Willard's Divine Conspiracy: More Reflections on Discipleship (Who is a disciple? Am I a disciple?)
If I weren't blogging about things, I supposed I would finish the book more quickly. On the other hand, I probably wouldn't get as much out of it, and I hope I am getting something out of this. I do want to learn. (Blah, blah, the title of the blog, the inspiration for my life.)
I suppose I am making excuses for why it takes me so long to get through a single chapter of this book, which I will not be taking to Baltimore with me because it is so big and heavy. I may not finish this book until the end of June or beginning of July. (More excuses.)(It's rather odd that I feel compelled to rationalize my actions even though no one is even reading these blogs.)
Second, and this is related to the first observation. Technology influences my decisions. Goodreads tracks all my books, what ones I read, how many books, how many pages, how long it takes me to finish them. I find myself compelled to finish quickly. To complete my challenge (I have read 35/50 books), I need to keep going, to finish. I have finished books I didn't like just because I started them. The pages don't count for the total unless I finish the books. I also may have rushed some books just to get done. That doesn't make sense on one level. And yet, it makes total sense on another level.
Technology is touching everything we do. The effects are subtle, growing over time.
I could opt out.
I could resist.
I will not.
Apparently I am a disciple of technology.
Continually learning. Adapting the way I live. The way I think.
Did you see what I did there? I pulled my random musings back to the topic at hand. What a great skill I have learned: Transitions. I only seem random. Or I am random with a special talent that makes it seem less like I am random. (I am off track again.)
But really. That's what discipleship does. The more we spend time with our mentors, the more we become like those mentors.
Am I a disciple of Jesus?
Does it matter?
Most strains of Western evangelical Christianity don't specify discipleship as descriptor of being a Christian. As Willard points out, "It is almost universally conceded today that you can be a Christian without being a disciple" (282). The only thing that matters is that you said the prayer and than you acknowledge aloud that you want "Jesus in your heart." (My words. I'm quoting nearly every pastor I have ever heard.) In contrast, "[t]he very term Christian was explicitly introduced in the New Testament . . . to apply to disciples when they could no longer be called Jews" (282). In Scripture, Christians are disciples, however imperfectly. Willard acknowledges that "to be a disciple in any area or relationship is not to be perfect. One can be a very raw and incompetent beginner and still be a disciple" (282).
A disciple, Willard reminds his readers, "is simply someone who has decided to be with another person, under appropriate conditions, in order to become capable of doing what that person does or to become what that person is" (282). Disciples of Jesus follow him, emulate him, learn from him, in order live out the Kingdom of God as he did (283).
Willard expands on this in the next section. He asserts, "my actual life is the focus of my apprenticeship to Jesus" (283). This is not about doing religious things, about being in full-time or part-time ministry. Being an apprentice, a disciple of Jesus, is about learning from him "how to lead my life, my whole life, my real life" (283).
It is a way of being focused not only avoiding "what is wrong" (284) but committing to doing good. It is "learning from him how to lead my life as he would lead my life if he were I" (285).
Whew. That's hard. I think about my morning, alternating between reading, writing this blog, and surfing the Internet. (I did mention that I am a disciple of technology. It controls me more than I want to admit.)
I am a disciple of Jesus when I am teaching in a classroom, when I am grading papers, when I am working in the writing center (easy to imagine), when I am with my family (also easy to imagine), and also during my free time (hard to imagine). I look at that as MY time. Mine. Am I willing to surrender my life when I am "off"?
The way I speak. About myself. About others.
The television I watch.
The things I eat.
The money I spend.
The time I spend.
Am I a disciple of Jesus? Really? Always?
If not, who/what am I a disciple of?
- Returning to David Zahl and Seculosity, how I am making secular things my religion?
- Returning to Wright, what I have I made my god if I am not allowing God to be god?
- Returning to Dekker, what essential aspects of God am I forgetting?
There is always grace. Imperfection. Growth. I don't have to be perfect.
But I still think this is a valid question.
It's easier to just keep reading, to not write about these things, to not think about them.
If I want to be a disciple, I have to allow myself to grow in awareness of the assumptions that I have taken on, to question them, to hold them up to the light of Scripture, to listen to what God might say about these things. Do they line up with Jesus? Would he embrace these constructs that I hold without thinking about them?
Does discipleship matter? Yes, I think it does. I think about the parable of the sheep and the goats. We don't spend a lot of time on this parable in American Christianity, and I won't pretend to know the difference between sheep and goats or to understand everything Jesus wants to say here. However, I'm pretty sure I don't want to be a goat.
Jesus says, "My sheep listen to my voice, I know them, and they follow me." They are disciples.
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