Jesus the Teacher

When I was younger, I had a really scary teacher called Ms Crook. She has always been old, even when I see her now, she is still old!! She still wears the same old fleece jumpers and has her hair in a bowl cut, wears the round glasses and walks the same. Obviously I’m not scared of her anymore (I promise!!) but I remember one time when I was little, she shouted at me for loosing my little fleece purse that I had spent so long making in class. That was the first time anyone had told me off at school (this is before the biting incident) so it pretty much scared the life out of me.

But from then on, I’ve had some pretty awesome teachers. Throughout primary and secondary school I have come across people who love their job, which consequently makes a massive difference on the students. I’ve had great history teachers, one being the lovely Mr Orr, (who all the girls liked) but I liked him because he let us watch a great movie called Dancing with Wolves in class so we could study the Sioux tribe. He also taught me about the Industrial Revolution and the Fire of London. Great! Then I had the veeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrryyyy scary Mr Jordan (cue thunderclap and scary theme tune), but he was incredible. He was so scary that he got my awful science class to shut up for an hour and actually do some work. And then Mr Clohossy, who I bought my amazing car off of, he got me from a E-Fail in math, to a B-C!! In one year!! (mostly because I fancied him…) and then finally, (there are many more) my incredible guitar teacher, Kelvin! He is a legend and we still spend time together jamming. Kelvin’s been playing guitar for 35 years and will be pulling these amazing riffs while having a full on conversation with you about something totally different. He is encouraging, inspiring and a great laugh.


Jesus is a great teacher. In fact He is the ultimate teacher.
Lets take a look at Mark 4v3-8

‘Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed, some fell along the path and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, great and produced a crop, multiplying thirty, sixty or even a hundred times more.”

Jesus uses things that are familiar to the people who are listening. Kat told us last night that many of the people listening would have understood this because of their living as farmers.

I think that the people would not only have understood it, but been affected deeper because the way that Jesus relates His teaching to their environment. It would be like Him teaching us the parables by using stories of people in school or the office. Its not only easy to relate to because we are familiar with the surroundings in the story, but it expresses Jesus’ care for the people-the way that He wants people to learn well. Jesus understands how people work (He created us!!) and knows that we will respond to something we can imagine ourselves in.

So what do some of these things mean? Seed, sowing, sun, roots, scorching, random crows, soil……

We came up with these ideas last night:

The sowing of ‘seed’ is the spreading of God’s Word (which is an entity unto itself!) God’s Word for them would be totally different in those days….because the Bible wasn’t written yet!! Like Sarah said…..they wouldn’t just pop home and pick up their new PDA with the NIV on it, or they wouldn’t be able to get their Gideon’s from the nearest Best Western either! The ‘Word’ would have been God’s Laws, His love and redemption that was talked about from Isaiah, the talk of His Kingdom that Jesus spoke of so often, and the good teaching that Jesus was sharing. See, the Bible would have been passed down by word of mouth mostly, writing didn’t really happen just yet, not a lot anyways.

Jesus also talks about hearing in this section, later on in verse nine ‘He who has ears….let him hear!’

Anybody have ears around here?

Good - always a handy thing to have those.

So Jesus really means, anyone who is able to listen, then do!! He knew that what He had to say was important and fulfilling. He even repeats what He has to say to the disciples later on in verse 14 through to 20.
The farmer sows the word. Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desire for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it and produce a crop, thirty, sixty or even a hundred times what was sown.

Now, if your Mum says something more than once, you know she means it. This doesn’t always apply to my Mum because she forgets that she has told me something, and sometimes tells me more than twice in a day!! If someone tells you that need to do something, and says it more than once, you know they really need you to do it. Or if a friend encourages you about something, more than once, you know it really blessed them somehow. God decided to put the Gospels in four times!! Jesus tells this parable more than once and is repeated in other gospels. So He means it. He knows that this stuff is the food for our souls.

We also looked at some of the meanings in this bit of the bible. What does it mean to have no root? What are the thorns? What is good soil?

So, the word goes out, people hear it. Some of it goes to people who don’t recognise Satan’s schemes in their life, so it gets stolen from them through temptation or persecution. Others hear it, and don’t really let it soak into their life, so when hard times come, they give up. Some people in this parable hear God’s word but let other worries in this life take over, they let wealth rise up and take God’s place. It says that these things ‘choke’ the good in our lives.

Like we were saying last night, some things in our life aren’t bad to have there. But they get bad when we let them take the place before God. So the desires of this life, like career, grades and relationships are all good, only if they stay underneath God’s place in your life. Letting God be first in our lives also helps to keep our focus’ right. And then some people hear God’s word and receive it, they let it soak into their entire lives and they produce a crop!!

But don’t worry. You won’t sprout crops. It means that if we let God’s word soak into us, it will come out again in our actions, in our way that we love others, in our words and in our conversations that we have with others.

