Continuing my recent Bonhoeffer kick, Ive been digging back into his classic book Discipleship. Check out this section:
Discipleship without Jesus Christ is choosing one’s own path. It could be an ideal path or a martyr’s path, but it is without the promise. Jesus will reject it.
“Then they went on to another village. As they were going along the road, someone said to him, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.’ To another he said, ‘Follow me.’ But he said, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ But Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’ Another said, ‘I will follow you, Lord; but first let me say farewell to those at my home.’ Jesus said to him, ‘ No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God’” (Luke 9:57-62).
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The third one called, like the first, understands discipleship as an offer made only by him, as his own self-chosen program for life. But in contrast to the first, he things he is justified in setting his own conditions. doing so entangles him in a complete contradiction. He wants to join Jesus, but at the same time he himself puts something in the way between himself and Jesus: “Let me first.” He wants to follow, but he wants to set his own conditions for following. Discipleship is a possibility for him, whose implementation requires fulfilling conditions and prerequisites. This makes discipleship something humanly reasonable and comprehensible. First one does the one thing, and then the other. Everything has its own rights and its own time. The discipleship makes himself available, but retains the right to set his own conditions. It is obvious that, at that moment, discipleship stops being discipleship. It becomes a human program, which I can organize according to my own judgment and can justify rationally and ethically. This third one wants to follow [Christ], but already in the very act of declaring his willingness to do so, he no longer wants to follow him. He eliminates discipleship by his offer, because discipleship does not tolerate any conditions that could come between Jesus and obedience…”
Isn’t that a tail-kicking bit of writing? It’s not just these unnamed wannabe disciples that get the terms mixed up. All of us do. It’s tough to honestly come to Jesus on his terms, to check ourselves so that we don’t impose ourselves on the one we call Lord. I want to be a straight up follower, one who is willing to do discipleship like Jesus wants it done, who comes purely to follow, with no agenda of my own except the commitment to follow. It’s clear that If I want to be a disciple at all, this is how it has to be. I’m finding this terribly convicting this week.
