The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Activated Disciple Series Part 7: Covered in the Dust of My Rabbi

Episode Date: April 15, 2022

What does it mean to be covered in the dust of your rabbi? In this episode, Jeff explains this historic phrase and reveals how as activated disciples, we must conform our lives to Christ. We are called to participate in the life of Christ. Snippet from the Show An activated disciple must conform their life to the life of Christ. Email us with comments or questions at [e-mail]. Text “jeffcavins” to 33-777 to subscribe and get Jeff’s shownotes delivered straight to your email! Or visit ascensionpress.com/thejeffcavinsshow for full shownotes!

Welcome to the Jeff Kaven show, where we talk about the Bible, discipleship, and evangelization, putting it all together and living as activated disciples. This is episode 266, the activated disciple retreat covered in the dust of my rabbi. And here we are Easter, the resurrection. This is the weekend. And if you're listening to this, Out of time? Well, we are getting ready for the resurrection of Jesus 2022. We're in the middle of our activated disciple retreat, and I'm so glad that you have taken the time to join me in this. You know, the more I travel the country, which I just got back from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the more I understand the hunger and the thirst for Jesus and the desire to really make your life

count. And that's what this is about. This is about really designing a life, not by ourselves, but according to the instructions of Jesus. He has a life for you. He has a future for you, and it's good. And you can trust him. And when we become disciples, or what I like to call activated disciples, wow, you go on the greatest journey ever. You know, for years when I developed the Great Adventure Bible study years ago, I was just immersed in that study and really realized that this is the great adventure. But when you combine the great adventure study with the idea of being a disciple of Jesus, you are really equipped for beginning this journey and watching as the Lord changes your life and how he uses you and how you begin to talk to people that you never would

have talked to before. And you say things that you never thought you would say before. And that's what the Lord does with our lives as we become more like him. By the way, if you want the show notes for any of the shows and shows going forward, all you have to do is text my name, one word, Jeff Kavans, and you can text it to the number 33777. And I give you all the scriptures and many of the quotes that I use We'll be sending those your way. Okay, so let's begin and talk about being covered in the dust of my rabbi, Jesus. We'll get into that in just a moment. In 1988, the world was introduced to an extraordinary man.

His name, Kim Peek. Now, you might not know that name Kim Peek, but Kim was portrayed by Dustin Hoffman's character, Raymond in the blockbuster hit Rain Man. Peek was a mega savant who possessed almost superhuman abilities when it came to remembering everything. I mean, everything he read. I think a lot of people would say, well, I'd like to have that kind of memory. What kind of memory did Kim Peake have, Rain Man?

Kim was able to get this, to read two open pages of a book at the same. time with nearly perfect retention of content and he could give instant driving directions between get this any two cities in the United States and recite any Shakespeare's play verbatim pretty amazing isn't it I know that back in school I could have used that and I have a feeling I would have aced every single test but I had to read one page at a time most like like you. While Kim possessed genius talent and one of the great brains in world history, he could not take care of himself in terms of navigating everyday life. He was completely 100% dependent upon his father, Fran, for nearly everything in his life, from putting on his socks and shoes

to brushing his teeth and combing his hair and preparing his meals and anything that involves social interaction. Kim was often quoted as saying, and I love this, this is, this is so beautiful, and this really relates to our relationship with the Lord. Kim was often quoted as saying that he loved his father and that he and his father shared the same shadow. What a beautiful thought that two people would live such a close life with one another that they are described as sharing the same shadow. Isn't that something? Well, my friend, you like Kim Peek are amazing. You really are. Your brain is incredible. It's more powerful in so many ways than a supercomputer. and we are we have the ability and we have the the potential of creating things that are even

beyond our imagination at this point in our life but at the same time you are pathetically in need of help what do i mean by that well as great as you are and you're created in the image and likeness of god you are in tremendous need of help and that help is how do we live? How do I navigate life? How do I get to heaven to live with God forever and ever and ever? So we are amazing, but yet we cannot do some of the basic things in our life in terms of our emotions, in terms of our golden life, to be with the Lord in heaven. And so we're like Kim in many ways. Now, in the first century, there was a document called Pirke Avote, the sayings of the fathers. I'll put that in the show notes for you. Pierkei avote. And in that document, it talks about the dust of my