So letting God’s good stuff permeate into all parts of our lives will produce a crop!! But how do we be good soil in the first place? How do we prepare ourselves?
Well. We make sure that all the stuff we let in our lives is good. The things we watch are monitored, the things we read don’t have place over our spiritual reading and our bible reading. Maybe for some of us that means the music we listen to, or the people we listen to. For some of us it may even mean whom we let ourselves be influenced by. It is going to be personal for each of us, but I encourage us to ask God what that is.

He will certainly tell you.

routine

I like routine. I like to know where I am going and when I am going to get there. I like to know dates and times and details, although I never appear to ask many questions. I like to know what time I get up, what I am wearing and what I will eat, in what order I will shower and brush my teeth in the morning. I like to have time to play music, to watch television and I like to know if my emails are checked or not.

Yet despite all this, I would like to think myself quite laid back. It doesn’t really bother me if details of my day change because I’ve gotten so used to having plans and then have them change, it is no longer a surprise to me. I’ve gotten used, or possibly even complacent with, the fact that my God can change what He likes and whenever He sees fit.

So why is it that I love routine, yet my days seem to continually be lost? How is it that time can slip past me and into oblivion, or wherever it is that time ends up at the end of its span, when I seem to have such a tight grasp of it? Consider it like this; holding sand. The tighter you close your fist around the grains, the quicker it slips away from you. Despite your desperate attempts to keep on to what you have your hand around, it falls away, through the gaps between your fingers and runs down to where it came. But hold out your hand, cup your palm and it sits there quite content until you decide to turn your wrist and pour it out again.

The longer I seem to plan my days, or events, or even weeks, the quicker they go. For the past two years I have lived from year to year planning what I will do the next. I started off this year with the thought of what I will do the next, always hoping to come to some sort of conclusion in my life, finally finding my ‘home’ or ‘calling’ when in fact, everything I need right here, right now, is right here and right now.

I spent my summer thinking about this year ahead of me, in the midst of many things half undone. My flight wasn’t paid for with real money, half the department were waiting on tender hooks, even in the final days right up until we left Texas for Canada, waiting for their Visas. In those days I lived from weekend to weekend, slipping slowly into the world’s mentality of ‘if I can just make it through this week’. It quite frankly wasted my time. I not only wasted good opportunities, but good weather, good memories to be had and a closer relationship with God. Each day I thought about how to make it to 4o clock, trying desperately to coax my mind to wander to pass the time-missing out on opportunities to share my life and faith with those around me in my office.

It’s interesting that we use the words ‘spent’ and ‘wasted’ when we mention time. We ‘discard’ our time, we ‘use’ our time to whatever means, we don’t just live in time, or use it to measure, not only are we in a spacio temporal frame, we live in a constant opportunity that offers us to use to its full extent, our free will. Every waking moment, and even sleeping ones, we have choices to make. Either we can use our time for ourselves, for both positive and negative outcomes, we also have a choice on whether or not to use it to make a difference, whether it be for the physical world, or for those that dwell in it.

So I organise my time, mostly subconsciously and probably so that I have some sort of control in my life that often seems to have little or none. I make sure that I shower daily, and I make sure that I eat. I make sure that my parents and I are in some sort of communication, I make sure that I check my emails, update my accounts, read my book, watch some movies, I make sure that I regularly have some practice with whatever I feel like playing that day, I make sure I’m with my friends, I make sure I keep in touch with those I love that are at home and yet, somehow, the grains that I perceive to be important stay in my palm, when those that are essential slip away.
Some questions have been surrounding me lately. Mostly asking the ‘why’ question and challenging me to re think my motives in my actions and beliefs. So maybe really, my time ‘wasted’ wasn’t really wasted at all? It does not link directly with my physical actions, rather the frame of my mind and the priorities of my thoughts. My lack of time management is caused by a stray and frayed mindset-one that is not thinking on the One that keeps me in perfect peace.

excuse me, but he loves you....

A friend of mine told me yesterday that she went up to a girl on the street and told her that Jesus loved her.

Firstly, I was struck by the boldness of someone, to just go up to an individual and speak to them a universal truth, that unfortunately does not come naturally to some [including me]. And then I thought about this some more and had a bit of a scare….

Why don’t more people come up to me on the street and tell me Jesus loves me? Do I repel others? Is it something I ate this morning? If this truth is so life changing, why am I not bombarded with strangers from all over the world, coming up to me and telling me the Good News? Why am I not bombarding strangers with it?

Jesus talks about the Sowing and Reaping principle.

The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him. Matthew 12v35

What a man sows, he reaps. You plant apple seeds, you get apples [and get this-it doesn’t actually grow inside you if you eat an apple core….I really should tell my Mom to stop telling me that…..I don’t think she knows!]. You plant wheat, you get a harvest of wheat. So if I want more people to be talking about the Good News, does this mean I have to do it myself?

