On Discipleship

 

Why is discipleship important?

- We do not know it all

- We forget what we think we know

- We have blind spots in our modernity (read the old books!)

- We have the power to influence and encourage others to grow

Therefore, we always need to be learning, studying, growing, and following what it means to be walking along the path of our lives with Christ.

Christ calls us, not to go with the flow of the world and conform to its ways, as it shifts in culture, but instead Christ calls us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, and to be counter-cultural in living a paradox of the Christian life, different from what the world says we should be.

Blessed are the poor in spirit...
Blessed are the meek...
Blessed are the pure in heart...
Blessed are the merciful...
Blessed are those persecuted for righteousness sake... 
Etc...
(Matthew 5)

If we are living according to this world, we are missing a very essential piece - we are putting a veil over our eyes to the heavenly, and becoming fixed on the earthly.

Jesus says in John 3.12 - 
If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

Jesus, then, is seeking to remove the film of familiarity and selfish solicitude, to borrow phrases from poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, to reveal the deep heavenly truths that are covered up by the things we get so comfortable with on earth. These comforts cause a spiritual laziness.

Why is this important, though?

Since the Enlightenment, our world has been seeking to separate all the imaginative creative ways of viewing the world and the heavenly realm from all the real serious studies of science and intellect. This bifurcation is false, but so much of what is taught and studied focuses only on the intellect:

    Step 1 - Do this
    Step 2 - Follow that
    Step 3 - Solution is proved

The problem:

It lacks any mystery.

It lacks a study of beauty in the godly sense.

It misses the imagination.

It leaves no room for questions and musings.

That is where I feel the role of discipleship can come in. If we are to grow and encourage others with Christ in the transformation and renewal of the mind --

The mind includes - 
    Intellect and Imagination

This is not either/or but a both/and.

G.K. Chesterton wrote -
We need to be happy in this wonderland without once being merely comfortable.

I see discipleship as an opportunity to encourage others to explore in deeper ways, to step out of ones own views and into the eyes of other older wisdom that has much to share. To embrace an active imaginative life, picturesque and full of poetical curiosity, something humans seem to desire.

In this and every Advent season, let us embrace the imagination to see the story of the birth of Jesus with new eyes. As if going on a journey and coming around the world to the same place but with a whole new set of eyes as if seeing the story for the first time.