Discipleship & Discomfort

I don’t mind what God asks me to do, as long as he doesn’t tell me to go to Africa. So spoke a young mum in my first congregation, an enthusiastic and generous disciple, who was fully aware of the challenges of simply being both a mum and a disciple in the world around her.

What happens when Jesus asks more of us than we believe we can manage? The Gospel selections for the last few weeks have been a careful reading from the sixth chapter of John, where Jesus offers an incredibly rigorous image of eating his flesh and drinking his blood. John notes, drily, that disciples find this teaching difficult.

Jesus gives them no wriggle room, and several disciples walk off.

When John’s community first recorded this story, three generations had passed since Jesus’ death and resurrection. They were looking back to the stories about all that Jesus had done, but living their discipleship in the reality of a world where Jerusalem had been destroyed, Rome was rampaging, disciples were being tortured and executed. Followers of Jesus were accused of being cannibals, because of readings like this one – and the celebration of communion.

Sometimes it is hard being a disciple. Not because people are mean to me, or because I have to work on Sundays, but because living out our discipleship in our world is rigorous, indeed. Not the discipleship that is offended by swear words (thankfully), or losing my temper at incompetent drivers (improving…), but the discipleship which follows commands about forgiveness and hospitality and sacrifice and justice.

I have had friends walk away, both from the church and discipleship, often because the call of Jesus is too difficult.

But I have nowhere else to go. The life I have begins and finds its completion in Jesus. As difficult as it can be – as impossible, occasionally – I have found my hope in Jesus Christ.

It is with Jesus we discover the truth of forgiveness and love; it is here that we know that Jesus stands with us, even in the worst moments; it is in Jesus we know that love is not an emoji, but the chosen act of God to save, and we are held secure in that same love.

O Christ, the Master Carpenter,
who at the last through wood and nails
purchased our whole salvation;
wield well your tools in the workshop of your world,
so that we, who come rough-hewn to your bench,
may here be fashioned to a truer beauty by your hand.
We ask this in your name and for your sake. Amen.

– a prayer from the Iona Community, Scotland