Week 01 || The Slow Apprenticeship - Come and Learn || Matt 13:-25-30 & Rom 7:15-25

Kia ora and welcome to the St Francis Church

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As a church, we are learning to faithfully follow

Jesus by practicing His way at His pace. For

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among us, head to stfrancis .co .nz. Grace and

peace. Good morning, you few and faithful. Welcome

to July, kind of the cusp to the second part

of the year, the first Sunday. And it's been

certainly a mix of weather for us, isn't it?

Rain, freezing cold, but fine weather. But we're

here today, and we're starting a new series.

But first I want to ask you, who's in their lifetime

has actually done an apprenticeship? Cool. OK.

I had one other hand went up with mine on at

the earlier service. I thought it would have

been a bit more popular with some older people

if you served an apprenticeship. But I want you

to imagine something for a couple of minutes.

We're travelling back to the year 1700. You're

in a small village in the Italian Alps. You're

around 16 years old. And your father has made

a decision for you. You are going to be apprenticed

to the village luthier, which is a person who

is the maker of violins. And the arrangement

is going to go like this for you. You will live

in his house for seven years. You're not going

to be paid. You will eat at his table. You'll

sweep his workshop for the first two years. You

will not be allowed to touch wood at all. you'll

just watch and then you'll fetch tools as well

as when it's required. You will hold things steady

while he works. You will listen to him talk about

the differences between the different woods of

maple and spruce, about the grain of the wood,

about the weather and how it actually affects

the glue. You will be, to use a word that we

don't really use anymore, bound. You'll be bound

to him for seven years. And at year three, you'll

be allowed to sand, progression. At year four,

you'll be able to use the plane on the timber.

At year five, you're able to carve a scroll.

At year six, you get to varnish. And finally,

at year seven, you will make your first violin.

And it will be almost certainly terrible. I remember

my apprenticeship and the first sign I thought

was wonderful. Looked back and I thought, ah,

let's burn it. What we think is beautiful and

looking back is not really good. But you will

be a luthier after seven years. You also can

be called a journeyman. You will have a craft

after that time. You will have a way of seeing

the world that you could not possibly have acquired

any other way. Most of us, though, today, we've

never apprenticed to anything in our lives. We've

learned everything by tutorial. We've done five

-minute videos on YouTube. We've done 10 -step

guides. We've done blog posts, podcasts at one

and a half speed to learn it quicker. We've learned

the information of 100 things and the craft of

almost none. And then we wonder why our faith

feels thin, why we actually keep getting blown

around by the things of the world, why the spiritual

life seems to evaporate the moment we close the

conference book war that we've been to. But here's

a question that I want to put on the table this

morning, the question that this whole July series

that we're going to go through is going to circle

back to. And it says, what if Christianity was

never meant to be a belief system you adopt,

but a craft that you actually apprentice to?

This Sunday, we are now 14 weeks into ordinary

time of this long season, Heiwa Noa, the long

green season of the church year. After Pentecost

and before Advent. Not the high drama of Lent,

not the sparkle of Christmas. It's just the ordinary

weeks. The weeks where really most of life has

actually lived. The wisdom of the Church across

centuries is that this is a season where formation

happens. Not in the spike, but it happens in

the slow ordinariness. Not in the spectacle,

but in the rhythms and the practices that we

live out day to day. So over the next four Sundays,

we're going to lean into that. And we called

this series, The Slow Apprenticeship, The Slow

Work of God. We're going to walk with Jesus through

his kingdom parables in Matthew 13 and alongside

the long and the often messy story of Jacob in

Genesis. And we're going to ask the same question

every week in different forms. And it's this,

what kind of person am I actually becoming? Today

is week one, it's the invitation to join in and

where it all begins. And it's something that

is really just a refocus of who we're following,

who do we give our apprenticeship and our life

to, not just in ordinary time, but every day

of this year. Listen to these words from Matthew

Matthew 11 · chapter mention

chapter 11 again, some of the most famous well

-known and beloved words that Jesus ever spoke.

From those verses I want to slow down on just

three words, and the first word is yoke. When

most of us hear yoke nowadays, I think people

think of an egg. But in that time, we picture

a heavy wooden harness, the thing that you put

on an ox to make it pull a cart. And we hear

that Jesus is yoke, and we think, oh, more religious

load that we've got to take on. But in Jesus'

day, the word yoke had a specific second meaning.

It was this. Every rabbi, every jurist teacher

had a yoke. And this was known as the yoke of

the rabbi. And it was his particular teaching,

his way of interpreting Torah, his way of seeing

and being in the world. So to take a rabbi's

yoke upon you, well, that actually meant to enroll

with him, to apprentice, to live in his orbit,

to learn his way, to follow him in everything

that he did. So when we hear Jesus say, Take

my yoke upon you and learn from me He's not saying

well, here's another religious burden for you

to to take on He is saying enroll with me apprentice

with me Walk with me Learn how I see how I speak

how I love how I rest how I weep How I pray Let

my life slowly shape yours. That is the offer

from Jesus here. And he says, take on my yoke.

