Circles and Rows: Connecting to the Spokes (Luke 6:12-19) Chris Altrock 8/10/14

Like some others at Highland, our family has been busy filling out college applications. Our daughter Jordan has one year left at Bartlett High. Thus we’ve been busy preparing for that next step of college. In many ways, the college applications as well as the visits to the college campuses help raise a very important question: What do you want to do with your life? What goal are you hoping college will help you achieve? What do you want to do with the rest of your life?

These are big questions and ones which some of us are still answering, even years after college. But while we may not have all the specifics down, I think many of us would answer that question in general with words similar to these:  Many of us long for lives of impact. We want our lives to make an impact. We want to be able to look back and see that our lives made a difference.

I read recently about some friends who were talking about this very thing. Their conversation turned to death. One of the friends asked, “What would you like people to say about you at your funeral?” One friend answered, “I would want people to say, ‘He cared about his community.'” A second replied, “I would want people to say, ‘He was a great husband and father.'” The third friend answered, “I would hope someone says, ‘Look, he’s moving!'”

There are only a few things most of us would want said at our funerals. And if it’s not “Look, he’s moving!” what we want said at the end of our life comes down to impact. We long for lives of impact. We want to know that we made a difference.

I want to describe that desire with an image. The image is based on something written by a man named Henri Nouwen. Nouwen wrote more than 40 books on the spiritual life. One of Nouwen’s favorite images was the image of a wheel. He applied this image to a text in Luke 6.[1] Nouwen helped us see that the text in Luke 6 has three components. Nouwen used three components of a wheel to talk about the three parts of Luke 6.

Let’s look at the final part:  ¹⁷ And he came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, ¹⁸ who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. ¹⁹ And all the crowd sought to touch him, for power came out from him and healed them all. (Luke 6:17-19 ESV)

Jesus, Luke tells us, “came down with them.” The “them” refers to his twelve apostles. Jesus came down from a nearby mountain accompanied by his twelve closest followers. And look at what they got to experience together: Jesus healing diseases and curing unclean spirits. Last Tuesday our staff spent time considering this text. Larry McKenzie pointed out the word “all”—“for power came out from him and healed them all.” Larry note that this is one of the over 5,000 “all’s” in Scripture. But it’s a pretty exciting “all”! All of these people who have come to Jesus are healed and blessed. And the twelve apostles get to experience this. They get to experience an unbelievably impactful ministry.

Nouwen said that this scene is like the rim on a wheel. It’s where the rubber meets the road. It’s where Jesus and his Twelve touch the streets. It’s ground level. It’s where life is really moving. And, to build off of that image, I’d put it this way:  It’s life on the rim, a life of impactful ministry.

There, for many of us, is where we want to be. We want life on the rim. That’s where the action is. That’s where the rubber meets the road. That’s where we finally take it to the streets. Lives are being changed. We’re impacting people. Many of us long for life on the rim. We’d like to be able to make a difference the way Jesus made a difference. We don’t just want an ordinary life where all we do is go to work, go to the lake, go to school and then go to bed. We want a life that impacts others.

But there’s more going on in this scene than just impactful ministry. Something led to this ministry. This ministry was the result of something that came before it. Notice what happens first in this text:  ¹² In these days he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God. (Luke 6:12 ESV). Before Jesus heals all those people, he retreats to a mountain. And in that solitude he spends the entire night in prayer. Jesus spends all night in solitude and prayer.

Nouwen called this scene the hub of the wheel. Life at the hub was a life of inspiring solitude. Just like the hub of a wheel on the back of a bike, this hub is where power came from. Without the power being generated at the hub, nothing would happen out at the rim. The rim would not roll without the power flowing from the hub.

The point is that life on the rim did not happen without life at the hub. The power for impactful ministry came from time in inspiring solitude. Jesus needed time of inspiring solitude to have the power to do impactful ministry.

A text just prior to this one illustrates the same idea:  ¹⁵ But now even more the report about him went abroad, and great crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities. ¹⁶ But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray. (Luke 5:15-16) Luke describes two things that were happening on an ongoing basis. Our English translations may lead us to think that these two things just happened once. But the language Luke uses indicates that these two things were happening with regularity.

First, “great crowds” were regularly gathering to hear Jesus and to be healed by Jesus. Large numbers of people were coming to Jesus to hear his life-changing teaching and to receive his life-changing ministry. That’s life on the rim. Impactful ministry.

But, just as regularly, Jesus was withdrawing to desolate places for solitude and prayer. Again and again Jesus retreated for solitude and prayer. That’s life at the hub. Inspiring solitude.

And two are connected. Jesus could not have vs. 15 without vs. 16. He could not have impactful ministry without inspiring solitude. He could not live life on the rim without also living life at the hub. The power for ministry flowed from prayer at the hub.

That’s a lesson I’ve been focused on for the past ten years. I’ve been devoting myself more and more to prayer and solitude during the past ten years. It’s not visible work. Few of you ever see me doing it. But it’s the only thing that makes possible what you do see me doing. I’m learning that the power for ministry comes from prayer.

And, I think, this is a lesson Highland is learning. Beverly Ralston has been quietly attempting to lead Highland more deeply into prayer. She’s led a prayer ministry for the past few years at Highland. Each Thursday she leads a prayer group. Each week she sends a prayer email. But we need more of this. Much more. As a church, we need to be living more in the hub. We need more prayer groups. We need more people praying. And if you are interested in being in a prayer group, you can sign up for one in The Commons or on our website.

