and trust that God will get us through. What a promise our God has made to us. To always guide us when we are in the wilderness. To always provide for us. To sustain us not only this day, but all the days for the rest of our lives. Amen.