Category: Discipleship

Following Jesus is a demanding business especially if we are to take it seriously.  It involves taking the road to Jerusalem, along with Jesus himself.  Jerusalem is the city where Jesus suffered, died and rose to new life.  It is a place of sacrifice and reward, of pain and joy, of failure and triumph, of agony and ecstasy.  It represents the Christian life.  But what does taking the road to Jerusalem actually mean in practice?

It means that we refuse to build our lives around material possessions.  Material possessions have their place but they must be kept in their place.  It is our relationship with God that is the true source of our security not what we own.  Our relationship with God cannot be destroyed. It is eternal.

It means that we stop living in the past.  Dwelling on old memories and hurts keeps us tied to the past and trapped in a prison of regret and anger.  It belongs to the Christian to hope. Jesus is leading us forward in hope to a better and brighter future.  In Jerusalem the tomb is empty!

It means that we stop making excuses for ourselves and for our lack of ability and talent.  Of course we are limited; yes we have weaknesses.  The Christian community is full of misfits!  The twelve people Jesus chose to bring his good news to the world were a pretty motley bunch!  Jesus is not looking for perfection; neither does he expect us to be geniuses. All he seeks is our generosity and enthusiasm.  What Jesus wants is what we call heart. Heart is the kind of thing that on the sports field often makes the difference between failure and success.

Finally, it means that when it comes to making choices we put the cause of Jesus, the mission of Jesus, the work of Jesus, first.  In the way we choose to live our lives the values of Jesus, known as Kingdom values, must come before earthly values.

“But you, who do you say I am?” (Matt 16:15).  Jesus is not interested in who we think other people say he is, people like priests and teachers and theologians and charismatics.  He is only interested in who I say he is.  The question of his identity is addressed personally to each one of us and it can only be answered by each of us in a personal way.

So who do I say Jesus is?  For me, who is the human person who grew up in a remote village, who worked for most of his short life as a tradesman, who spent three years preaching, teaching, healing, and serving, who died a cruel death on a cross and who appeared to his followers after his death?  Who do I say this man is?  Peter told him that he was the Christ, the Son of the living God (Matt 16:16).  Am I able and willing to make the same act of faith as Peter?  ‘Jesus, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’  When it comes to the question of Jesus’ identity there is no sitting on the fence, no opting out.  I may delay offering an answer, but sooner or later I have to make a decision.

The question that Jesus asks each of us personally and directly is the most important question we will ever be asked.  It is the question that needs to be answered by us in the silence of our own hearts.  How we answer the question will have an impact on our lives.  It will make a difference to how we experience the world and to the way we live.  If I say, ‘Jesus, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God,’ then I am accepting that Jesus is the person who saves me from the evils that threaten me, including death.  What is more, I am also accepting that the values of Jesus are the values I need to live by.   To accept Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God, is to accept that there are many things that he can do for me.  But it is also to accept that there are things that he would like me to do for him.  To accept Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God, is to take possession of the relationship he has with me and to make this relationship the anchor of my life.

The religion of Jesus begins with the word come.  “Come to me all you who labour and are overburdened.” “Come and see where I live.” “Come and I will give you rest.”  Jesus asks us to open the door of our hearts to him. He wants a personal relationship with each one of us.   He wishes to satisfy the deeper longings we have within.

If the religion of Jesus begins with the word come it also ends with the word go.  “Go, teach all nations.”  “Go, baptise in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” “Go out to the whole world and proclaim the good news.”  Jesus wants us to share our faith experience, to tell others what he has done for us, to pass on what has been passed to us, to give what we have received.      

There are of course different ways of sharing the good news of Jesus.  Some leave home for Jesus; most stay at home for him.  Some are what we can call frontier missionaries; the majority are local missionaries.  Whether we travel for Jesus or remain at home for Jesus, we witness to him by what we say and by what we do.  The words we speak are important. They are an expression of what is dear to us.  In a culture that is becoming increasingly secular it is not easy to acknowledge our faith in Jesus and in his values. But we can no longer be shy about our religious convictions and be private about our beliefs.  Jesus asks us to be courageous, to tell the world about him.  And the world needs to hear what we have to say.

