Discipleship

Matthew 26:19 - So the disciples did as Jesus had directed them, and they prepared the Passover meal.

The disciples did as Jesus had directed them. That’s what makes them disciples. Disciple is just a fancy word for student, which is why they sometimes address Jesus as Teacher. However, the relationship between a student and a teacher in both the Ancient Greek and Roman worlds went much deeper than it does today. In fact, students often shared housing with their teachers and thus learned to live what they were taught in every facet of their lives. They learned the Greek curriculum of mathematics, logic, philosophy, astrology/astronomy, rhetoric. They were being trained to become leaders in their home cities. It was never just a matter of facts memorized, but of virtues lived, which entails discussions of how best to live out their virtues. Of course, students and teachers were usually men, but not always.

We see the same pattern with Jesus and his disciples. They literally follow him everywhere, helping him in his ministry even as they are learning from him. He is showing them what compassion and love look like in the midst of a world more brutal than our own. That is at the core of Jesus’s teachings: compassion and love. Because, as the first letter of John says, God is Love. From the sermon of Matthew 5-7, through every parable Jesus told, to the criteria for being considered a follower in the story of the sheep and the goats, we see the core of his teaching is compassion and love. Feeding the hungry, giving water to the thirsty, getting prisoners out of prison, visiting those who are sick. In general, helping those who need our help. Loving another person through our actions is what it means to be a disciple – a follower – of Jesus.

If we want to be Jesus’s disciples, our relationship to Jesus must go deeper than knowing our Bibles or believing in him. If we want to be Jesus’s disciples, we need to live our lives showing compassion and love for others in all we do. We need to ask ourselves how best to live out the virtue of love and compassion in a broken world. We need to discern with each other, our communities, how we sense God is calling us and where we are being led to show our love. Just as the students of the Greek and Roman schools lived with their teachers, and as the disciples lived with Jesus, we also must live and follow Jesus. We learn to love others by following his direction, by living out his commandment to love others in our actions.

In the midst of multiple crises: the coronavirus pandemic, a terrible economy, endangered healthcare, unemployment, detention camps in which women, men, and children are tortured, and a president who is pulling out all the stops to become a king, it is easy – and probably normal! – for us to narrow our focus to what is in front of us. So much comes at us every day, it is hard to take it all in. However, we can reframe these situations to see them as opportunities to love our neighbors, to follow Jesus’s commandment to love God (to love Love), love ourselves, and love our neighbor. Love is the answer; the only answer. We have seen over the past four years how hate only destroys. It cannot build anything beautiful or lasting. Only love can do that.

Every moment offers us a choice: we can choose to live with Jesus in love or live lonely lives filled with hate. Which will you choose today? Tomorrow? On election day? I choose Jesus and love, now and always. It won’t always be the easy path, but it will always be the more fulfilling, joyful, and love-filled path.

Join me, won’t you?

B