Jesus and the 12

from my message on Sept. 29, 2013, from Matthew 9:35-10:4

Life is difficult.  Life in Christ may be especially difficult.  I have seen this article floating around for years, called the Lesson.
Then Jesus too his disciples up to the mountain and gathering them around him, he taught them, saying:
Blessed are the meek.
Blessed are they that mourn.
Blessed are the merciful.
Blessed are they who thirst for justice.
Blessed are you when persecuted.
Blessed are you when you suffer.
Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is great in heaven.

Then Simon Peter said, Do we have to write this down?
Andrew said, Are we supposed to know this?
And James said, Will we have a test on this?
And Bartholomew said, Do we have to turn this in?
And John said, The other disciples didn't have to learn this!
And Matthew said, When do we get out of here?
And Judas said, What does this have to do with real life?
Then one of the Pharisees present asked to see Jesus' lesson plans and inquired of Jesus his terminal objectives in the cognitive domain.
And Jesus wept.

Life is difficult.  Those 3 words are how M. Scott Peck began his book, The Road Less Traveled.  He was a psychiatrist dealing with all kinds of difficult people.  He converted to Christianity as an adult.  I heard him speak twice here in Austin years ago.  He said that he became a follower of Christ, out of all the great world religions, because of the Jesus presented in the Gospels.  If any other Jesus would have been presented, he wouldn't have believed, but the Jesus found there was often frustrated and was misunderstood even by his closest friends.  Scott Peck could relate to that. It rang true.  Life is Difficult.

Today, we continue our Life Coach series, where we place ourselves under God's guidance, where we gain wisdom from our holy book, the Bible, where we find the best way to live.  Today, it is Jesus and the 12.

Jesus instructs as he goes along the road.  He doesn't just play Houston and Dallas, but all the little towns, like Kyle and Buda.  He is teaching in the synagogues; he is present in worship.  He is preaching good news, not bad news, about the Kingdom of God.  He is healing diseases.  He has compassion like a shepherd does for his sheep.

Then he calls his disciples by name.  Disciples are followers, students.  He also calls them here apostles.  Apostles are ones sent on a mission, emissaries for the one who sends.  There is nothing extraordinary about them.  They are only know by their family relations.  Two are given not very favorable ascriptions, Matthew the tax collector and Judas who betrayed Jesus.  They are people like us.  They are us.

Jesus gives them, gives us,  authority over evil spirits, the power to heal, the call to continue his ministry.  We are sent on a mission.  And it is sometimes difficult.  J

Jesus taught best by his stories.  I like to tell stories too.  This past Tuesday and Wednesday, I did some continuing ed. with our Hispanic brothers and sisters here in Austin.  YOu may not know it, but our English speaking Southwest Texas Conference of the UMC is uniting with the Spanish-speaking Rio Grande Conference.  So this past week I was learning from my Hispanic colleagues about all kinds of wonderful ministries going on in our midst I had no idea about.  Some of them talked about how sometimes the Latinos thought of themselves in terms of less than, as victims, as limited.  The workshop was trying to focus on assets of being Hispanic, not deficits.  One gentleman published a newspaper called La Voz.  I picked it up and read a story in it.  I told him I would have come to the workshop for the story alone.

