On Being (not becoming) a Disciple
Submitted by David Lee Jones on April 17, 2008 – 9:48 amNo Comment
Authentic discipleship is a way of being, not becoming, that shapes our lives.
Crafting a deep and abiding definition of discipleship is not as easy as it first appears — which may be why Frederick Beuchner doesn’t offer one in his book Wishful Thinking — where one would normally expect to find one. He does such a masterful job with so many other challenging concepts that we wonder why he could not whip up something just as pithy, profound, and clever about discipleship.
What’s even more curious, though, is that his entry for Disciple says: See Minister. Although the disciples are mentioned in passing, he curiously links discipleship chiefly to clergy.
I direct the Doctor of Ministry program at Austin Presbyterian Seminary. I read every project proposal our students submit for approval. We offer seven different concentrations: rural ministry, evangelism and mission, preaching, liturgics, spirituality, Christian education, and pastoral care. A common objective in nearly every doctoral project our students submit is about making disciples. Why is this?
I suspect this is so because so many Christians “have been vaccinated with just enough Christianity that they never catch the real thing.” But something else is equally true — pastors in our program tell stories of a handful of lay-persons in their congregations who embody authentic Christian discipleship. They also report that these persons appear never to have set out to get it so right. {quotes align=right}Authentic discipleship for these rare few is not some lofty Christian ideal etched on a mission statement, nor some creed they feel bound to follow, nor is it participating in the annual mission trip, nor is it the monthly work of a church committee. Rather, it appears to be a way of being in life that got into their spiritual DNA or it got in their DNA and now orders their lives. All pastors in our program can recount, with a lump in their throat, some “salt of the earth” saints who epitomize the mystery of authentic discipleship by the simple and humble way they order their lives around the Gospel of Jesus Christ.{/quotes}
My dad was just such a person. He grew up dirt poor in the coal mining region of Pennsylvania during the Great Depression and, not wanting to work in the mines, he sought work in New Jersey. There he met my mother at a church youth event and then got drafted into World War II during which he was deployed to the Pacific theatre. In less than two years he was promoted to the rank of First Sergeant because the Army saw not only his natural ability for leadership, but his down home Christian character, integrity, and honesty that exuded from every pore. They also saw how he engaged people and put them at ease with his quick wit and disarming humor. He survived the attack on Pearl Harbor and the invasion of Saipan. He left all his medals overseas, but even if he had brought them home, they would have never left his underwear drawer. He had the remarkable ability to be so genuinely content with so very few material possessions — a spiritual practice my ravenous generation knows nothing about. As a child, I watched him wait five years to save up enough money from pocket change and birthday gifts to buy a $200 fishing boat. I once bought him an expensive fly rod which he hated to use because “it’s too good to mess up.”
As enviable as his self-restraint was, even more enviable was how he gave himself away with reckless abandon. The Spartan way with which he restricted his consumerism was given over to extravagance when it came to sharing the light and life with which God endowed his soul. But unlike most endowments — he strove to give his away instead of hoarding it for himself. The very first check he wrote after depositing his meager paycheck always went to the church.
From my earliest memory he always took kids — all kind of kids —fishing. He taught them how to tie on a hook and how to cast. He was patient when they snagged a tree. He was a surrogate father to any kid who needed one. My brother and I were the envy of every kid in our neighborhood.
I didn’t realize what a wide swath my dad’s discipleship had cut until, at his funeral, so many people whom I had never met told me that the way my dad lived his life and poured his witness over them guided them into becoming disciples also. Most admitted, though, that they had a long way to go before catching my dad.
One of my dad’s most endearing and enduring legacies, however, swirls around the lives of all the teens he mentored in his congregation’s year-long confirmation class — a ministry he faithfully savored for over twenty years. He was a primary source for boys who wrote history papers on Pearl Harbor. He took his confirmands fishing and gently wove his faith into the tapestry of their road trips. He taught hundreds of children to tie trout flies at schools, 4-H fairs, and Scout and Trout Unlimited expositions.
My dad did not wake up one day and craft a prospectus on how to become a faithful disciple. He did not get it from a discipleship retreat, Emmaus Walk, or some new book or curriculum. Somehow, he intrinsically understood that his discipleship began at his baptism in The Welsh Calvinistic Church of Plymouth, Pennsylvania, and he intuitively lived into God’s covenant and promise.
Maybe the greatest thing about authentic discipleship, however, is how it lives on in others. My dad’s discipleship now lives on in me, and I am now often spotted “tying flies” with Austin Seminary doctoral students.
Actually Buechner is correct in directing us to the word minister when trying to define disciple. For if we correctly understand the “priesthood of all believers,” then my dad was a minister after all.
