I have been ordained 24 years as of this year and I do not ever remember preaching on this Gospel. And truth be told, it could be because I have a hang-up with the word “discipleship,” and I lazily (okay, habitually) conflate it with “evangelicalism.” Did you notice that my grammar usage was present tense? I have baggage associated with the word that is well worn; it sounds so “churchy.” Full confession, whenever possible I exchange the word “disciple” with “Christian” even though “disciple” is used 269 more times in the New Testament than the word “Christian.” I feel okay doing this because they mean the same thing—a believer and follower of Christ Jesus. You’re going to think I am crazy, but I do not associate anything negative with the word “apostle.” In Luke chapter 6, Jesus calls his 12 disciples and uses the word “apostle” interchangeably.

So, what’s my beef with disciples and discipleship?  It’s not about what Jesus’ expected of his followers. As Jesus says later in that same chapter of Luke: ^“A disciple is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully qualified will be like the teacher (6:40).  Our goal in life is to become more Christlike, and Jesus tells us how to do this: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23).

Authentic discipleship means there is no middle ground. It’s all or nothing, right? We must accept that our faith in Christ Jesus requires a path of obedience to a God who claims the totality of our lives as his own. I agree with this completely, but I also know that when I fail and come up short, I am still worthy of the calling. Perhaps even more, reeling in disciples means something more than converting them to our Lord and Savior—it’s about healing, curing every disease and sickness, and it’s about showing them they are worthy of love and can find that love in God’s kingdom here on earth (Matt 4: 23). The rub is that all of this can be theirs without the expectation of anything in return (we know this as agape love), and they do not have to sign on the dotted line.

No, my problem with “discipleship” is all about how the theology undergirding it gets warped in our time. “You see, when I first heard the story of Jesus calling his disciples, it was framed as evangelistic in a very particular sense. The fish represented lost souls, doomed to hellfire. “Hooking” or “catching” them for Jesus — getting them to church, to an altar call; renouncing their sins, leading them to accept Jesus as their personal Savior; insisting that only one version of Christianity held “The Truth” which would save them from damnation — was the only hope the poor fish had.”[i] Jesus saying to Simon Peter and Andrew, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people,” had a completely different connotation for me. It came loaded with judgment. It had a quarrelsome quality: us-versus-them, our-way-or-the-highway. And it bore the whiff of a threat: Convert…or else…

This theology didn’t sit well with me years later, when I led two mission trips to South Sudan after the civil war there, and worked with the most committed, saint-like, sacrificial Christians I had ever met. They were Baptists from South Carolina who were tasked with building a medical clinic in the middle of the bush. They had to fly in all the building and medical supplies and food (everything) on prop planes and land it on a dirt strip. There was no Home Depot or Wal-Mart. My parish at the time, St. James’s, Richmond, Virginia, sent three different mission teams there over three years; our Dean Hollerith went too. Our job was to vaccinate against a meningitis outbreak and build the only school for miles, one mud brick at a time.

 My disenchantment with this particular theology of discipleship was hardened after the South Carolinian Baptist doctor we worked with lost his funding and his clinic because he was accused of healing too much and not evangelizing enough. The Christian organization that had called him and his family as missionaries believed the Great Commission at the end of Matthew’s Gospel trumped the restoration and healing of these desperate people. They were to “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” above all else (28:19). I don’t think Jesus meant that building up the Kingdom of God was an either/or proposition; in my mind it’s a both/and.

What strikes me now as I think about Jesus calling Simon, Andrew, James, and John into lives of discipleship, is how familiar and close-to-home their calls actually were. Jesus’s invitation to his first disciples was specific and rooted in the language, culture, and vocation they understood. What metaphor would make more sense to four fishermen than the metaphor of fishing for people?[ii] Jesus didn’t cajole them to become something they were not. He didn’t make them take a litmus test to insure they were on the “right team”; no, he invited them to discipleship in spite of their most authentic and imperfect selves.