The Touch of a Teacher

Juan's letter came today and now that I have read it, i will place it in my cedar chest with the other things that are important in my life.  The letter started with I want you to be the first to know.
I smiled as I read the words he had written and my heart swelled with a pride I have no right to feel.  I have not seen Juan Garza since he was a student in my class some 17 years ago.  It was early in my teaching career.  I had only been teaching 2 years bur form the first day he stepped into my classroom, I disliked Juan.
Teachers are not supposed to have favorites in a class, but most especially they are not to show a dislike for a particular child.  I thought I was quie capable of handling my personal feelings along that line until Juan walked into my class.
I'm sorry to say it, but Juan Garza was 1 student I disliked. First of all he was dirty.  Not just occasionally, but all of the time.  Second, he smelled.  he smelled like the crops he and his family were picking.  His hair hung low over his ears and he actually had to hold it out of his eyes as he worked on assignments in class.
By the end of the first week of school, I knew he was hopelessly behind all the others.  And not only was he behind, but he was also just plain slow.  As each day passed, I began to withdraw from him. While I didn't actually ridicule the boy, my attitude was obviously apparent to the rest of the class for he quickly became the class goat, the outcast, the unloveable, the unloved.
He knew I didn't like him but he didn't know why.  He also knew that other teachers in the school didn't like him either.  As the days rolled on we made it through the fall festival, Halloween and Thanksgiving.  By the time the Christmas season arrived I knew Juan was going to have to repeat the entire school year.
To justify holding him back I went to his cumulative folder from time to time.  He had very low grades for the first 4 years but no grade failures.  How he made it...I do not know. i closed my mind to the personal remarks written by other teachers over the years.  Remarks like:
1st grade--Juan shows promise but has a poor situation at home.
2nd grade--Juan could do better, but his mother is terminally ill.  He receives little help at home.
3rd grade--Juan is a pleasant boy, but misses too many days of school.  Mother passed away at the end of the school year.
4th grade--Very slow but well behaved.  Shows some talent for art.  Father absent often.  Believed to be working in California.
Well they passed him 4 times, but he will certainly repeat the 5th grade.  "Do him good," I said to myself.  The day before the holidays arrived we had a school Christmas party.  Teachers always get gifts, fut for some reason this party seemed bigger and more elaborate than ever.  There wasn't a student who hadn't brought me a gift.  And each unwrapping brought squeals of delight as the students tried to guess who it was from.
Juan's gift wasn't the last one I picked up.  In fact, it was somewhere in the middle of the pile.  It's wrapping was accomplished with a brown paper bag.  For decorations he had colored Christmas trees and bells all around it and used masking tape to hold it together.  The tag said:  For Miss Johnson from Juan.
The class was completely silent as I began to unwrap Juan's gift.  As I removed the last bit of masking tape, 2 items fell out and onto my lap.  One was a gaudy rhinestone bracelet with several stones missing.  The second item was a bottle of dime store cologne that was half empty.  I could hear the snickering and whispers of the other children.  At first I was embarrassed.  Then I thought, no...there is no reason for me to be embarrassed.
I looked at Juan and said, "Isn't this lovely?"  I placed the bracelet on my wrist and asked him to help me fasten the clasp.  There were a few oohs and aah's as I dabbed the cologne behind my ears.  I continued to open gifts until I reached the bottom of the pile.  we drank our refreshments and played games until the bell rang signaling the end of school for the holidays. Everyone gathered their belongings and filed out of the room with shouts of Merry Christmas.  Everyone except Juan.  He stayed behind.
With just us in the room, Juan walked toward my desk clutching his books.  "You smell just like my mom," he said softly. "Her bracelet looks real pretty on you too.  I'm glad you like it."  Then he quickly left the room.  I was in shock!
I locked the door to my classroom, and sat down at my desk.  A million thoughts raced through my mind as I began to weep quietly.  When the tears stopped I looked out the window for a long time.  I reflected on the kind of teacher I was or had become.  Then I realized what I needed to do if I dared to call myself a teacher.  I resolved to make up for the way in which I had been treating Juan.  For months I had deliberately deprived him of a teacher who truly cared.
Beginning in January, I stayed after school every afternoon with Juan.  We did extra problems in math.  We did extra work in reading and spelling.  Slowly but surely, he started to improve.  By April, he was really moving along.  Even the other students noticed that something was very different about Juan. Only once did I panic when  he missed several days of school.  It turned out that he had to go work in the fields.
When the school year ended Juan had one of the highest averages in the class.  Even though I knewhe would be leaving for California to work in the strawberry fields, I believed taht he had found a new confidence and outlook on what he could be.
I continued to teach and never again heard from Juan...until 7 years later.  He wrote me from Watsonville California:
Dear Miss Johnson,
I wanted you to be the first to know, I will be graduating from high school next month, second in my class.
Very truly yours,
Juan Garza
What a surprise!  I sent him a card of congratulations and a small pen and pencil set.  Juan Garza, I wondered what he would do after graduation?
Four years later, Juan's second letter came.  It had a postmark from Ann Arbor, Michigan:
Dear Miss Johnson,
I wanted you to be the first to know that I was informed I'll be graduating first in my class.  The university has not been easy. Although I received a small scholarship from the farmworkers union, I had to work part-time al four years to help cover the costs. But I loved every minute of it.
Very truly yours,
Juan P. Garza
Juan is graduating form college?  I thought back for a moment at how quickly the years had passed and the fact that he still remembered me.  I also recalled that Christmas party.  I decided to send him a nice pair of sterling silver monogram cuff links and a card.  I was so very proud of him.  The University of Michigan at Ann Arbor is one of the best schools in the world.  He was doing good, very good!
Today, I received Juan's 3rd letter with a postmark for the Boston area.  Like his other letters he started it with:
Dear Miss Johnson,
I wanted you to be the first to know, that as of this writing, I am now Juan P. Garza, M.D.  How about that!  Harvard was hard but I have no regrets.  I will be returning to California to do residency at UCLA and work on pesticide issues as they effect farmworkers.  And I am going to be married in July....the 27 to be exact.  I wanted to ask you if you could come and sit where Mom would sit if she were here.  I'll have no family present as Dad died last year.  It would mean a lot to me.  I can send you tickets.
Very truly yours,
Juan
I'm not sure what kind of gift one sends to a doctor upon completion of medical school.  I'll have to think about it for a moment.  But my note cannot wait:
Dear Juan,
Congratulations! You did it by yourself in spite of those like me, and not because of me.  This day has come for you.  God bless you.  I'll be at that wedding with great joy.
Very truly yours,
Miss Johnson

Life may be difficult.  It may be frustrating to follow Jesus.  You may be misunderstood.  We live in a world of overwhelming needs.  But you can make a world of difference in you world of influence.  That is the good news I have to share today.