The second word is easy. My yoke is easy. The

Greek word is Christos. It doesn't mean light

on content. It doesn't mean effortless. This

word, it means something that is well fitted

just like a jacket or clothing that you wear

something that is suited to you kindly and it's

the right size a traditional yoke was made specifically

for the oak that it was going to go on now a

good craftsman then as nowadays around the world

would shape the wood to the curve of that particular

animal's neck uniquely to that animal a badly

fitted yoke chafed and broke the beast. So a

well -fitted yoke distributed the load so that

the animal could pull all day without injury.

It's like a well -worn pair of shoes, isn't it?

Comfortable for you. Jesus is not saying that,

hey, my way is small. He is saying, my way fits

you because I made you. I know how you're shaped.

I know what you can carry and how, and I have

designed a way that you can sustain, not by sheer

willpower, but because it actually fits the soul

I gave you. We are often trying to find what

our gifts and talents are in life. We see something

in someone else, I'd like that, and we struggle

with it because it's not yours. Jesus has placed

within you gifts and talents and the fruit of

the Spirit. that wear well, wear comfortable.

So ask Jesus, what are they? And start wearing

them because they won't be a burden, they'll

be easy. And the third word we rest on, he says

here that you will find rest for your souls.

Notice that it doesn't say rest from work or

from rest from retirement. not vacation, rest

for your souls. There's actually a soul rest,

something that is deep and inner, your being.

He says, you will find rest for your souls when

you follow the rabbi and wear the right yoke.

A lot of us, I think, by the time we hit midweek,

Wednesdayish, are bodily tired, but we're soul

exhausted. Tired in a way that sleep doesn't

actually fix. And that can be tired because we're

performing. We're being something and someone

that we're not. Tired of presenting, well, I'm

all happy and nice on the outside, but the inside

I'm crumbling. Tired of trying to be enough.

You see, the yoke of Jesus is the only yoke that

touches that kind of tired. Because it's the

only one that says, you don't have to be your

own God. Lay it down. Come and learn from me

So here's the invitation and it's plainly put

Stop being your own master and become someone's

apprentice and let it be Jesus And I think there's

another passage in Scripture that mirrors this

honestly and Paul says it in Romans 7 Because

I think he understands the apprentice's problem

better than almost anyone Let me read this to

you. You'll see it on the screen. I do not understand

what I do. For what I want to do I do not do,

but what I hate I do. I have the desire to do

what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For

I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil

I do not want to do. This I keep on doing. What

a wretched man I am. Who will rescue me from

this body that is subject to death? Thanks be

to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ

our Lord. I think it's a real honest passage,

isn't it? From someone that struggled but who

gave us all these letters of deep faith. Paul

names something that every serious apprentice

actually says, that I cannot make myself into

the person that I want to be. You can't make

yourself patient by trying harder. You can't

make yourself kind by just sheer willpower. You

can't holy your way to holy. The harder you push

from your own resources, the more you discover

you're at war with yourself. And that's not failure

when you discover that. That's the beginning

of a real apprenticeship. You and I, we don't

take Jesus' yoke because we've got it together.

We take it because we don't. And we finally know

it. The strong and the self -sufficient people,

the I -can -handle -this people, those are the

ones who cannot really apprentice because they're

doing it their way and in the limited power that

they have. Apprentices are people who have to

come to the end of themselves and say yes to

a master. Dallas Willard put it like this, grace

is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning.

Now, we will work hard at an apprenticeship,

but we will not earn anything. We will receive

and respond and follow the one who's teaching

us. And the grace is in the yoke that we wear.

Briefly, I want to bring to you the Genesis reading.

And as we go through the lecture, you'll see

in the newsletter all the gray that's of the

scripture. Those are the supporting ones to the

main passage that we're using today in Matthew.

Genesis reading, it's a long story, so I'm just

going to sketch it out. So we find that Abraham

is old. His son Isaac needs a wife, and Abraham

sends his servant on a long journey to find one.

The servant doesn't know who this person will

be. He prays a quiet, almost timid prayer at

a well that he'd stopped at, and he says, Lord,

let the right woman offer me water and offer

water to my camels. And lo and behold, Rebecca

walks up, offers him water, offers water to those

camels. The servant is stunned, and he worships

God right there at the well. But notice the texture

of how God works in this story. He doesn't come

with fire from heaven, not with a thunderclap.

He comes with hospitality at a well. But like

last week, those who receive you receive me,

the cup of cold water. He comes with a quiet

yes from a young woman who didn't know that morning

that she was going there, that her whole life

was about to actually pivot. Rebecca's word to

her family at the end of this chapter, she says,

I will go. And they are the first apprentices

words in the whole story. She doesn't know where

she's going. She doesn't know what she's becoming.

She just says yes to a journey God is on and

follows. This is actually how the slow work of

God almost always begins. It doesn't begin with

fireworks, but with a yes you can barely justify.

