"You Need a Yoda (a Mentor)”

Corey Fields

August 30, 2009 (combined worship)

 Deuteronomy 31:1-8

Philippians 3:12-21

Her name was Barbara Hollowell.  She came on board as the youth & college minister at my home church in Harrisonburg, VA shortly before I graduated from high school.  So, for about 4 months, Barbara was my youth minister.  For 4 and ½ years, she was my college minister.  She moved to Richmond, VA.  Then I moved to Richmond, VA.  And for the next 2 years, she was my colleague at a church in Ashland.  For the year after that, she was my close friend who I visited frequently (if for no other reason than to play with her dogs).  She gave the sermon at my ordination service.  (It was one of the best sermons I have ever heard in my life, and the woman was scared to death of preaching).  For that span of 8 years, she was one of my mentors.  In 2006, I moved here.  We have unfortunately not kept in touch very well since then.  But she was and still is my mentor.  And she will receive a copy of this sermon. 

Barbara was the one I went to after I had been thinking and praying…that I didn’t want to go into law enforcement after all.  I showed up at her office one day and said, “I think I’m supposed to go into ministry.”  She didn’t have to say a word.  Her face lit up as if to say, “I have been waiting and praying for this day.”  And she was one of the first ones I told because it was she who had taught me more than anyone else about what ministry is.  I still have the book that we used during college Bible study one semester.  (On Being a Servant of God by Warren Wiersbe).  [[Read selected quotes]]. 

Anyone who knew Barbara knew her for her laughter.  And one of the valuable things that she did for me as my mentor was laugh at me.  Yes, laughted AT – with Barbara, you didn’t have a choice.  When you did something worth laughing at, she would laugh, and it was up to you whether or not to laugh with her.  In a way that only Barbara could pull off, her laughter taught me not to talk myself too seriously.  One Sunday when I was in college, I was to give the sermon at my home church.  I had spent a lot of time on this sermon, and, to be honest with you, much of my purpose with this sermon was to wow my congregation with my speaking ability and theological depth.  I stepped out of my pew at just the right time during the last verse of a hymn.  I make my way up to the wooden stage, and I walk over a spot where some brass instruments had played earlier and left some condensation on the floor.  And on my way up to the pulpit, in front of a full congregation who is standing and singing, I trip and fall.  I look over to Barbara, and she has also fallen on the floor…from laughing at me.  And she helped me learn a valuable lesson that day.  She laughed at me when I made those slips of the tongue that I became famous for among my college friends.  She laughed at me…at just about every opportunity.  In a way that only she could pull off, her laughter helped me see myself from the outside.  Her laughter helped me not take myself so seriously.  

You remember I told that Barbara taught me what ministry was.  But she didn’t leave it at the abstract concept.  I learned from her by watching her.  And by watching her I learned what ministry was all about.  I could give many examples, but one in particular comes to mind.  I went with her and a few other volunteers from church as a chaperone on a youth trip.  During this particular youth trip, one of the other adult volunteers came to Barbara on cloud 9 because he had just had an opportunity to pray with and talk to a teenager about some major stuff going on in his life.  From what I remember, he was literally jumping up and down about this opportunity that he had just had for God to use him in a powerful way.  And I watched as Barbara talked and worked with him the rest of that trip, teaching him and helping him use that moment to begin to see himself as a minister instead of just a chaperone.  Over the next months and years, Barbara and Mike talked through his calling and his passions, and this same man is now the youth minister at Harrisonburg Baptist Church – the same position Barbara once held.  I watched her, and she taught me what ministry is all about; that it’s not about doing it yourself, but empowering others.  I saw her do what she had taught me about ministry.  “Ministry is when divine resources meet human needs through loving channels to the glory of God.”

This is what mentors do.  They do more than teach.  A mentor is, as Leonard Sweet puts it, a “Withness.”  They are walking along side you, not just being a one time witness, but a long-term “withness.”  A mentor helps you process your experiences.  A mentor is the person you sit down with and share something that has happened to you, and that mentor helps you frame, understand, and use what God is doing in your life.  What may be to you a difficult experience, a mentor can help you see as an opportunity.  A mentor makes sense of your life.  A mentor guides you towards what you’re missing.  A mentor helps you understand who you are and what you’re called to be.  A mentor has been where you’re going.  A mentor sees things that you don’t. 

Since today’s topic in the Entourage series is “You need a Yoda,” I obviously have to show a clip from the Star Wars series.  Let’s watch this exchange between Yoda and Obi Wan Kenobi in Star Wars II.  [[Play movie clip]]

A mentor sees things that you don’t, and has the precious gift of wisdom that can only come through time and experience.  As Paul said in the Philippians passage earlier, the mentor says with humility, “You can follow me as I am following Christ.”  A mentor can speak with credibility.  Paul said earlier in that passage, “One thing I do:  forgetting what is behind, and pressing on towards what is ahead.”  Paul supposedly wrote the book of Philippians from prison.  In prison for preaching the gospel, and he can say something like this.  Not everyone can say something like that with credibility.  A mentor has been where you’re going.  Paul could speak with perspective because of his lifetime of experiences up to that point.  In the Deuteronomy passage, when Moses passes the torch of leadership to Joshua, he does so after a hard and full life of wisdom-producing experiences, and Joshua had been with him, watching him, learning from him. 

You see, wisdom is not just spoken.  It is imparted.  And we all need mentors who can teach us life lessons like these:  [[read from “wisdom apples” written in last week’s ConneXion Gathering]].

I pray you have a mentor; and if you don’t, I pray that you find one.  The ancient rabbis used to quip that a person could memorize the entire Bible but could still be completely ignorant without “serving the Sages.”  In other words, (hold up Bible) this book will be of no value to you unless you have someone in your life who, by their teaching and example, helps its words come alive in your life.