What It Means to Be a Disciple
There’s a church in the U.S. that’s named “the Disciples of Christ.” I know little about it except from what I read on its web site. It was started in Kentucky and West Virginia in the late 1700s and early 1800s by several men who wanted to “return to simple New Testament Christianity.”
The history of this church, or churches, is a bit complex, but what was started by those men – referred to as “the Stone-Campbell tradition,” named for Barton Warren Stone and a father and son, Thomas and Alexander Campbell – eventually evolved into three related denominations, one of which is called “the Disciples of Christ.”
As I said, I know little about the church, but I love its name because it reflects what the first followers of Jesus were called. All Christians, seems to me, should consider themselves disciples.
The Cost of Discipleship
And speaking of disciples, one of my all-time favorite books is The Cost of Discipleship, the famous work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German Lutheran pastor and theologian who was executed by the Nazis in 1945. I’ve mentioned this book several times in these blogs and highly recommend it to people who are searching for God in the Christian tradition.
The point of the book, in my view, is to explain what it means to be a disciple of Christ, using the terminology of the New Testament to describe followers of Jesus. The word “disciples” comes from the Greek, according to Wikipedia, meaning “pupil,” or “apprentice.’”
Bonhoeffer, who was condemned to death for being involved in a plot to kill Hitler, denounces “cheap grace,” meant to describe the idea that you can be a disciple without a genuine commitment to Jesus and his teachings.
“Cheap grace,” Bonhoeffer writes, “is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”
A clarification for my Catholic readers: I don’t believe Bonhoeffer here is talking about the Catholic sacrament of confession (which I endorse for Catholics), but about expecting God’s forgiveness without confessing our guilt and seeking God’s forgiveness.
The expectation of receiving “cheap grace” can be held by believers who merely go through the motions of religious practice as well as those who seek God while maintaining an indifference to Jesus’ teachings.
Another perspective of discipleship comes from a blog I get irregularly from Dirk Dunfee, a Jesuit priest and former pastor of St. Ignatius Loyola Church in Denver.
For Dunfee, “discipleship is service. Which is something we may well miss or gloss over. We think of service as a burden; something you have to do but would rather not do; something you do until you become important enough that others serve you. Think of the “service industry”, characterized by low pay and lower status.
Self-giving Love
“Service is an expression of self-giving love. I serve not because you are better than me. I serve because we are connected, because I am with you and for you. I want the best for you; your well-being matters to me. It’s about self-giving love, which for the Christian is exemplified in the life and work of Jesus Christ, God with us.”
Service means going out of our way, not only for people at large, but for the people closest to us, and doing so without rancor or resentment. It means treating everyone with understanding, compassion and openness.
Being a “disciple” means modeling ourselves after Jesus, who was “a man for others.” It may not always be easy, but trying to do so brings us closer to God and also brings happiness and joy.
