A Good Friend

Early on Monday morning, August 27, just as I was beginning a time of worship and devotions for the Point University staff, I learned that my good friend and former colleague at what was then Atlanta Christian College, Don Jeanes,  had died suddenly.  I’m still trying to process that news – no one I know would say that it wasn’t shocking.

Don and I worked together at ACC for about eight years, before we both left the full-time employment at ACC to work in churches. He moved to Johnson City where he was on the staff at First Christian Church and I became the minister at First Christian Church of College Park.  Much of the time we worked together he was vice president for administration and I was dean of students – and of course we both taught in the classroom. Those were challenging days at ACC and Don worked overtime in making ends meet and I tried to make sure I did my part in keeping the ends in the realm of possibility when it came to meeting.  We both served together on a board for ministers in Georgia and Florida that focused on affordable health insurance. That wasn’t any easier at that time than it is now!

In the summer of 1983, we went from seeing each other nearly every day, eating in each other’s homes and going out to eat together, to seeing each other occasionally. We sometimes would meet in Atlanta for breakfast or in Johnson City. We often saw each other at the North American Christian Convention and a time or two at an event connected with Christian Missionary Fellowship. 

As a child, I suspect I would have defined friend as someone close by who will come over and play. As an adult I’ve come to understand that friendship isn’t about proximity as much as it is about common ideals, common faith, common commitment. Don never failed to ask about my wife and children – even my parents and Vicki’s parents. Our conversations easily picked up where they last ended – no matter the time that had slipped by between them.

Oddly, or providentially (and providence can be odd, so perhaps both) my devotion for the Point staff that Monday morning was based on 1 Thessalonians 5:14, where Paul encourages us “to admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, and be patient with all.”

When I think about Don’s life, from the time I first met him in the summer of 1976 to the last conversation I had with him, I think those words from Paul are apt descriptions of his life. Don was very good at admonishing those who saw life and ministry as an opportunity to be lazy and still get a paycheck. He was a great encourager for those who were down and out, troubled, and fearful. I could tell countless stories of how he helped people struggling to get the Jesus story integrated into their own lives. He was intense about life – but that intensity was shaped by a patient willingness to help anyone and everyone get to the next step.

The death of a friend hits us in ways that that can be a challenge. When we lose family members, other believers are quick to offer a helping hand. Sometimes we don’t do so well when other believers lose friends. But the water out of which we are born into Christ and create friendships marked by the common faith we have in Christ is sometimes thicker than blood!

To call yourself a friend of Don Jeanes means that you are standing in a long line of people who know that their circle of friendship has been lessened today because he no longer walks among us. But equally true, to call yourself a friend of Don Jeanes means that you understand the outcome of faith is always victory over the world and there is a sense of sober celebration in knowing Don’s victory.

Don lived a life where, because of his faith in Christ, he admonished the unruly, encouraged the fainthearted, helped the weak, and was patient with all. I’m grateful that I was among his circle of friends and experienced his gift for ministry.

Creators or Participants

In his great little book, Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer says “Christian brotherhood is not an ideal which we must realize, it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate.” (page 30)

When I read those words, my first instinct is to remind myself that I should see what I do as participating in what God is actually doing rather than to see myself as creating what God would like to create. That idea alone could help us greatly with the important distinction between “God’s will for my life,” which can easily become a bit self-serving; and “God’s will for God’s life,” which will always focus on what He desires, not what I desire.

Interestingly, when Peter, speaking on behalf of the other disciples declared “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God,,” (doing so in perhaps the most pagan region Jesus ever visited) Jesus responded by saying “upon this rock I will build my church” not “that’s great Peter, you can build a great church with that idea.” (Matthew 16:13ff)

While attempting to help the Corinthian believers understand the difference in creators and participants, Paul declares, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth. . . For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.” (1 Corinthians 3:6-9)

The “historic reality” is, of course, that Paul is the missionary who was brave enough to attempt to plant a church in Corinth. But if those words quoted above reflect his understanding of that process, the “theological reality” was that he was a participant in what God was doing, not the creator of the church in Corinth.

Somewhere in all of this it seems to be fairly clear – though not always easily accepted – that by our participation in the work of God – being kingdom people doing kingdom things – we become His fellow workers in advancing the kingdom all over the world. Like Paul as one who planted and Apollos as one who watered, we are partners with God in the growth that He wills for His kingdom. That will, of course, is best expressed in Scripture by Peter, who declares, that God is “not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9)

Seeing ourselves as creators is far beyond any of our pay grades! Seeing ourselves as participants immediately reminds us that it isn’t a pay grade at stake, but the marvelous grace of God who is willing to allow us to be His fellow workers.

