Thanks, Charlie, for the reminder

The early Church worked together, women and men, Jews and Gentiles, traveling and speaking to whomever would listen, telling them the Good News of Jesus who is risen.  They worked together, even when they thought someone might need a little more information or training to do the job correctly.

In a story from Acts, Apollos was a follower of Jesus who was preaching of the need for repentance, the message of John the Baptist.  This was a very traditional prophetic message, one that John and others presented to the Jewish people – “repent and make yourselves ready for the Lord, who is coming someday (soon).”   And although Apollos “spoke and taught accurately about Jesus” two of Paul’s friends, Priscilla and her husband Aquila, felt they needed to call Apollos aside and explain the way things really were.  There was much turmoil among the Jews at this time about whether Jesus was the Messiah, or instead a great prophet.

The Gentiles had a much easier time of accepting Jesus as Messiah.  A few lines before this story in Acts is an excerpt that relates the frustrations felt by Paul and others with the Jews who refused to believe in Jesus as Messiah, as the Son of God.  Apparently, Priscilla and Aquila convinced Apollos, and he became an ardent advocate for the belief in Jesus as Messiah (Acts 18:23-28).  

As the saying goes, “There’s one in every crowd!”  Back when I was working, one of the more experienced GMs on my team was that “one”.  He had an opinion on just about every topic (usually wrong) and when confronted, he was childishly defensive, but never offensive in his rebuttals.  But his strengths in the areas I was weak in made him a good fit for my team, and he was a great guy to work with.  I worked with him for over twenty-five years.  We started working for the company within one month of each other.  Over the years, we had the same opportunities for training and advancement, but as it turned out, his priorities were not always as focused on the “team” (i.e. company goals) as they should have been, so his growth with the company became limited. 

Because our hire dates were so close, we were usually the ‘guests of honor’ at recognition luncheons the company had for us on our anniversaries.  Tradition at these events holds that the honoree says some words about his career and the people he has worked with.

At our 25^th anniversary luncheon, we both had to give our speeches.  I tried to keep mine humorous, and I choked myself and a few of my co-workers up when I referred to them as members of my family.  I went on to extol the benefits of the company and the achievement of our collective goals.  I thought I knocked it out of the ballpark. 

But Charlie outdid me that day, at least in my own opinion. 

When it was his turn to speak, he began: “While I appreciate this recognition of 25 years of service to the customer, I give all the glory and honor that my career has brought me to Jesus Christ.  It’s through His providence that I’ve been successful.”  How could he do that?  Wasn’t he the “one in every crowd?”  I must admit that I didn’t listen much to the rest of his speech.  I was too embarrassed by my own lack of humility and shame that I hadn’t given God the same credit when it was my turn. 

I have a ton of respect for Charlie because he’s unabashedly Christian.  Of course, I’ve known for a long time that he’s active in his church (that he described to me once as “Apostolic”), and that he takes his Christian faith VERY seriously.  He’s used his vacation time to attend retreats and lead youth groups on their retreats.  And I NEVER heard him raise his voice in anger.  He had even chastised our group a couple of times for the colorful language we sometimes slipped into.  After his speech that day, I felt very inadequate by my failure to recognize publicly God’s graces in my own life, and my inadequacies as a Christian in general.

As I think back on this memory, I’m reminded that we all need the help of God in our daily lives.  But in order to seek the help of God we must first realize that God wants to help us, that He can help us, and that we need His help.  Then we can come to Him and beg His help with all the troubles and problems and difficulties that come to each of us in our daily lives.  We then can follow the advice of Jesus in that beautiful line from the Gospel: "ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete."  (John 16:23-28)

Here again we can follow the example of the apostles and disciples of Jesus.  Their lives after the Ascension reveal the great joy that they attained in doing the work of God.  They’re an example for us of the joy that’s possible when we seek to know, love, and serve God in our lives.  To come to experience that joy we must begin, as they did, by heeding the words of Jesus given to us in John’s Gospel.  We must begin by learning to ask God to help us in all our needs.  Let’s pray for the grace to listen to and hear Jesus speak plainly to us.  And may His words lead us to always seek His help when we need it.