With a journey that you actually didn't plan

and with a quiet hand you didn't see until you

look back. Now as you scan back over your lifetime

you will see these moments and these things that

have been played out because God's placed them

there. So what does that look like for us today

in 2026? We've traveled to 1700s, we've gone

to Genesis 22, But how does that play out in

our lives today, with our phones and our jobs

and our anxieties? I want to name three things

very practically. The first one is this. Choose

a rabbi. The first thing you need to know is

that you are already apprenticed. You are. You

think you're free, but you're actually not. Now

you're an apprentice to the logarithm from the

computer or the phone. It is shaping what you

find beautiful, what you fear, what you desire.

Or you could be an apprentice to your anxieties

or shame. And they are teaching you what kind

of person to be. You live from that. But you're

an apprentice to the influence of the month,

or the productivity guru, or the political party,

or pundit of the day. or your parents' fears

from years ago, or from your own ambition. You

have a master, each one of us have a master here.

The only question is which one, and which one's

going to be the first. See, your apprenticeship

to Jesus begins with a conscious daily know to

the other masters. Most of us, I think, never

really get free of these other masters because

we never name them. We never say them out loud.

So name yours, hear it as you say it, not just

in this place, but wherever you are. And then

once you've named it, turn, repent from that,

and follow the true master. And if you're not

sure what you're following, what are some of

those things that are driving you, ask Jesus,

the Holy Spirit, to show you. So then you can

turn from them. So as you choose a rabbi, you

must also choose a rhythm and a practice. A rabbi's

apprentice didn't squeeze a rabbi into a busy

week and say, I've got five minutes for you.

And that's all. The rest of the weeks I'm busy.

They actually built their entire life around

the rabbi. And we need to do the same. This doesn't

mean dramatic reorganization of your Google calendar.

It means a few small, really sustained practices

that you put in proximity to Jesus on the regular.

Now for most of us, I think that looks like some

version of a few quiet minutes of prayer in the

morning before the phone winds out, or some scripture

not as data, but as food to contemplate on. It

could be a Sabbath day each week, where the work

actually stops, or a table where the church gathers

or could actually be a friendship where the truth

can be told. These things are not programs to

put in place and then follow through with them.

They are actually more rhythms and a practice

and living out. What we have to do is pick a

starting place and then just begin. We can do

all the planning and all the things that we want

to. but never actually begin. The third thing

is choosing the long road. The single biggest

reason people don't grow spiritually is not that

they're tired, they tried and failed. As I've

seen through 25 years of ministry in churches,

it's that they expected fast results. They didn't

get them and then they quit. The church has a

revolving door. People are in and out. They were

promised transformation in 30 days and got them

mostly themselves. So when they realized that,

they bailed. We do that in our own faith life.

Eugene Peterson titled one of his books, which

is a beautiful title, A Long Obedience in the

Same Direction. He took this phrase from someone

else who saw it, admired it, even though this

person didn't follow it. A long obedience in

the same direction. We have to pick a direction

and then stay with it Not because the road is

short but because the road is actually good because

the master is gentle because the yoke fits us

and Because there isn't there's no other way

to actually become the person God is making you

to be The long obedience in the same direction

will see you be transformed I want to read these

verses to you once more, what we heard this morning

from Matthew. And hear them like it's actually

the first time. Come to me, all of you who are

weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for

I am gentle and I am humble in heart. And you

will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is

easy and my burden is light. The invitation this

morning is simply come. Don't bring your achievements.

Don't bring your tidied up version of yourself.

Jesus says bring your weariness. Bring your divided

heart. Bring your half -apprentice to life. Take

the yoke that I have made for you and begin to

learn from me. over centuries, and Jesus is speaking

directly to this as well. If you've been carrying

religion as a heavy load, he's saying, lay it

down. Christ never asked you to carry it. If

you've been carrying performance as a load, Jesus

is saying, lay it down. The master is gentle

and humble in heart. He has no time for your

performance. He wants to know you. This is a

slow apprenticeship that we a journey on. It

begins today in this room, in the room that you

wake in, the place you wake up with tomorrow,

in your workplace. It begins with a quiet word,

which is, yes, I will follow you. I will live

your way. I will wear the yoke that you have

made for me. And as we go through this ordinary

July, week by week, It's a prayer that may we

slightly, almost without noticing, become people

who actually know him. I want to close with these

words of the French priest and scientist. He

was a stretcher bearer in the First World War,

and he's writing back to his sister in France,

Pierre Deschardins. He wrote them in a letter

of spiritual counsel. And I think every weary

soul, whenever you feel like that, should pin

this to the wall. Above all, trust in the slow

work of God. Amen. Father, so as we trust in

your work, as we apprentice ourselves to you,

as we sweep out the things in our lives that

should not be there, as we learn new ways, good

habits, solid practices, that we choose to follow

you as our Rabbi and as our Lord. Help us to

be good apprentices. May we apply ourselves to

the work that you have given us. May we serve

you faithfully on that long obedience. Amen.