Jesus’ Question

by Dale Cooper

My fellow followers of Jesus:

    One question from Jesus, perhaps more than any other, compels me continually to reassess my values, to realign my priorities, to re-examine my speech and actions.  He asks:  “When the Son of Man returns, shall he find faith on the earth?”  (Luke 18.8)   It’s that question, too, that has prompted me to add my name and lend my support to the Better Together initiative.  Let me explain.

     Increasingly I’ve been discovering that becoming old, as incontrovertibly I now am, has both minuses and plusses.   One of the benefits of aging is the opportunity it affords to ask important questions.  Questions like, “Who are you?”, “What and who contributed to making you the person you now are?”  “What are your remaining goals?”.  If used wisely and well, old age grants one time both to look back and to look ahead, to remember and to anticipate.  Doing so helps one to live the gift of remaining years with joy and fulfillment.

     I have two chief remaining goals: 1. I aim to prepare well for my death,  and  2. I aim to join the psalmist in living out his life’s goal: 

“Since my youth, O God, you have taught me, and to this day I’ll declare your marvelous deeds…Even when I am old and gray do not forsake me, till I you’re your power to the next generation, your might to all who are to come.” (Psalm 71.17-18).  

     A central feature of the second goal, so I’m discovering, is to learn to tell my life’s story to my heirs.  To bear witness to them of how Jesus, by his Spirit, has used my life’s circumstances—the people who’ve shaped me, the things that have happened—to make me into the person I now am and aim to become. 

When I, a friendly neighbor to that fellow, Dale Cooper, take note of what Jesus used to make him into his follower, I see specific persons: his wife, Marcia,  and their children; his parents and grandparents;  the teachers who’ve taught him.   

    And, not to be discounted, I see the community of Christians in Holland, MI to which Dale belonged—9th St CRC.  To be sure,   these extraordinarily ordinary folks didn’t always  live in perfect harmony with one another. They didn’t always agree.  But, despite their differences, they did live faithfully and well together;  and by doing so, they set an example for Dale in their speech, their life, their love, their faith, and their purity. (cf. I Tim. 4.12)  Thus, I often hear my neighbor, Dale, singing:  “Jesus loves me this I know, for my Daddy and Mommy showed me so.”  

     Often he adds a second stanza:    “And so, too, did 9th St”

     Jesus now calls me, depending daily upon his Spirit,  to transmit his central promises and commands, the truths by which my ancestors lived, on to my heirs.  It’s no small challenge, for many young people nowadays are willing to declare:  “Jesus yes—or  maybe.”  But they are quick to add adamantly:  “Church no”     They’re unwilling/unable to see that, as Alison Morgan says, “The plural of disciple is Church.”   And why?  In part, at least, because they’ve had their fill of  the bickering and argumentativeness, the censoriousness and divisiveness, the belittling and insulting which too often marks the speech and behavior of church members, people whose character qualities ought better to reflect those who have been risen with Christ:  compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, and love.   The obvious disconnect dismays and disillusions them.  

     What then am I to do?  How to respond to my Lord who keeps inquiring: “What are you doing, Dale, to bear witness for me to the next generation?”  I hear my Lord calling me:

1. To pray for the next generation, in the spirit of II Thess. 1.11-12

2. To model Christlike speech and behavior for them.   The best teaching is done by modeling—always.  Thus, I aim, as Jesus was, to be a kalos poimen—a winsome, welcoming, alluring, attracting shepherd—in my relationships with my heirs. (cf John 10.11-18)

3.  To live well in Christian community with fellow Jesus-followers—to “worthwhile” them and build them up.  Despite our disagreements.  At times honest Christians do have honest differences.  Given this fact, our common Savior and Lord bids me--us:  “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs….Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.  Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”  (Eph. 4.29ff).  

      “Tolerance,” the (late) Tim Keller once commented, “is not about not having differences.  It’s about how those differences lead you to treat others with whom you disagree.”

     Earlier this week eleven other CRC pastors and I received the gift of participating in a two-day retreat.  We were called together for the express purpose of responding, in the spirit of Eph. 4.25, to the differences which are vexing our denomination.  It goes without saying:  We did not—and still do not—always agree with one another.  But during our hours together I sensed a Spirit-anointed increasing level of care and respect for one another.   So much so that, toward the retreat’s close, one pastor seated near me looked at the persons with whom he disagrees, and declared:  “On some issues I do not agree with you;  but, God helping me, I pledge—always—to cherish you as my sister/brother in Christ.”  He added:  “And I shall defend you in the presence of others who fail to do so.”

That’s the kind of person I want to become when I grow up.  I want to live in the spirit of “Better Together.”  And why?  First of all,  for the sake of my spiritual heirs, the next generation whom the Lord is entrusting now to my care.  And second, even more important, to bring delight and honor to my Savior and Lord, the One to Whom we, all of us,  together belong.

     These are a few of my thoughts as I aim to live out my days here on earth, and as I prepare to stand before our Lord’s face.  Soon He shall be asking me:  “How faithfully did you work, Dale,  to fulfill the longing I expressed when I asked you:  ‘When the Son of Man returns, shall he find faith on the earth.?’”