So, here’s the question: is the old saying correct? Are old dog always unable to learn new tricks?
Now, I don’t know about you, but I am inclined to think
not. I mean, my spouse has periodically reported to me her sense that I can be
rather particular and habitual in my preferences. Every now and then I find
myself muttering something like “who’s been messing with my stuff?” And I must
admit that I firmly believe that God intended for a certain order in the
universe…after all, if God wanted us to change he would not have put pre-sets
on the car radio! But appearances can be deceiving. So can assumptions. And a close,
if grudging, reading of today’s Gospel, leads me to think that Jesus does, in
fact, believe that “Yes! You can teach old dogs new tricks!”
As he begins his ministry, Jesus will call people from
every walk of life to follow him. In fact, Jesus is very careful to
deliberately include in his band people who are from opposite walks of life. The
Gospel of Matthew tells us that when Jesus goes out to look for disciples…people
to serve as not only his followers but his students and apprentices… he does
not go to the places you’d expect. Not the synagogues, nor the Temple and
certainly not to where religious people study to be religious professionals. Instead,
he goes to less obvious, but perhaps more welcoming, places. He goes down the
seaside, and he finds fishermen and laborers. He will seek out tax-collectors
(like Matthew) and political radicals (like Simon the Zealot). In short, he
went after people who went along to get along and people who raged
against the machine. His followers will include women who own property and have
standing in their community like Mary and Martha of Bethany and there will be
women on the “outside” who were prostitutes or who needed healing, like Mary of
Magdala who might have been in both situations. He will draw to himself great
Rabbis, like Nicodemus, some of whom would only visit Jesus at night, and even
Roman soldiers, like the Centurion whose slave needed to be healed.
But for all their diversity they will have one thing in
common. They will be, as it were, old dogs learning new tricks. That’s discipleship
for you! Jesus shows us that his disciples are not just students, but friends.
And being a friend and apprentice of Jesus Christ is like being an old dog who
is learning new tricks.
They say it can’t be done! We old dogs are just too
stubborn and too set in our ways! They tell us that we have become too used to
doing things the way things have always been done them to really, deeply
change. Well, that may be so…but Jesus
has this way of meeting us at exactly the point of our greatest need and, if we
choose to listen to his call and follow him, he will take us to places we never
imagined.
God is in the creation and transformation business. All
through the Bible, we encounter stories of God encountering a person and calling
them to go to new place and do something new. There’s Abram, called in old age
to be the beginning of a new, chosen people and given a new name, Abraham. David
was a shepherd boy picked to be the King of Israel. And so many more! Each one
is a story of God starting something new and unexpected. God’s call changes
them and empowers them so that when they respond to God’s call, other new beginnings
can take place.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus walks up to Peter, Andrew, James,
and John while they are working and says “follow me! I will make you fish for
people!” These two sets of brothers are
doing their jobs, probably doing the same job their fathers did and their
father’s fathers did…they were fishermen…going through the rituals and habits
of working life that they had always known, living off the rhythms of sea and
land. And Jesus is going to teach them something new…he is going to teach them
some new tricks.
They will follow Jesus and discover that God is at work in
the lives of ordinary people everywhere, drawing people into new, reconciled,
healed relationships. They will see that God’s grace is not limited to the
special few but available to everyone. They will experience God’s special favor
growing beyond the people of the Covenant and extend to everyone, everywhere.
They will find that death is not the end of life, because in Jesus’
resurrection, God has conquered it. Over and over again, they will see and meet
people who they probably believed were outside of God’s family be welcomed into
it.
And along the way, they will learn how to tell their story
of faith. They will learn how to heal. They will learn how to pray. They will
learn how to understand the scriptures and they will learn how to teach and how
to lead. They will learn a whole bag of new tricks.
We are all called to be disciples. We are all called into
friendship and apprenticeship with Jesus Christ. We might think that we have
learned all there is to know, and that life consists of putting one foot in
front of another, bumping from event to event, maybe even from crisis to
crisis. But God knows something more about us, that we are capable of so much
more both in our hearts and in our actions. And so, he starts with us as we are,
where we are, and calls us to do and be more.
Like Peter, Andrew, James, and John, we are like old dogs
always being taught new tricks.
Not that all old habits are bad. (This is not just the old
dog talking…!) Habits can help us cope and help us function when things are
unpredictable. That’s why firefighters, nurses, doctors, and paramedics learn
protocols. Spiritual directors teach us how to cultivate holy habits of the
heart. This is how God uses how we are already wired for God’s greater purpose.
The temptation is to always do things the way we’ve always
done them; or, when we find something that works, to stick with it, and never,
ever learn to listen for where the habit is taking us. We are tempted to make
something exciting and new into something repetitious and routine. As I said, God
knows this about us, and so takes even that built-in tendency and gives it a
kind of judo throw. God will take our need for routine and give us the tool of
prayerful rhythm, and worshipful time. God will give us the ability to create
habits and the ability to reflect. And these, strangely enough, these very
habits can become some of the tools of our transformation.
As we develop a habit of prayer, of listening for God, we
will change our perspective and develop new vision. As we become used to the
idea of serving others, we will begin to see the face of Jesus in faces we
would not expect. As we become used to living in community, we will be renewed
by finding that we are not alone but accompanied in meaningful ways through all
of life’s changes and chances.
God teaches us new tricks all the time. The challenge is
for us to listen to when Jesus calls. He will meet us at the point of our
greatest need, and find us in our most ingrained habits, our most stubborn
opinions, and our most unwavering assumptions and call us to something new. It
will feel strange. Like being called away from something we’ve always known
into something exciting and real.
There are times when it feels as if it is all we can do to
keep juggling what we have always juggled. It can be disturbing to hear God
take us in new directions. It might seem like we are adding a fishbowl or a
spinning plates to the mix. Following Jesus’ call only starts out feeling like teaching
an old dog new tricks, when in fact, it is an invitation to go with God turning
our need for habits into a marvelous adventure of possibility, service, and
transformation!
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