Why me?

Every Thursday morning on the campus of Point University, a group of faculty, staff, and students meets to observe the Lord’s Supper. Dr. Barry Blackburn and I have been leading this service for about ten years. We started the service in part because we were concerned about how many students come to Point University from faith settings where the Lord’s Supper is not given much attention and others from faith settings where, though observed weekly, the Lord’s Supper is not given much attention.

I have come to see this brief service as one of the more meaningful things I do in the area of spiritual formation each week. We read Scripture, we pray, we confess our sins, we share with one another the peace of Christ, and of course participate in the partaking of the body and blood of Jesus. At the end, we go in peace to love and serve the Lord!

Today, Maundy Thursday on the Christian calendar, we read big portions of John 13 and 14. Dr. Blackburn was away from campus today, so I both led the service and did the homily. (We normally alternate those roles.) Because it was Maundy Thursday, I wanted the service to acknowledge that on what appears to be Thursday of His final week of life on earth, Jesus washed His disciples feet, He gave them “the new commandment,” and He gave us this meal – a meal for these “in-between-the-times” times in which we live and the meal that anticipates the great wedding feast of the Lamb of God.

Because of limited time, I decided not to actually wash the feet of those who came to the service – though that certainly would not be an inappropriate thing to do. While working on the liturgy of the service for this morning, I decided that after reading the part of John 13 where Jesus makes it clear that His washing of the disciples’ feet was intended to be an example to us about serving – we would go out to the aisles of Westside Chapel, get on our knees, and pray about our role as “foot-washing followers of Jesus.”

We did. And I can’t begin to write adequately of how it impacted me to see a group of college students, up at 7:30 a.m. for communion, on their knees praying about what it means to serve Jesus. It made me wish I could bring some of the critics of college young people in general and Christian college young people in particular in for a look. And if I could do that, I would also want them to somehow take a look at the hundreds of Point University students who spent this past Tuesday on Spring Ministry Day, serving in the name of Jesus, people from deep in Atlanta’s worst zip code to Valley, Alabama and lots of points in between. Then I’d want them to see our campus this past Saturday, as our fifth Global Mission Conference was held – an event entirely planned by students who are determined to be a part of God’s plan to renew and restore His creation. Of course I would want the critics to take a look at the volunteers from two different churches who provided the meals for the GMC – and who apparently thought that by serving, not criticizing, Point University students, they had been blessed to hang out with some of God’s best. On the way back to the Maundy Thursday service, I’d want them to stop by chapel on Wednesday, where our humanities faculty had such a great conversation about how important it is to understand human culture if your goal is to transform human culture.

Of course the critics would probably miss all the sights and sounds of “kingdom people doing kingdom things” by noting that, like we did on Ash Wednesday, when the vast majority of our students made a commitment to focus on how things ought to be instead of how they are, we have gone “gaga” over Maundy Thursday. Of course they will do that while thinking about how to spend “Good Friday” off from work and how many visitors will be in their “Easter” Sunday services! But God forbid that we take advantage of a season of prayer and fasting and get on our knees on Maundy Thursday to focus on what it means to be a “foot-washing follower of Jesus.” And even though I can’t take credit for thinking about this while getting dressed this morning, I actually wore a lavender shirt and purple tie to our Maundy Thursday Communion Service – the liturgical color of Lent. Could be named Pope by this time next year!

I really do understand that the idea of a Christian Calendar is not in the Bible and was developed by early Christians as a means of keeping believers focused on the life of Jesus. I don’t think for a moment that they were creating a Holy Spirit inspired rhythm for the life of the church that unless you follow, you can’t possibly be Christian. But not every tradition is bad – and there is a huge difference in learning from tradition and traditionalism. The same believers who helped create the Christian calendar were also involved in the process that resulted in the canon of the New Testament. Just because something is “tradition” doesn’t mean that to follow it makes you guilty of putting tradition over Scripture!

So, to set the record straight, I know that Ash Wednesday, Lent, Holy Week, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter are not New Testament terms. I also know that neither is “church building,” or “piano,” or “organ,” or “guitar,” or “praise band,” or “PowerPoint sermon notes,” or “church boards,” or whatever else you want to add to the list.

I doubt that anyone on the campus of Point University knows more about the imperfections of our students than I do. My job description includes addressing those imperfections. My guess is that we practice more “discipline” on our campus than our critics do in their churches if they all combined their records.

It just makes me wonder what gene mutation – spiritually speaking – causes people to be critics instead of creators! For me, it’s really down to “why me?” That is, I haven’t yet figured out why God allows me to be a part of a group of students like so many are at Point University – traditional students and Access students. It is a blessing for which I will be eternally grateful!