Of course, it is what we do more than what we say that has the greater impact.  Actions do speak louder than words.  Actions reveal the authenticity of our words.  As followers of Jesus, we must be willing to walk the walk as well as talk the talk.  We best proclaim the gospel of Jesus by the witness of our lives, by the way to live. There is no better add for Christianity than a life well lived.  William Wordsworth once wrote, “The best portion of a good man’s life is his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.”  It is not necessarily big achievements and projects that best witness to our faith. There are very few who have opportunities to do great things.  For most of us, it is our little acts of kindness and love. 

The religion of Jesus begins with the word come and ends with the word go. It is a dynamic religion, a constant flow of life and love.  It is built around two movements, one of receiving, the other of giving.  We need to participate in both. If we do we will experience a peace and joy the world cannot offer us.

We know from the gospels that Jesus gave the people he had chosen as his companions a share in his ministry.  He sent them out to preach the good news, to proclaim the Kingdom.  To help his inexperienced disciples in their mission Jesus gave them instructions.  Carrying out these instructions would ensure that their ministry would bear fruit.  In the advice Jesus gave his disciples three things stand out.

1.  The disciples were not to travel on their own, but in pairs, two by two.  Jesus knew the importance and value of companionship.  Indeed, the first thing he did when he began his ministry was to gather a group of companions around him. We need people in our lives who give us encouragement and support, people who lift us when we are sad and celebrate with us when we are glad.  We also need people with whom we can have soulful conversations, people who know us at a deep level and who accept unconditionally the stories of our lives.

2. The disciples were to take no excess baggage, only the things they needed for their work.  Jesus did not want unnecessary things cluttering the lives of his young missionaries.  He did not want them to lose their focus, to get distracted especially by material possessions.  One of the traps we can fall into is accumulation.  Accumulation only clutters our lives and pulls us away from what is essential. Jesus’ life and work were focused on the building of relationships.  It needs to be the same for us. Our focus too needs to be on creating and sustaining caring and compassionate relationships.

3. The disciples were to bless in a special way those who offered them hospitality.  In the Jewish tradition hospitality was a sacrament; indeed it was the primal sacrament.  By welcoming others, both friends and strangers, and inviting them to sit at table the Jews believed they were welcoming and feeding the Lord himself. There are two types of hospitality. One is hospitality of the table.  This focuses on our material needs.  We are asked to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless and care for the sick. The second is hospitality of the heart.  This responds to our emotional needs.  We are invited to listen to those who need to talk, affirm those who feel inadequate and comfort those who feel lonely.  Both hospitality of the table and hospitality of the heart put flesh on the care and companionship of Jesus. Together they are a powerful sacrament of the presence of the Lord in our lives.

For many people religion involves keeping rules and regulations.  It is about duty and obligation.  Keeping rules and doing our duty does of course have some merit, but this can make religion an external thing lacking inner conviction. The truth is external religion may not serve us well in times of suffering and struggle.  Furthermore, it may not be very appealing to those who are searching for a life-giving faith. If religion is identified with observance of the law it is likely to be off putting and unattractive.

Jesus didn’t have a problem with the role of observance in the practice of religion; he knew laws are necessary.  However, Jesus did have a concern if our observance of the law is not an expression of what is in our hearts.  This was his issue with the group known as the Scribes and Pharisees.  For these ‘religious people’ observance of the law was mainly for show, it was to get notice and attract attention.  The Scribes and Pharisees didn’t practice their religion for the right reasons. Their religion wasn’t genuine.  In fact, it was often hypocritical.

Jesus had the ability to spot when there was some disconnect between our inner and outer lives.  He knew that public behaviour didn’t necessarily reflect inner character.  It was our inner lives that Jesus was most concerned about.  Jesus would say, ‘Of course what we do matters, but what matters more is where this doing is coming from.’

