Trust: follow the leader

Here's my third and final thought on the subject of trust. Last week I closed with the idea that growing in faith is not only about learning to trust God more, but also about living in the knowledge that God has put his trust in us. To briefly recap: at the very beginning (in the Garden of Eden), God entrusts Adam and Eve with his creation, and entrusts them with the purpose of filling the earth with his blessing - a task that can only be accomplished in partnership with God, trusting in the one who had put his trust in them. But instead of dependence, Adam and Eve chose independence, and trust was therefore broken.

So with the coming of Jesus we see the beginning of recreation (or restoration). And as Jesus goes about his ministry of building God's kingdom (ie. extending God's blessing to the world), in complete dependence on the Father, we are reminded of how things were always meant to be. And not only that, we are invited in to this divine work.

To explain this more you need to get your head around how rabbinic schools operated in first century Judaism. A Rabbi would show up in town and hunt down pupils that displayed real potential. Rabbis chose these pupils with the belief that, in time, they could do what he did. Therefore, the very process of choosing was a demonstration of the Rabbi's belief (and trust) in the students. The students would then become the Rabbi's disciples, learning all that Rabbi knew in order to do all that the Rabbi did.

So, with that in mind, Jesus shows up in Galilee and finds some unschooled fishermen and says 'Follow me'. Implicit in the invite is Jesus' belief (and trust) that these disciples could do what he does. So as they begin to follow and watch their master, they are initiated into the things of the kingdom. They witness Jesus heal the sick, cast out demons and proclaim the kingdom. And then comes the defining moment where Jesus, as the ultimate demonstration of his trust in them, sends them out to carry on this work of building the kingdom.

Rob Bell beautifully describes how this understanding of discipleship and trust is the background to Jesus' invite to Peter to walk on the water. We've tended to focus on Peter's trust in Jesus as the key to Peter's success or failure to walk on the water (which is definitely part of the equation). But this is also about Jesus' trust in Peter. Peter's question (Lord, if it's you, tell me to come to you on the water?) points to Peter's inner struggle to believe that as a disciple of Jesus he should be able to do what his master does. Jesus' invite therefore carries a significant message to Peter: "I believe that you can do what I do, so come and walk to me on the water."

Most of us really struggle to believe that God might dare to believe in us. But in the Great Commission we see God yet again saying to his people "I'm empowering you by my Spirit to continue the work of my Son, and I believe that you can do it." In the same way that Jesus called his first disciples, he now whispers to us, "You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last." The choosing implies his belief that by his Spirit we can and will be what we were always created to be - workers in his kingdom.