Center for Creative Ministry A research organization and research center for Seventh-day Adventist pastors and their congregations
A Day in the Ministry of Jesus
The old proverb “Don’t judge another person until you’ve walked a mile in their moccasins” is often attributed to various Indian tribes, but it actually comes from an 1895 poem by Mary T. Lathrap, entitled “Judge Softly.” The poem contains several variations of the closing line, “Take the time to walk a mile in his moccasins.”
Essayist Mary Adams Belk examined several “Walk a Mile” projects intended to help people understand other cultures. Some take a light-hearted approach to the serious task, such as the “Walk a Mile in Her Shoes” marches, where men walk a mile in ladies’ high heel shoes to call attention to issues of sexual and domestic abuse.
Others are more grim. One of Belk’s Auburn University students pretended to be a paraplegic to see how campus life treated disabled students. One disheartening incident summed up his experience. He accidentally dumped his wheelchair on a broken sidewalk, and “as he struggled to get up,” Belk reports, “determined to keep up the ruse, students walked around him laughing and calling him ‘Crip’ and ‘Ironside,’ alluding to the wheelchair-bound television lawyer.”
One of the more elaborate attempts to understand the life of another culture is chronicled in the book “Black Like Me.” In 1959, author John Howard Griffin underwent several medical treatments to temporarily turn his white skin brown. He then roamed the American South to journal his experience of racism from the other side of the color barrier. He thought his report would only interest sociologists, but “Black Like Me” sold millions of copies, and is now considered a classic. “Black Like Me,” says Gerald Early, a black scholar at Washington University, “disabused the idea that minorities were acting out of paranoia.”
Beck then concludes her essay on improving cultural understanding with another old adage: “Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in his shoes. That way, when you criticize him, you’re a mile away, and you have his shoes.”
When Jesus began gathering a group of students to take up the mission to spread the gospel of the kingdom to the world, He invited them to learn by walking with Him. Mark jumps into the story of Jesus’ ministry by reporting on an extraordinarily busy Sabbath.
After calling Simon, Andrew, James and John to follow Him, Jesus took them with Him to church the following Sabbath. There, Jesus preached an “amazing” sermon (Mark’s word), and followed it up by casting a demon out of one of the congregants. After church, they went to Simon’s house where Jesus healed Simon’s mother-in-law, and then she fixed them lunch.
After sundown, the whole city of Capernaum came with their sick and lame loved ones for Jesus to heal. Then Jesus demonstrated a valuable lesson to these early disciples: he got away to a quiet place for a bit of well-deserved R & R. After that, he launched into another frenetic round of healings and exorcisms. Those first few days of walking with Jesus powerfully demonstrated the exhilarating lives these disciples would live from then on.
While we may not entirely understand the cultural context in which the Scriptures were written, we can take the disciples’ example and walk with the Holy Spirit in Jesus’ footprints.
For Reflection
Connecting: Humans employ different learning styles: some students learn well in a classroom lecture setting, and others prefer working in the laboratory. Some learn by watching, then doing. Others need the freedom to be creative, and learn best through their own trial-and-error experiences. What is your most effective learning style?
Sharing: When you reflect on the quality of mentorship you’ve received in life, which of these statements best describes your experience?
- I had one special mentor that poured life into me
- I have enjoyed meaningful relationships with several mentors
- No one took a special interest in me; I’ve learned life’s lessons on my own
- I am now trying to emulate what I learned from my mentors by sharing life with others
- Mentors are fine, but my best learning comes from studying and imitating the life of Jesus
- Other:
Applying: Is there some cultural or social group that you’d like to know more about? How could you effectively “walk a mile in their shoes” to experience life with them?
Valuing: Imagine yourself going through the experience of the early disciples with Jesus. How do you think you would respond to the invitation to give up your job, leave your home, and throw yourself into such a harried existence as Jesus exhibited those first few days? Take time to evaluate your own walk with Jesus—are you really walking the walk that Jesus has called you to?
~ Chuck Burkeen
Lately, I’ve been enjoying poorly-crafted stories, stories in which the authors decide the plot by the seat of their pants, events happen haphazardly and may have no bearing on the outcome, and the characters present themselves flatter than pancakes.
What makes these stories enjoyable? The humor aside, the lack of details leaves a lot up to the imagination. The backstories of the characters can be pretty much whatever I desire them to be. I’m basically left in control.
Good storytelling, on the other hand, is clear-cut … isn’t it?
Jesus, the master storyteller, shared the simplest, clearest parables and yet many who heard were unable to interpret the meaning. Even the disciples asked for clarification!
Jesus explained, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables so that, ‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!'” (Mark 4:11-12 NIV)
It wasn’t Jesus’ desire that the listeners wouldn’t understand – otherwise He wouldn’t say that some seed would produce a crop greater than what was sown (Mark 4:20) – but rather a fulfillment of prophecy (Isaiah 6:9-10) that those who hardened their hearts against God would know the Truth and yet reject it.
When you read the Bible, why do you read? Do you pray for the Holy Spirit to open your heart and mind to the divine messages?
Stefani Leeper | Content Coordinator
The Center for Creative Ministry is fully recognized by the North American Division (NAD) of the Seventh-day Adventist Church; it is also a 501c3 nonprofit organization which makes donations tax deductible in the U.S.
