I may have mentioned before that I’m a bit of a magpie, Can I see a show of hands from magpies please, and yes you know the gathers of the random? While I’m talking about being a magpie, the family store is a great place to gather stuff and while I’m talking about the family store I’d like to mention the great staff and volunteers we have here and I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Phyllis -------- for her 33 years as a volunteer, Phyllis has just retired from the best job in the Family Store - sorting brick-a-brac.
Back to being a magpie, I somehow think that this is genetic and that both my Mum and Dad have the magpie gene. I think that to gain the gene at least one of your parents must be carriers but if they both are it’s a dead cert.
I have a rule in relation to magpiedness and it’s this “that to get, you have to give up”. As I search through e-bay or trademe or my favourite and the next most relaxing place on earth after the outdoors, second-hand and antique shops and find some treasure that I need, you see for us magpies the word want equates to need. As I find a treasure I have to have given up something to get it, our be willing in the very near future too. For me my favourite things are books, art of different types – paintings, drawings, books, and small carved things, so the space around me could quickly become cluttered and previously has.
SO I have an established rule “to get you have to give up”, as there is a certain danger in continually bringing in and not getting rid of; particularly as the Salvation Army when they re-appoint officers, pay to shift a certain amount of stuff. it’s capped. So now as I buy, I give up, sometimes a bit begrudgingly and sometimes not wanting to, but if I sell something off it helps to pay for the next thing if I work it well.
I mentioned last week that over the next weeks it is my aim to talk about mentoring and that I’m going to be doing a series on mentoring and how we embrace the teaching of Jesus, how we learn from the scriptures of both testaments, how we journey, mentoring and being mentored in our Christian walk and how we encounter and learn to listen to God as He walks with us on that journey.
You may just now be wondering what this has to do with gathering random stuff, and the magpie gene. Well interestingly enough a similar principle applies to mentoring as it does to me gathering stuff, it’s this “to advance, you often leave something behind!”(SBI).
I said that this series is called “from here to there” it’s about moving forward from here today, with God to where he wants us, living in His will for our lives to there, that place where we are in his will.
The example that I want to talk about toady is based on two amazing men, two Old Testament prophets, one who never died and the other who was his attendant but ended up doing just as great things as his master and some would even argue that he did greater things.
For both of these men to get to their here to the there, where God wanted them, they both had choices about what they were willing to give away, for one to teach the other he had to be willing to pass on his knowledge and live an example in his life of what it was to be a prophet – but even more than that he had to be willing pass on a spiritual blessing.
For the one who was following him he had to give up his livelihood, the thing he was trained in, not to settle for what he knew but to leave that behind and be a servant to his teacher.
Let’s have a look at what I’m talking about! Let’s read 1 Kings 19:9b-18.
So here we have Elijah having a yarn with God up on Mount Horeb which is another name for Mount Sinai and he’s in a predicament, he’s letting God know what is happening how he has seen the people of Israel reject the covenant that God had made with them in this place many years before, how they had rejected the killed God’s prophets, his holy men and that he was the only one left. The Israelites had rejected God and his ways for the ways of the Baal and the Asherah.
Baal incidentally is a being who is considered one of the princes of Hell. Asherah is a Canaanite fertility goddess.
Elijah shows up the prophets of these two groups if you want to read the account of this it’s from Chapter 18.
But not only that we see that God wants Elijah to appoint himself a successor as prophet, and as we read in scripture we see that God’s plan is not the sort of plan we would have, lets read the account in chapter 19:19-21.
So here we have this great prophet Elijah who has found Elisha who was a plowman, now if you were going to pick a bloke to replace you and you were in Elijah’s place would you go to the temple and check to see who was about, a learned sort of person, I guess I would but in Elijah’s case God had already told him who to anoint as his successor, Elisha the son of Shaphat. Now to do this he appointed Elisha by throwing his cloak on him. Interestingly this started a bit of a tradition in that some religious orders wear gowns or mantles to this day and if you’ve ever worn or seen worn an academic gown it also stems from this event. Later on we have a record in 2nd Kings 2: 11-14 that goes like this;… what had happened?
Elijah had been taken by God to heaven, his prophets cloak or mantle had been past on to Elisha, Elisha had been Elijah’s attendant for some time and now the time was right for him to take his place as prophet.