The religion of Jesus is a religion of the heart.  It invites us to explore our motivation.  What is our motivation for keeping the commandments?  Why do we go to church? What is the real reason we pray? Why do we respond to people who are in need?  It is our motivation that defines who we really are. This is why it can be said that the Christian life is a purification of motive. It is what is in our hearts that influences the way we live and the way we act.  The best way to change our behaviour is to change our hearts.

On many occasions Jesus encouraged his listeners to explore the reasons for their behaviour.  One of these occasions is known as the Sermon on the Mount.  This sermon is an invitation to discover the spirit behind the law and to act in an intentional way.  Ultimately, it is a request to live from the inside out.  To be a follower of Jesus two transformations are necessary. One is personal, the other is social.  Personal transformation needs to come first.  The truth is we cannot change the world unless we first change ourselves.

Today, Ash Wednesday, the annual Christian fasting season known as Lent begins.  Most great world religions have an annual fasting season.  The Christian one lasts for forty days and significantly coincides with spring.  There are many reasons why it is good to have a fasting season.  Let me mention a few.

It offers us an opportunity to start again, to make a new beginning.  Failing and falling are part of the human condition.  In the Christian view of life failing and falling should never be a cause for despondency or despair.  The God of Jesus is a God of abundant mercy and radical forgiveness, a God who wipes out past failures and invites us to make a fresh start.  We should never be reluctant to begin again.  New beginnings are a necessary part of the Christian journey.

Lent is also an ideal time to restore the balance in our lives.  Virtue is the happy medium, the golden mean.  But the golden mean is hard to achieve. There is a tendency in human nature to over indulge, to develop addictions, to abuse our bodies, to become overly preoccupied with work, to neglect important relationships, to put too much emphasis on our material needs and not enough on our emotional and spiritual needs.  Lent provides us with an opportunity to reintroduce a healthy diet; a healthy diet of food, of exercise, of relaxation, of prayer.  Restoring the balance in our lives helps us to sort out what is good for us and what is bad for us.

Lent is the Christian fasting season which means that it should be focused on Jesus who is the Christ.   There is really only one yardstick with which to measure the success of our Lenten fasting: Does it enable us to become more like Jesus? The goal of Lent is to get rid of the ‘old man’ which is the selfish me and to put on the ‘New Man’ which is the loving Christ.  Ultimately, Lent is about Jesus, not about us.  It is about Jesus’ vision of life, his values and the building of his Kingdom in the world.  Therefore the best type of fasting we can do in Lent is the fasting that helps us to pay greater attention to Jesus and move closer to him.

Abraham Lincoln was once challenged by his supporters about why he reached out to his political opponents and offered them positions in his government.  In reply Lincoln said: “When I make friends with my enemies then they are no longer my enemies.”  Lincoln’s answer was a simple statement of the obvious.  But it required greatness to put the obvious into practice.

If there is one thing we human beings have repeatedly failed to do down through history it is to love our enemies and to forgive those who offend us.  As a consequence we have experienced war, after war, after war.  There is nothing more futile than war, nothing more destructive, nothing more devastating to the human spirit.  Yet we persist in using it as a way of settling disputes, of defeating our enemies and as a means of asserting our power and gaining control.

It is understandable that one of the major concerns of Jesus was the building of community.  Jesus offered people a way of living together that would both respect difference and create unity and peace.  For Jesus the key to creating community was compassion.  “Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate” (Luke 6:36).  This one simple instruction is at the very heart of Jesus’ teaching.  Some would even say that it sums up his teaching.

Compassion begins with acceptance, unconditional acceptance of others.  Unconditional acceptance means that I accept others no matter what their colour, class, culture, religion and sexual orientation might be.  Compassion is also about my willingness to understand the experience of others, to listen to their stories, to hear what they are saying, to learn where they are coming from, to stand in their shoes.  In its purest form compassion is about my capacity to enter into the life of another at the level of emotion, where my heart knows the heart of the other.

Compassion is what distinguishes the follower of Jesus; it is the mark of a true Christian.  It is the way to end war and conflict and create real community among the peoples of the world.  Compassion has its source in God who is compassion itself.  It is a gift, a gift that we must pray for, and pray for every day.