This is a draft of an article I wrote for the church newsletter. I thought I'd post here as well.
I can still remember the discipline I received from my father for marking up the kitchen cabinets with a full palette of magic markers when I was four years old. This is one of those incidents that lives on in family lore even though it happened more than 35 years ago. I don’t know what was going through my four-year-old brain—maybe I couldn’t reach any drawing paper—but I decided that it would be a good idea to treat the kitchen cabinets as my artist’s canvas. When my siblings retell the story, they always cite how the incriminating squeak of the magic markers on the cabinets was audible above the TV playing in the living room. That was the sound that drew my father’s attention. He stormed into the kitchen, only to stop in his tracks as he took in the full scope of my destruction. The spanking I received has largely faded from memory, but the red-faced wailing that followed is still clear in my mind.
Discipline does not come easy to most of us, even if it doesn’t result in streams of tears and caterwauling as it did for me. It matters not whether discipline is imposed externally upon us by an authority figure or internally by ourselves (to which anyone who has made a New Year’s resolution that involves diet or exercise can readily attest). The idea of being disciplined runs counter to what the culture we live in tells us. Think of commercial advertising. Advertising is based on creating a need and then satisfying it. No delayed gratification here. “Aren’t you hungry? You could sure use a double cheeseburger! Don’t have money for that new car that you so richly deserve? Don’t worry—no money down! Don’t wait! Act now!”
The etymological root of “discipline” is the Latin word discupulus, from which we also get the word “disciple.” So language itself reveals that there is a relationship between being a disciple of someone and being disciplined. The 2011 theme for Pilgrim Church picks up on this relationship: Good Disciple, Faithful Servant. Being a disciple of Jesus entails being a servant of all. As Jesus tells his disciples in the Gospel of Luke, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer expresses the same notion in even stronger terms: “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” Try selling that on Madison Avenue.
What sort of death is it to which Bonhoeffer speaks? I believe it is the death of vanity in oneself—that is, the death of any attempt on the part of the self to place itself on a higher plane than God or one’s neighbor. As Christians we may nod our heads in agreement, understanding with our intellect that such a death to self is what the cross demands, but how much more easily is this said than done!
“Do you really expect me to subordinate myself to him or her…who is so much younger or older, who makes so little or so much money, who hangs out with those people, who is annoying, who is different, who, frankly, doesn’t deserve it?”
In a word, yes. Jesus was very much aware of the difficult nature of what he was calling his followers (which includes us today, not just the original disciples) to do: “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave” (Matthew 20:26-27). Knowing how weak we are, God has not left us to our own devices. That is why we are recipients of grace, in which we are empowered by the Spirit to do what is impossible on our own.
Living out our faith is humbling, demands that we grow comfortable with being uncomfortable, and is where true discipleship is expressed. Whereas faith often begins with intellectual understanding (I believe), it reaches maturity in action (therefore I do). Put simply, discipleship requires discipline. There’s no use crying over it.
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