TJieodore W. Jennings, Jr. The Meaning of ... - Quarterly Review

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13:12). There is no following of Jesus that does not lead to persecution and finally to death (Mark 13:9,13). This is not death as a natural if lamentable end but instead death as the execution of a criminal. That is what discipleship means in the New Testament. To be a disciple is to be a witness. And the word for witness is martyr. This should not be too surprising. The disciple is to accompany Jesus, the one who will be crucified. Alas, we seek a different form of discipleship, one that has no part in following Jesus. One that lives not in the streets and deserts but in the temple. One that does not leave work and family but is the bastion of the work ethic and the model of family values. One that does not scandalize the pious but is the very epitome of piety. One that does not outrage the wealthy and powerful but courts their patronage. But if this is the discipleship we seek, why do we confuse things so utterly as to call this the discipleship of Jesus? For we really want disciples, not of Jesus but of the priests and Pharisees. Betrayal. This quick sketch of discipleship in the New Testament may give us pause. It is clear that Jesus' call to discipleship has nothing to do with the call to make people functionaries of a religious institution. They are instructed not to attend church or synagogue but to attend the hungry and naked. They are called not to tithe to the temple but to renounce all possessions in solidarity with the poor. They are summoned not to be religious but to be agents of freedom. They become not exponents of the old family but members of a new adopted family of shared mission. We may say that the difference is one of culture and of epoch. We do not live in first-century Palestine. But the difference is so radical that it appears to be more a matter of commitment than of culture. Our view of discipleship is too like what the New Testament describes as the old eon, the world that is passing away. And it is the New Testament discipleship that is really "modern" in the sense of belonging to the new eon. If this difference between our discipleship and theirs leads us to defend our own, then it will be catastrophic. For the only liberating response to this difference is one of confession and repentance. 16 QUARTERLY REVIEW / SPRING 1993
It is in this connection that it is important to recall another characteristic of disciples as we encounter them in the New Testament. They all, without exception, abandoned Jesus. All without exception denied and betrayed him whom they had sworn to follow. All. Here if nowhere else we may truly recognize ourselves in the picture of the disciples. All have abandoned. But this abandonment, denial, betrayal does not and cannot have the last word. At the end the lad in the tomb relays to the women a message from the one who was abandoned: "Go and tell Peter and the other disciples..." (Mark 16:7). They have abandoned him. But they are still called disciples. Their betrayal is not the last word. And neither is ours. We may be terrible dunces about discipleship. So were they. We may be terrible cowards about what it costs. So were they. But they were still called to go back and start over. And so are we. They had a chance to try again and get it right. And so do we. The Easter message scared them half to death. It scares me too. This call is addressed to us who have sought security in the world and have fled the cost of discipleship. We cannot forever hide out in our studies and sanctuaries, in our robes and rules, in our excuses and rationalizations. For that voice still calls, summons, invites, seduces, and lures. And we will never be at peace, never know joy, until we turn with undivided heart to the one who loves us even in our disobedience and summons us to follow him into mission in our own Galilee. Conclusion What can we learn from this consideration of the double perspective of Wesley and the New Testament on the theme of discipleship in the contemporary world? It is clear that we have two contrasting views. But they are also complementary. In spite of the confusion that results from using the term discipleship to refer to Wesley's view of holiness, this does at least have the advantage of suggesting that we need to consider them together. Let me quickly sketch a few common themes. THE MEANING OF DISCIPLESHIP 17
Page 1 and 2: Quarterly Review/Spring 1993 55.00
Page 3 and 4: Quarterly Review A Journal of Theol
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Page 8 and 9: I have always rather liked the gruf
Page 10 and 11: of discipleship in the New Testamen
Page 12 and 13: imagine a week without visiting the
Page 14 and 15: transform all of life, and all that
Page 16 and 17: Contemporary North American Christi
Page 18 and 19: We must now see what it is that cha
Page 20 and 21: saying "call no one your father in
Page 24 and 25: Both New Testament discipleship and
Page 26 and 27: 17. "The Duty of Constant Communion
Page 28 and 29: earliest Christian congregations be
Page 30 and 31: his baptism to the experience of Ch
Page 32 and 33: Holy Spirit comes down willingly fr
Page 34 and 35: The Sacramental Nature of the Bapti
Page 36 and 37: to save them from "the wrath to com
Page 38 and 39: aptism—for mature youth and adult
Page 40 and 41: purpose of a rite of maturity is to
Page 42 and 43: church, namely, thatbaptism-chrisma
Page 44 and 45: 31. John Wesley, Works, X: 151. 32.
Page 46 and 47: In Baptismal Covenant I, in the "In
Page 48 and 49: of God without being born of water
Page 50 and 51: they urged a stronger claim for a p
Page 52 and 53: After analyzing how American Method
Page 54 and 55: eferred to as "a symbol of an inner
Page 56 and 57: of baptism is "the washing away the
Page 58 and 59: Although there is only scant likeli
Page 60 and 61: ut the inner man, where we have put
Page 62 and 63: Notes 1. Lawrence Hull Stookey, "Th
Page 64 and 65: 44. Borgen, 159f.; Stein, 319, f, 1
Page 66 and 67: I am not a liturgical scholar or pr
Page 68 and 69: ounden duty...to consecrate our chi
Page 70 and 71: formed in the gospel not only by le
Page 72 and 73:
life, for one could always lose gra
Page 74 and 75:
However, I have focused on human ac
Page 76 and 77:
Osborne, Kenan B. The Christian Sac
Page 78 and 79:
It was raining pretty hard one Satu
Page 80 and 81:
the same time a young man came to s
Page 82 and 83:
theologically unpacked. A pastoral
Page 84 and 85:
Elizabeth Achtemeier's Preaching fr
Page 86 and 87:
prophets by the traditions of ancie
Page 88 and 89:
eading; it seems as if one is heari
Page 90 and 91:
Brueggemann's discussion of royal v
Page 92 and 93:
limitations, even in quite valuable
Page 95 and 96:
M. Eugene Boring Interpreting 1 Pet
Page 97 and 98:
particular way. The particularity o
Page 99 and 100:
in the capital of the empire felt m
Page 101 and 102:
location but about the way we relat
Page 103 and 104:
answer: Read. Interpret. Examine. B
Page 105 and 106:
in liturgical settings. Yet all of
Page 107 and 108:
word accomplished by Jesus, who cal
Page 109 and 110:
community that does what priests do
Page 111 and 112:
kings, slavery as a divinely author
Page 113 and 114:
wives and husbands. To each it migh
Page 115 and 116:
etained some of the oral style appr
Page 117 and 118:
Brox, Norbert. Der erste Petrusbrie
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