My favorite spiritual writer Debie Thomas explained, “When Jesus called these fishermen to follow him, they understood the call not as directive to leave their experience and intelligence behind, but to bring forward what was best in themselves” — and to trust that Jesus knew what he was doing, even if they did not. Coming to terms with this has helped me get over my baggage with the term “discipleship.” One particular reason is that these are the same guys who, later in the Gospels, doubt, deny, and abandon Jesus. They’re as fallible and as ordinary as the rest of us, and certainly their own volition can’t get them very far.[iii]

And if I am being 100% transparent, I’ve always been bothered by the so-called “Jesus Freaks” who wear their born-again sensibilities on their sleeves—this coming from a woman who wears hers around her neck!  I know, it doesn’t make much sense on its face, but I think you know what I mean.

Please understand that I am not suggesting that discipleship doesn’t require sacrifice, or change, or risk. It does. It should mean something. As we heard from our preacher last week, there are times when we’re called to swim offshore into the deep, dark, perilous waters of injustice and oppression. We do this not for ourselves, but for our neighbor. What’s more, Christianity was never about individual salvation. If you don’t believe that your salvation is bound up with your neighbor’s, you have entirely missed Jesus’ message.

And yet, in this call to discipleship, I am also convinced that God is gentler with us than we are with our own self-defeating expectations. It’s not all about renunciation and what we must give up to take Jesus on. The spiritual transformations that have had the most traction and power in my life have been the ones that also feel the most organic, the most ordinary, the most intimate. The ones that are not forced. They may be hard and uncomfortable and shocking at times, but they are not inauthentic.

In John’s Gospel text from last week, two prospective disciples are standing with John the Baptist when Jesus asks them, “What are you looking for?”  In his book, You Are What You Love, James K. A Smith points out that it is significant that Jesus doesn’t ask them—or you or me—“What do you know?” or “What do you believe?”  No. In essence, Jesus asks us what we want, what we are looking for, because our desires, our wants are what reverberate from our hearts and are at the core of our identity. To be a disciple, then, is to align—or to realign—our loves with Jesus, to want what God wants. To desire, in short, “the kingdom of God.”[iv] And so, if we are to get anywhere in this Christian life, we must attend to our loves. Love of God and love of neighbor above all else.

In the last chapter of the Gospel of John, the resurrected Jesus builds a fire and makes breakfast for the disciples on the beach while they are out in their boats hopelessly trying to catch fish. After they spot Jesus, they race to the shore and share in the meal. It’s then that Jesus casually asks Simon Peter if he loves him.  Jesus asks Peter this question three times and Peter becomes exasperated and hurt by it, saying, ‘Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.’ Jesus responds, ‘Feed my sheep” (21:17). Feed my sheep.

This call to discipleship is fundamentally different. It’s not at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry and it’s not really at the end because Jesus has been crucified and resurrected. It’s only just beginning for Peter, isn’t it?  I don’t think that the first call about fish and this one about sheep is the point. The point is that we are called to feed one another’s minds, hearts and souls—and sometimes with actual food. We are called to feed one another with our love and the love of God in Christ. We do this by repenting, baptizing and healing. The semantics surrounding the word “discipleship” don’t really matter in the end, do they? The only thing that matters is re-calibrating our hearts to the beat of God’s heart and God’s kingdom.  Surrendering to Jesus isn’t only about renunciation.  It’s about resurrection. Amen.

[i] Debie Thomas: https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2507-i-will-make-you, January 19, 2020. I state in my sermon that Debie is one of my favorite writers. I borrow from her commentary on this Gospel in three paragraphs. Some of it word for word, and some summarized or rewritten in my own words.  Her experience was my experience! 

[ii] Ibid

[iii] Ibid

[iv] Smith, James K.A., You Are What You Love: The Spirit Power of Habit, April 5, 2016

https://jameskasmith.com/yawyl/, study notes.