Some thoughts on being a Disciple

One of the texts this week is from Matthew 16:13-19 where Jesus asks his disciples the question, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?"

The question he asks get me to wondering and asking "What if..."   questions.  "What if I was meeting Jesus for the first time?"  and what if He asked me, "Who do you say that I am?"

He began by asking them to tell him what the grapevine was saying about Him: "Who do people say that I am?" The disciples came back with several answers: "John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others Jeremiah."

Then like the good teacher he was, Jesus moved on: He asked them, "But who do you say that I am?" He wanted to hear their personal opinions and what they were picking up from his teachings and example.  Peter was the first to put into words what the other disciples might have been thinking: "You are the Christ."

Now this is a bit difficult to get our minds around, but this is the first time that it is recorded that a human being confesses Jesus as the Christ - which is the Greek word for the Hebrew word Messiah. 

In the Gospel  of Mark about this dialogue we have the  famous 'Messianic secret' passage. He charged them to tell no one about Him.  He regularly tells the disciples and others to be silent about his identity .

 (The passion was in the future....Who he was and the type of Messiah he was to be had yet to be defined.)

The reason Jesus was having this dialogue was to help the disciples come to understand who he was and what it would mean to be a disciple.  Shortly after this question and answer exchange in Mark he pointed to what it means to follow Him: 

“If any want to become my follower  (disciple), then let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”  

So what does it mean to be a disciple?

There is a comedian by the name of Yakov Smirnoff. When he first came to the United States from Russia he was not prepared for the incredible variety of instant products available in American grocery stores. He says, "On my first shopping trip, I saw powdered milk--you just add water, and you get milk. Then I saw powdered orange juice--you just add water, and you get orange juice. And then I saw baby powder, and I thought to myself, "What a country!"

I wonder if some might go to church as if they are going to the grocery store: Just add water  to powder and disciples are instantaneously born.  Powdered Christian.  

But in reality disciples of Jesus Christ are not instantly made as easily as adding water to powder .  It is more likely that the experience of following Jesus is a life-long spiritual journey, and sometimes it isn't pretty and seldom easy.    As we grow up in the faith and we take seriously the invitation to follow, we are slowly raised through trials, doubts, frustrations, temptations, persecution and suffering.  

Rather than an easy walk through the park, I think it is more likely that we as Christians are on a path of needing daily repentance and renewal and growth in the faith.  Even though we claim to be Christians, we are still hard wired with our personalities and genes that dictate a lot of what we do and say on a daily basis.

Fortunately we have some good models to look at in history, like Deitrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran pastor  in Nazi Germany who wrote the classic book, The Cost of Discipleship. Bonhoeffer resisted Hitler and publically condemned the evil of the Nazis,  and in voluntarily taking up his cross, Deitrich Bonhoeffer went to his death.

Bonhoeffer wrote about "Cheap Grace": preaching forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession. "Cheap Grace" is grace without discipleship. "Costly Grace" is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for.   "It's costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life."

In the process of writing my book, "A Spirituality of Service: Reflections on a life-long journey of faith and work among the world's poor", I worked on defining Christian spirituality and what it means to follow Jesus.  It was in looking back over about 30 years of journal entries that I remembered encounters with devoted followers of Jesus in many places in the world, often very poor people facing incredible odds, who's stories speak to what it means to take up their cross and follow Jesus.

I struggle with the meaning of the term  - Spirituality.  But I feel it is important to think about this because of the increasing popularity and use of  the phrase "I'm spiritual but not religious", or  "you don't have to go to church to have a spiritual life" - and statements like these may be true. But I wonder if they don't reflect a "cheap grace" approach.  It doesn't take much courage to say "I'm spiritual", but it may be costly to take up your cross and follow Jesus.

 After looking at many definitions, I finally took a stab at defining for myself what a spirituality of service means, and it is very simple - "following in the footsteps of Jesus and helping others." 

Some will laugh at the simplicity of that definition, and already I have heard responses like, "Well, you don't have to follow Jesus to be a spiritual person".  So I have to explain to them that what they say may be  true, but that I am talking about Christian spirituality - and it is my definition, and what it means to try to remain faithful to Jesus Christ.  Each person has to work out for themselves what being a disciple means, but we do have pretty good guidance from the words of Jesus here - "take up your cross and follow me"! 

There is a sense in which Peter's confession is old hat for us.  In the safety of the church and the routine of the liturgy  we confess in either the Nicene or Apostles' creed every Sunday, that "we believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, and that "He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end."  And this is a powerful statement of belief that we make together - a center piece of our worship.

But I now see the Christian life as one of a relationship with Jesus Christ which is tested and renewed every day, not only a statement of belief or a creed repeated on Sunday morning, important as these are.

And I think that as a result of  my life-long journey my answer to the question "who is Jesus?" has evolved and is different now than when I first heard about him in Sunday school over 60 years ago - at least, I hope my faith has matured. 

So where do we see people taking up their cross and denying themselves today?  Almost weekly we get  messages telling of a major health or emotional or financial setback of a friend, family member or former co-worker, and that includes some from our own community and church.  And, we hear also of the troubled lives of others whom we don't personally know. Prayers are asked for. 

In recent weeks Judy and I have gotten 5 or 6 such requests for friends going through incredible hardships, and we have been mindful to  pray for those who are suffering  but also we pray for the spouse or close family members who become the caregivers -  those who have voluntarily and with compassion taken up their cross to care for, comfort and love others. 

In Isaiah there is a wonderful verse that goes like this:

The Lord God has given me a disciple's tongue for me to know how to give a word of comfort to the weary. Morning by morning he makes my ear alert to listen like a disciple. 

So I wonder, what if someone completely outside the church, who had only a slight notion of who this Jesus is, were to ask me "So, who do you say this Jesus is?"  "What does it mean to you to follow Him?  I wonder if I would be prepared with an adequate answer if a stranger asked those questions.  I think would. I would just tell them a story of some of those disciples whom I have known and I know - those who  have taken up their cross to follow Him.