A friend of mine is studying the role of prayer and solitude in the life of churches. She recently approached a church staff in Memphis, encouraging them to spend more time at the hub. But she met resistance. Not because the staff didn’t want to pray more. But because the staff knew the church members might question whether spending time in prayer was something the church staff really ought to be doing. “That’s not what we get paid for,” the staff told my friend. Somehow we have to get beyond the thinking that life on the rim can happen without life at the hub. You will never minister like Jesus until you pray like Jesus. If you want life on the rim, you’ve got to have life at the hub.

But there’s one more aspect of this scene:  ¹³ And when day came, he called his disciples and chose from them twelve, whom he named apostles: ¹⁴ Simon, whom he named Peter, and Andrew his brother, and James and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, ¹⁵ and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon who was called the Zealot, ¹⁶ and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor. (Luke 6:13-16 ESV).

After a night of prayer, and before engaging in ministry, Jesus selected twelve individuals to do life and ministry with. For the next three years, Jesus would pour himself into relationships with these twelve. He would spend more time with them than with any crowd, any politician or any religious leader. For the next three years, Jesus hung out with, mentored, laughed, cried, and did life and ministry with these twelve.

Jesus only had a handful of years on this planet. And he spent the bulk of his ministry years building community with these twelve. Jesus did not invest in some new ministry program that could be copied and multiplied around the world. He didn’t start a new non-profit institution to carry on his work after him. The primary way Jesus spent his time during his short years on earth was hanging out with twelve other guys. Doing life with twelve other guys. Doing ministry with twelve other guys.

Nouwen calls this the spokes on the wheel. The spokes represent a life of intimate community. The spokes are what transfer the power from the hub to the rim. You can have all the prayer and solitude in the world. But if that power isn’t connected to the rim by something, nothing happens on the rim. This community, these relationships, this small group became the dominant way in which Jesus made a difference in the world. From this point forward, virtually everything Jesus does on the rim he does with these twelve. And in the end, more happened on the rim with Jesus and the Twelve than could have happened on the rim with just Jesus alone.

And what’s sad about many of us is that we have missed the spokes. This is especially true for men.[2] 90% of men in this country say they don’t have even one true friend. Part of the reason for that may be the lack of effort we put into find spokes. A University of Chicago professor summarized his twenty-five year research in this way:[3]

“People believe that friendships happen naturally, and if they fail, there is nothing to be done about it but feel sorry for oneself. In adolescence, when so many interests are shared with others and one has great stretches of free time to invest in a relationship, making friends might seem like a spontaneous process. But later in life friendships rarely happen by chance: one must cultivate them as assiduously as one must cultivate a job or a family.”

In other words, community takes work. It takes intentionality. It takes time. Friendships rarely happen by chance. Getting the spokes in place doesn’t just happen. And as a result, many of us are missing them. We don’t have our twelve. We don’t have a team with whom we go on mission together. We don’t do life with others. And, as a result, we don’t live the kind of life on the rim that we could. An impactful life on the rim flows from an intimate life on the spokes.

That’s why our Reach Groups and other small groups are so important. This is a formal way to get spokes in your life. And, this year, we are starting additional kinds of small groups: prayer groups, men’s groups, and women’s groups. We want to give you as many ways as possible to get some spokes.

I’ll confess: I’ve not been on the spokes in the way I need.  Between the busyness of life as a parent and as a preacher, I’ve allowed the spokes in my life to suffer. There have been seasons of my life when I’ve meet weekly with deep friends for prayer and encouragement. But I don’t really have that right now. I’ve got the hub. I’ve got the rim. But I don’t really have the spokes as much as I need.  That’s something I intend to change.

And that’s what I want to ask you to do this week. This week, select some spokes.  Prayerfully select some spokes. This might mean signing up to join a Reach Group or some other small group. It might mean reaching out to some individuals and just asking them to become your spokes.   But whatever it takes this week, select some spokes. Jesus refused to do life and ministry alone. He could have done that. He could have easily gone on a solo career. But he didn’t. He intentionally chose to do life and ministry within an intimate community that included twelve others. Jesus chose the spokes. We need to as well.

Pixar has produced 14 feature films. They include some of the most successful and creative computer-animated movies in history: Toy Story, Up, Wall-E, A Bug’s Life, Finding Nemo, and Monster’s Inc. If making movies is the rim of the wheel, Pixar has spent a lot of great time on the rim. But what most of us may not know is just how much effort they’ve put into creating spokes as well. Originally, the company planned to build three separate buildings for their headquarters, one for the animators, one for the computer programmers, and one for management. People would remain isolated in their own building. But they changed their mind and moved everyone into an old Del Monte canning factory. One thing unique about that building is that is has an enormous room in the middle with an atrium in it. They moved everything into the atrium that all employees needed access to: mailboxes, meeting rooms, coffee bar, and bathrooms. In this way employees were all forced to visit the atrium regularly. There, they would bump into each other and interact. And that was exactly the point.  Pixar leaders believed that the more the animators, computer programmers and management spent time with each other and interacted with each other, the better movies they would eventually produce. In fact, Pixar has a university for ongoing training. The crest for Pixar University has this phrase as part of the crest: “Alone No Longer.”[4] They realized that the stronger the spokes, the better the rim.

That’s a lesson Jesus teaches us. We must be alone no longer. Every one of us needs those spokes. Find some this week.