A prime example – at least it seems to me – of how this might work differently is our current cultural confusion, debate, and obfuscation about marriage. So many are attempting to “create” what a marriage actually is. That is happening on both sides of the debate. One side quotes Scripture, as read from their vantage point; the other side quotes Scripture from a seemingly contradictory vantage point.  That is nearly inevitable when humans see themselves as creators!

But I wonder what the discussion would be like if believers saw marriage as something God created that we participate in? And that in our participation, we modeled an approach to marriage that not only honored God but made the biblical ideal of marriage appear to be the only reasonable and attractive approach to the subject?

In the gospels, a life-long commitment to marriage seems to be discussed in the context of discipleship. In other words, a faithful marriage is one of the ways we model our commitment to “the rock” upon which the church is built. But that is hard to imagine in a world where the divorce rates, abuse rates, etc., among Christians aren’t statistically different from the rest of culture. Little wonder so many in our culture aren’t all that interested in seeing us as “creators” of the definition of marriage.

But what if we did participate as disciples of Jesus when it comes to marriage? Would our culture be attracted to Christ in ways we don’t see right now? Instead of seeing us as old fashioned and a bit out-of-touch, would they see us as having something important to say, and model?

I don’t know about you, but I’m relieved to know that I’m a participant, not a creator. Or, to re-quote Bonhoeffer, I am called to “a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate.”

Hope!

1 Thessalonians is most likely the earliest writing of Paul preserved in the New Testament, and possibly the earliest writing of all the twenty-seven books of the New Testament. In its very first paragraph, Paul reminds those ancient believers that he and his traveling companions were “remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1:3)

In the very first paragraph of anything we have that Paul wrote, he mentions those three massive nouns – faith, love, and hope. Even in the most casual reading of the rest of his literature one will quickly notice that those three nouns (and also often in their verb forms) play a crucial role in what he has to say about how the Jesus story (“we preach Christ crucified . . .” in 1 Corinthians 1:18-25) should impact the lives of those who choose to believe and the cultures in which they live.

All three of those words are challenging! I recently listened to a recording of C.S. Lewis reading his wonderful little The Four Loves and was again amazed at what a “massive noun/verb” the idea of love really is. The whole “faith/believe” concept in Scripture could (and should!) occupy our thinking daily. But hope is a big word as well.

A part of the problem for me with this word is that we use it in some many different ways in English. Stop by a convenience store to buy a lottery ticket (not saying that I do) and the sales person is likely to say “hope you win.” But the managers of the system that picks a winner knows that you’re more likely to be struck by lightning twice on the same day. Despite failing to engage in class all semester, most students will turn in the final exam with a “hope I passed” comment of some kind. Parents who invest little in the area of discipline and instruction for their children, somehow “hope they turn out okay.”

Is that what Paul had in mind when he commended the Thessalonians for the “steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ”? Surely the sense that we have that somehow God is on our side and nothing can stand against us (Romans 8:31ff) isn’t quite as fickle as “hope you win” or “hope it turns out okay.”

So, despite the fact that you and I live in a world that seems more “hell bent” than “hope bent,” what is there about hope that gives me confidence to trust (faith) in God’s redemptive promises (love)?

Three simple ideas give us a place to start thinking about that. First, hope is never ego-centric. My hope is not rooted in my own sense of self. Hope is rooted in what God has done in raising Jesus from the dead. Second, hope is not dependent upon my good works. It would be utterly impossible for me (or anyone) to do enough good works to deserve what God has promised. With Paul, we declare “Christ in you (us), the hope of glory.” (Colossians 1:27) Third, hope is a gift from God. From Paul’s perspective, we must always see our lives as “abounding in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15:23)

I have been trying, it seems like forever, to come up with one word in English that covers what Scripture teaches me about hope. I haven’t succeeded in that quest, but have been able to use two words that seem to say what I think Scripture says about hope. Those two words are “confident assurance.” I know that phrase would make translating the Greek word for hope a bit cumbersome – “Christ in you, the confident assurance of glory” just doesn’t have the ring that “the hope of glory” does. And I really don’t think we should give up on the great vocabulary of our faith just because those same words are used in so many different ways or because people don’t understand them. (See William Willimon’s The Intrusive Word for more on that.)

But I do think we have to explain ourselves in ways that give those words the same content that biblical authors and biblical readers would have had. For hope, I think that means we always think “confident assurance.”  

There isn’t a whole lot going on in the world around that gives us such “confident assurance.” But when I think about what God has done for us in Christ – that’s a different story!