rabbi. And it says this, may your house be a meeting house for sages, become dirty in the dust of their feet and drink their words thirstily. So this saying became very famous early on. And the saying really kind of morphed into this saying, which is be covered in the dust of your rabbi. And the idea there is that if you are going to be covered in the dust of your rabbi, it means that you're following your rabbi all day long. Again, Jesus is the great rabbi, but he's so much more than a rabbi. He is the second person of the Trinity. He is the author of life. And he created us and the world. And it's just absolutely amazing to think that we can follow this sage. We can follow this Messiah. We can follow the king of kings and the Lord of Lords. But in order to

be covered in the dust of our rabbi, the Lord Jesus Christ, we must get a life. How many times have you heard that before? I'll get a life, right? Usually we say that to people who don't have a clue and they don't seem to be going anywhere and they don't have any north on their compass get a life we must begin a rhythm in our daily life that ensures that we that we encounter him often and we share this good news with those that he puts in our path the corigma what we talked about last week remember that about brewing up a cup of good news for our friends and those that we encounter and we have been speaking throughout the last number of weeks together about the shape of your day and how the shape of your day should reflect the love of your life. Have you thought about that since I covered

that? Have you gone deeper into that and really looked at the shape of your day and how the shape of your day is reflecting the love of your life? Here's what I fear so often, you know, in teaching and, you know, speaking and educating, whether it be at the seminary or on the road or here spending time with you is that sometimes we hear truths that give us that aha moment, you know, like the shape of your day reflects the love of your life and we start to think about it. But then two or three weeks later, we're not thinking about it at all anymore. And this is one of the reasons that I have really encouraged people to get a journal. Father Mike Schmitz and I, developed the Insight Journal from Ascension as a place where you can write these things down

and then go back in prayer and review them so that you don't forget them. You know, it's like the sower, the parable of the sower. They received the word, but for a number of reasons, they end up giving up that revelation or giving up that word. It could be the desire for riches or the concerns of life or they don't understand it. they don't take the time to understand it, you know. That's an important one. The shape of your day reflects the love of your life.

We also took a look at Lexio Divina each morning in the examined prayer every night and relying on your posse, the saints that you're going to walk with, getting to know them and calling on them to pray for you, and being situationally aware of opportunities to share Christ. I recall that when you go to the mall, and you go by that perfume counter, what do they do? If they try to get you to take a receive a free sample, because the idea is that every brand of perfume

and every line in that brand has a unique odor, smell. I guess odor is not the good word for a good scent, you know. But what I have learned is that that particular cologne or perfume smells different on everybody. And so you can't just smell out of the bottle. They want you to experience it. So they give you that little paper swab or put it on your wrist. And then about 20 minutes later, as you're in the mall, you go back and you buy it because you like it.

You got a free sample. We got to give free samples of Jesus to people throughout the day. And I think that that is one way where people can remember what we shared with them, that word of life. So moving on today, a few more things that I'd like to cover with you as we build this life covered in the dust of the rabbi. We've talked about sacred scripture. We have talked about prayer. We have talked about the corigma. But we also have to consider living a sacramental life. What does the word sacrament mean? Well, the word sacrament comes from the Latin word sacramentum, which is the translation of the Greek word Mysterian.

A mystery is something that is known or seen or revealed, but which in some cases conceals something else. In the case of the sacraments, the mystery is the life of the Trinity. Sacramentum is the Latin term used in antiquity to designate, get this, an oath. an oath an oath was sworn in making a covenant resulting in a family bond between two parties and so every time we we participate in the sacraments whether it's marriage or confession or the eucharist or the prayer for the sick we are participating in the life of christ and we are encountering countering the Lord in a very, very intimate way. And so the disciple who is trying to become like Jesus and follows Jesus and walks with Jesus must live a sacramental life because, for example, the Eucharist is the greatest source of grace.

And grace is the life of the Trinity. And so it goes without saying we need to live in the heart of the church as disciples and live a sacramental life. And every time you say amen, when you receive the Eucharist, you are re-upping, you are renewing the covenant that you have with Jesus. And you're saying, Lord, I will uphold my end of this covenant. I will be faithful. I'll respond to your revelation with faithfulness.

One more thing here, well, there's more, but another thing I should say here is that if we're going to live a life of a disciple, not only should we live a sacramental life, but we must also remember that God has a calendar. It's the liturgical year. You know, when I was growing up, I was not aware at all of the rhythm of the yearly calendar in the church. Were you? Did you take notice of that? I didn't.

