The Discipleship Struggle

In reading All the Saints Adore Thee by Dr. Bruce Shelley this morning, I encountered a statement that stirred up a struggle I have been having lately. Shelley says, “Over the years Christianity has probably suffered more from half-hearted followers than from hard-headed scoffers.” This statement came in a reflection he wrote about Martin Luther.

But those words are resonating in my soul today, kind of like a tuning fork playing a specific note that vibrates glass of different shapes and designs. Why does it resonate so much? There is a tremendous struggle in the church with discipleship. Our culture has such little regard or time for full devotion in any aspect of life that has meaning. People become fully devoted fans of the trivial (see sports, books, video games, celebrities, etc..) but seldom invest their full lives in things of meaning.

Trying to bring a message of discipleship into that culture is so difficult. It is especially difficult, as a pastor, to not want to stomp and scream and yell at churches full of half-hearted believers who give God a piece of their lives and revel in the feeling of satisfaction it provides them. This is the kind of cheap grace Bonhoeffer wrote about and the hypocrisy that set Luther afire.

But, our job isn’t to brown beat people into discipleship, it never works that way. If we don’t come willingly, submitting ourselves fully to God, then discipleship can not take place. We have willingly laid aside this battle, which is painstakingly slow, deliberate and costly, for a far easier task of just bringing lots of people together and getting them to commit to a bare minimum idea of faith. Getting a small group of people to fully devote themselves themselves to Christ is far harder than getting throngs of semi-interested to commit to that which costs them little.

So that is my struggle today. I long to see churches filled with disciples, but know the investment to reach that point is so large and takes so long. It is hard to not want to skip the hard part and do what is easier and quicker.

Lord give us strength to do what we ought and to never settle and rejoice of things we nought. Grant us your strength for a long journey, your hope for dark days, and your wisdom to see through the illusions of quick fixes and cheap faith. May we give ourselves fully to you again this day dear Lord. Amen.

Advent and "End Times"

I was reading the latest comment on our last post in regards to the book of Revelation and I could not help but to think about what we reflected on in our community during the first week of Advent. I have been blogging about Advent on our church’s community blog, but I thought I would share some of those same thoughts here, especially about the first week of Advent.

The scripture in the first week of Advent, particularly Mark chapter 13, is very dark, terrifying, apocalyptic, and yet ironically hopeful. This chapter very much corresponds with the book of Revelation that John would write later. Like the book of Revelation we often misunderstand these words because we fail to see them in the light of the original audience. I think we have twisted the nightmarish aspects of these accounts into a prediction of things to come when they were more of a description of the present age. The prediction comes in how Jesus meets us and will ultimately meet us in such uncertain times.

"Eschatology" is often oversimplified to simply meaning the study of "end times". Unfortunately the idea has been twisted and perverted in the imaginations of many western evangelicals who confuse eschatology with stories like the "Left behind" series. Advent helps us to see Christian eschatology as actually far more hopeful than it is often portrayed. It is about the hope and anticipation of things to come as God's Kingdom breaks into the world. Ironically, this isn't all about the future but about the present and the past as well.

The coming of Jesus into the world brought a message of "peace on earth" and "good will toward mankind". What does this mean in a world that still seems as full of violence and injustice as it was on the day when Jesus was born? Mark’s contemporary audience would have understood this dilemma more than most of us today. If anyone could scoff and be skeptical of hope for “peace on earth” it would be those who first read the gospel of Mark, his contemporary audience between 60 and 70 AD. The bleak descriptions in chapter 13 certainly would not have been seen as a timeline for some distance future, but a description of their present reality. Remember Jesus clearly says in Mark that all these things will come to pass in that first generation.

Yet, even in the midst of such bleakness, as the world seems to becoming undone and the sky itself is falling, we see are told to look for Jesus coming in these very clouds of apparent despair as a way to remind us that the world is not as much being undone as it is being re-made. As one could judge the change of seasons by observing the fig tree, this is how followers of Jesus should learn to understand such signs of the times.

Things certainly were bleak in the time of Mark’s original audience. A Jewish revolt was taking place, and signs that Jesus’ prediction about the falling of the temple seemed inevitable; certainly it would soon fall very shortly after Mark’s gospel was written. Mark was the first to record a gospel on paper as many of the first eyewitnesses of the church had been killed or had died off. There were also other Jewish revolutionaries springing up claiming to be the Christ; as many would understand this to mean the chosen leader of Israel that would liberate them by sword from the tyranny of Rome. But Mark’s gospel reminds them that this is not the way of the true Christ and we are instructed not follow such false Messiahs.

No, the Way of Jesus is much different than the Jewish revolt taking place in their midst; much different from the wars and violence of the world around them. Mark points them back to Jesus’ words that liken him to a man gone off on a journey and leaving his servants in charge. In this the church is instructed to stay on task and be about the Master’s business as we keep a watchful and expectant eye out for his return. We are invited to participate in God’s re-creation project in the world in which we live as we are called to live this new Way of Jesus in the midst of the troubled and dying world around us.

In fact we should “keep awake” and “watch” for God to work in such dire circumstances. The sky isn’t falling, and the world isn’t going to end; it is being re-made at the hands of our creator and redeemer. How can we watch for this in a way that keeps us on task to participate in God’s re-creation in the world in which we live?

This is what Advent is all about, as we watch for the Kingdom of God breaking into this dark world. Advent explores the question of how Jesus fulfilled his message of hope, how he is fulfilling it now, and how we can still anticipate hope for the future; even in the shadow of darkness, violence, injustice, sin and death in the world.