One thing that comes out of this was that for Elijah to go and be with God he had to be able to show Elisha what it was to be a prophet, to anoint him as such, to pass on what God had shown him about his faith, his knowledge and his witness, also his spiritual blessing as a prophet. Also Elijah had to understand that his knowledge of the things of God must be passed onto a successor, for to advance, you often you have to leave something behind!
In all our cases none of us can take any physical thing with us from this earth, Elijah is one special man he may be the only one who never died mentioned in the Bible though it is thought that Enoch didn’t die either but there is a bit of debate around this, but back to appointing a successor.
1) (Slowly) So for any of us who are in a role where we will not be able to continue it on forever we would be wise to see that we have a duty to replace ourselves or just see that role and its function disappear when we are unable able to fulfil it.
Also part of passing on of knowledge involves letting go to a certain extent. Some in mentoring roles may wish to stay as a mentor for some time as a way to stay in touch with their previous ministry or those that they were ministering to. This can be done in the role of coach of their successor or successors.
2) Part of what Elijah did was also to pass on his spiritual blessing to Elisha an inheritance of spirit, now there seems to be a fair heap of controversy over this double portion, but it appears that it relates to a double portion that a first born son would receive in accordance with Hebrew tradition.
So from that let’s have a think about the role of a mentor and what it is to pass on an inheritance. Anyone who strengthens and instructs a person in the ways of God is doing their best to ensure that the one hearing gains not just an inheritance but an eternal inheritance, as they come to faith in Jesus or a place further in their journey with God; in doing so you give up earthly control and hand that person into God’s provision to be blessed by God as they walk in his ways.
Another way in which a spiritual blessing is passed on as a mentor or even as a person handing over a ministry to another is to verbally endorse the person who is taking over from you.
So back to the account of Elisha becoming Elijah’s attendant. What was it that Elisha had to do as he took up this role?
1) He and this might sound a bit odd coming out of scripture, but he said goodbye to his Mum and Dad and then he cranked up the barbeque.
You see, Elisha was part of a team, he was part of a working group of men who were ploughing and there were twelve men involved in this team and twenty four oxen. His response to being selected by Elijah was to dispatch this two oxen, burn his ploughing equipment and cook the meat over the equipment, remember we are talking about wooden equipment and then hand out the meat to the people to eat.
When it came to being selected to be Elijah’s servant Elisha realised that there was no return, if he was to be a prophet to the nation he was going to be totally committed there was no turning back there was no returning to the old ways, to the old career.
Once Elisha started down the track of walking in Elijah’s footsteps there was only one way to go.
2) This is something that we should consider is that if someone is to invest in us, to mentor us for a role, we should understand that with knowledge that the commitment to that role or to understanding starts with the first step.
I believe that it is reasonably hard to leave the past behind but as people following God we are commanded not to return to the ways of the old man – but to be new creations. This applies as much to being mentored as it does to our sins, and starting a journey of faith.
Remember if someone commits to help you in your journey, it is costing them something, so make it clear that you are dedicated to being trained or mentored, commit to it. Respect for those who mentor, should come with the mentoring.
3) Consider this from Paul, “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I reasoned like a child, When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.” (1 Corinthians 13:11). This is a passage about growth in love, but it could as equally apply to growth in any other thing, because as adults while we might find it easier to be childish it does not really come across to well if your forty-eight and act like an eight year old. As we journey towards adulthood we must leave something behind, to advance, you often leave something behind!”(SBI).
4) So to be mentored in the Christian Faith you may leave behind preconceptions about God, things like, God is like an eternal loving Father Christmas and every way that I act is okay because come Christmas there will be another present or it could be that I don’t need God, when the primary reason for us to be on earth is to be part of a community that God is the head of. To advance, you often leave preconceptions behind!”(SBI).
5) You may leave behind views of other people, things like bias when it comes to social strata. There are actually people who believe that because of race, order of birth, place of birth or the family they were born into that they are more worthy than other people, some even believe that because they are a certain religion and this does not exclude Christians that they are more loved by God than those who don’t belong to their belief structure. Remember Jesus died so that all of mankind’s sins could be forgiven. Leaving these sorts of things behind allows us to grow in our relationships with one another and with God.
You may have come here today to hear something about God, about what he is all about and discovered you are involved in a meeting where mentoring of one another, about moving on in your journey is the topic. The thing is that if God is putting it on your heart to journey with him, he will start by leading you to a place or people who can help you in that journey, that may be here or elsewhere. If you would like to move forward in your journey we have a place here we call the mercy seat, etc.