And so when I was growing up, I would just go to church and priest is wearing green and the altar has green or sometimes red or purple. And to be honest with you, and I know it sounds kind of dumb, but I just thought that every once in a while, the priest liked a new color. I'm being honest there. I'm, you know, junior high, I didn't know. You're not paying attention at that point. But as disciples, life in Christ is not just a singular relationship.

with him. It's important to have that personal relationship with the Lord, but it's important to remember that we have a community experience where we are immersed in a way of life. And the church provides us with a way of life to live both communally and personally with the Lord. I like what Hebrew says. I'll put it in the show notes for you. Hebrews 10. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near. And so with the liturgical year, this is one of those things that since I came back to the Catholic church in the 90s, the liturgical year has come alive to me and has actually become a very

valuable tool to keep me on track. And when you look at the liturgical year, when you look at it closely, what you will see is you will see the life of our Lord laid out on the calendar. So the liturgical year conforms your life to Christ. If you follow it, if you are aware of it, If you pay attention, then you're going to have the opportunity to conform your life to Christ. And as I said, growing up, I was colorblind when it came to the liturgical year. But I'm not colorblind anymore. And so the liturgical year starts in Advent. And in Advent, we have the beginning here where we are looking forward to the king.

We're looking forward to the king. and in the birth of the king and then we come into Christmas and then after Christmas we have ordinary time now ordinary time isn't ordinary time I used to think it was

ordinary time is just okay hum-ho ordinary time it's not it really comes from the idea of ordered time that there is a purpose for every single day and we listen to the teachings of

Jesus and so ordinary time is anything that ordinary time, it is extraordinary time, actually. And so that leads us to Lent. And Lent, where we're at now, is this preparation of our hearts for 40 days. And it's the preparation for the greatest thing ever to happen, which is the death, burial, and resurrection of this rabbi. The king of kings and the Lord of Lords, the Messiah, Jesus, our Savior. And then after Easter, we go back into ordinary time, and the year culminates in the feast of Christ the king. Christ the king. And, you know, I used to be a Protestant pastor, and I can tell you, my dear friend, that we did not have what I would call a balanced diet

throughout the year. People got what I was interested in, you know. But if I had followed the liturgical year of the Catholic Church, people would have received a much more balanced diet. They got what I wanted, but what they needed was the diet of the Lord. To go through scripture, every three years we go on Sunday through all of the major stories in the Bible, and that gives you a fuller glimpse of salvation history, rather than just something that I might be interested in at the moment or whatever comes easy for me. So an activated disciple conforms his or her life to the life of Christ. Okay, when I come back, I want to talk a little bit more about some hints for prayer,

some tips for prayer to live as an activated disciple covered in the dust of our rabbi. You're listening to The Jeff Kaven Show. Am I saved? How do I develop a better prayer life? How do I trust in God? The Curious Catholic is a new series of by-size books from Ascension that answer these questions and more. The Curious Catholic features small books from various authors

that provide busy Catholics ways to go deeper into spiritual questions. The first three titles in the series are from Father Mike Schmitz, host of the Bible in a Year podcast. Father Mike's books explore the topics of salvation, prayer, and trusting in God. To learn more about the Curious Catholic series, go to ascensionpress.com slash curious Catholic. That's ascensionpress.com slash curious Catholic. Welcome back. All right.

So this is the covered in the dust of my rabbi episode where we are trying to think of ways where at the end of the day, if we look at our shoes, we certainly will be covered by the dust of our rabbi. Christ. And in order to realize that dust, you have to be very focused about how you live your life. From the moment you get up to the moment you go to bed, your life is about Jesus and following him and thinking like him and acting like him. Now, prayer, as we covered earlier, is incredibly important. It's very, very important. One of the prayers that I would like to encourage you to learn more about and participate more frequently is the rosary. It was John Paul the second, the great, the saint. He said that the rosary was his favorite prayer outside of mass. And he talks about how in the rosary we visit the whole spectrum of human life

from the birth and the joyful, you know, joyful all the way to the sorrowful and the glorious. And then the ministry of Jesus and the Lord's Supper. It's just everything is in there in the rosary. And this gives us the opportunity to be led by the Blessed Virgin Mary in prayer, to be led through the life of Christ. Now, as the liturgical year gives you the opportunity to conform your life to the life of Jesus, I would suggest that the rosary also does this. And it gives you the opportunity to visit every aspect of his life every day.

And most of the time, you know, you can locate someone's life today in the rosary. Might be joyful. might be sorrowful. Maybe it's glorious. But I can, I can pretty much, you know, and sit down and talk to you and identify your life just after a five, ten minute conversation. And so the rosary becomes very, very important. And think about it for a moment. Anywhere you go, whether it's the doctor's office or your, I remember one time I was waiting in the Department of Vehicle Registration in the line. for my daughter to get her license. We had a little bit of time, and we had to wait, I think it was like an hour or something like that, and I was able to pray the rosary. But you can do it anywhere, any time.