Talking to strangers doesn’t come exactly natural to me. In fact, it is probably the one thing that I try to avoid the most in any given situation. Now, you can’t exactly ignore the lady behind the counter at the Supermarket, because that would be extremely impolite-and if my Mum has taught me anything, it is to be polite, because ‘manners don’t cost you anything’. But you can easily ignore the lady that sits next to you on the bus by reading you book or turning your ipod up louder [this is my method]. I noticed once, when I lived in the North Shore, that almost everyone that takes the Sea Bus to downtown is always excruciatingly attached to an extremely good book. Or I will assume they were good books because no one ever looked up from one to stare at the stranger that was cramped unnaturally close to them, both opposite and in front.

And what gets me the most is that there are people who just love talking to others, and they don’t appear to have faith in Jesus at all. On my way to a posh mall in West Vancouver, I witnessed a conversation between two very recently met strangers on the bus. A girl around 16 was sitting listening to some sort of heavy punk music [I could hear it myself and was quite enjoying it] when a lady came in and sat herself right next to her; despite there being a numerous amount of empty seats elsewhere. They instantly got into a conversation and the woman even asked to listen to her headphones!! They exchanged names, job titles [one was a student, the other lady owned the Booster Juice shop on the North Shore] and taste in music. It was quite an experience just watching the whole scene. And I questioned myself. Why don’t I do that more often? It really does not take much to start a conversation surely?

So a few weeks later, I sat next to this dear old lady on the bus [after shopping again…] and said something like ‘gosh, isn’t it lovely weather?’ [Of course, a very natural topic to me, being British!] And we were off. We talked about skin care in the sun, the difference between the North Shore and Downtown, and she told me the history of her vacations, how she had travelled all around the world to go on different holidays. I told her why I was in Vancouver and we talked about all kinds of grownup things on our 20-minute bus ride back to 15th and Lonsdale.

I’d done it. I had officially broken my barrier in talking to strangers. Since then, I have found myself having all kinds of weird conversations with all sorts of people, talking about music, London [because apparently, according to most Canadians, that’s where everyone comes from in England] healing from God, I even spoke to a women who was, at the time, called Margaret, but wanted to change her name to Robert.

Jesus calls me to ‘go and make disciples of all nations…teaching them the commandments I have taught you.’ Matthew 28v16 onwards. I never realised that to tell people about Jesus I have to actually speak about Him.
I was inspired by Ali’s confession of Jesus to a girl on the street. I want to do that more. But my problem is…I have to actually talk to people…….!

hero

One of my fondest memories in elementary school in the UK is when a couple called Brian and Sue used to visit us on a regular basis to give assemblies and presentations . They weren’t particularly financially ‘rolling in it’ and nor would they have been deemed ‘professional’ by the professionals themselves. But the one element to them that I remember the most was their charisma, and their ability to get themselves etched into my memory, even as I enter my early twenties.

It was memories of wonderful people like that, that were 100% driven by a passion for what they wanted to do, that drove me to join a British youth and schools missions group that plants themselves into an area for a year or more, and works to connect the local school with the local church.

I’ve grown up always wanting to make a difference. It seems to be a part of my make up, and I remember as a kid, on a few occasions, taking friends and family down to my local duck pond to pick litter. And then as I grew older, I joined the school council, I got involved in as much as I could as a teen at high school, and then one summer, I suddenly found myself becoming a Christian and joining a local church in my home town.

Since then, I’ve found my passion for wanting to make a difference explode. Being a girl, I guess people expect you to play with dolls and talk about horses and boys. Which I did, no doubt (and continue to do….), but there was and still is, something inside of me that leapt and explodes into life when I watch Superman, X-Men, Spiderman or even a Bruce Lee movie. I love the idea of fighting for justice-being a warrior. I’m passionate about the concept of being a hero-and after a long time of thinking; I truly believe that it’s not for personal gain. I totally, 100% believe that it is just who I am. Whether you believe it or not, you are created for a purpose. Whether that is to head up a family, start a world changing business, start a city changing charity, or whatever. My purpose, I have discovered, is to work with people-to try and make a difference.

That’s why I moved to Vancouver with this charity. For a start, I wanted to see a new part of the world and then I realised the actuality of what I was embarking on when I first stepped into a school January of 2005. I met amazing children, wonderful and passionate Grade One students in a school downtown and all I did was make bead key chains with them as a helper in a lunch club. But it was incredible. Then as the year went on I was able to volunteer at a funded reading program where I worked with the same class twice a week helping with one-to-one reading. I was privileged to experience these beautiful six year olds grow in their ability to read. That was it I was totally pumped and fuelled and again, this year I have fallen in love with twenty incredible, mind blowing six year olds, who I have the joy of working with three mornings a week.

I know I’m doing it-I know that I am living the life that God has created for me, and it is so exciting.

I’d love to challenge you-find that thing that gets you totally fired up inside, it can be anything! And do it. Get out there and live the life you are called live -whether or not you believe in God.
You will be amazing.