That's the beautiful thing. Okay, so a little bit about practicing his presence. The rabbis in Jesus' day would practice a discipline of living, and there was a word that they used that we can adopt in our life as modern-day Christians. And that word was Kavanaa, K-A-V-A-H, K-A-H, K-A-H. Kavanaa-N-A-H. And it really speaks of intention or sincere feeling or direction of heart.

This idea of Kavanaugh is what I call being an activated disciple, kavanaugh, intention, focus. And that is something that we really need to. pray for and ask the Lord help help me Lord never to lose sight of my relationship with you help me lord to not just depart you know to depart from my awareness of you and to go into just my own life and and do what I want to do separate from you now I know that's a that's a big prayer to pray I've prayed that I have prayed that for over a decade now Lord I I I I I I I want to be aware of you, Kavanaugh. I want to be aware of you all throughout the day, if that is possible. And I'm finding that the older that I get, and the more I do this,

the less likely it is that I just wander off into my own will, you know, and my own plans, but I can stay as an activated disciple. I do hope that, you know, after all these weeks together that you can see that there's a difference between calling ourselves Catholic and calling ourselves an activated disciple who's Catholic. Now, to be Catholic is a beautiful thing. And when you put the faith into practice, particularly in prayers we're talking about now, and practicing his presence, it will change your life in a spectacular way. One of the things that I tell my students is that that when you pray, specifically in the car, or you're taking a walk around a lake or whatever it might be, try this, talk out loud. When you talk out loud, there's something that just registers in

your heart that this is real, you know, when we just talk in our thoughts to the Lord, can you hear us, absolutely. But there's something that happens in us when we start to talk out loud to the Lord. We sanctify our day. We design our day with Jesus by talking at the beginning of the day. We pray. And if you have needs in your life, like your children or something at work or your spouse or college, and you sit and you talk to the Lord about it. Lord, I lift up my daughter to you. And I ask you, Lord, to protect her today and lead her and guide her. May, Lord, give her some friends who love you and will help her to be strong in you. We can talk about things like this, family members, but we can also talk about hope or joy

or God's mercy. We can praise God by lifting up our hands and opening our mouth and just praising him out loud. Used to be years ago that if I talk to the Lord out loud in my car, people going by would think, maybe there's something wrong with the guy, you know. But today with smartphones hooked up to the car itself, it's not unusual at all to see people talking all alone in their car. We assume that they're talking to their boss or a family member or the appointment they're going to.

but we can talk to the Lord out loud just try it just try it for a few days and when you start to pray silently which is good just take some time and talk to the Lord out loud john chapter 12 in verse 26 says if anyone serves me he must follow me and where i am there shall my servant be also if anyone serves me, the father will honor him. So I love that. If anyone serves me, he must follow me and where I am, there shall my servant be also. And so this idea of being with Jesus throughout the day and cognizant of his presence and the relationship and the intimacy with the Lord, this is something I don't ever want to lose. This is something I want to deepen every day of my life. And I hope you do too. So continue to walk faithfully as a disciple of the Lord,

grow, isolate various disciplines and perfect them in your life. Don't go after the whole bundle at once, but little things at a time. Take a few days to focus on, for example, I think I mentioned to you, when you come home from work and you're usually crabby, focus on coming home with a new attitude, the disciple's attitude, and the attitude that reflects the love of God and the mercy and the joy of the Holy Spirit. And so that's something that you can do in all kinds of areas of your life. All right, my friend, I'm going to be back next week, and I'm going to give some closing thoughts next week and talk a little bit about where we go from here. Again, I want to remind you, and I'll put it in the show notes.

there is still room in June to go to the Holy Land with us, and in October, we'll go on the footsteps in the footsteps of St. Paul and Greece and Turkey on a cruise. I'm going to look forward to that. And then also in January, coming up, 2023, big trip to Israel. That'll be in the show notes and on my website, jeffcavens.com. All right, my friend, let me pray for you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Lord, I lift up my friend to you. In Jesus, I ask you, Lord, to start a fire in their heart and draw them to yourself. Draw them to your life and your mercy and your passion, your will.

I pray, Lord, that something will happen in their lives that will bring them to a new level of living with you. and they would experience the dynamism of a relationship with you and experience hearing your voice and experience saying things and doing things that they never thought that they would because now they're called to a new way of living i thank you lord jesus i thank you for what you're doing in our hearts and it's in your name that we pray amen name of the father and the son and the holy spirit Amen. I love you, my friend. I love you. And I look forward to talking to you next week.