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TRANSFIGURATION -August 6, 2017

“This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him." When the disciples heard this, they fell prostrate and were very much afraid. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, "Rise, and do not be afraid."

Today’s Feast of the Transfiguration offers us a momentary pause from the grinding focus of Matthew’s gospel texts of recent weeks. Our scriptures allow us to draw a pause on Matthew’s insistence on sharing the teaching of Jesus with us. We’ve been listening to Jesus describe for us that “The Kingdom of Heaven is like…” In a certain sense, it’s a little bit of a relief to just hear a story about a little hike up a mountain and a relatively quiet moment with his three BFFs. But nothing with Jesus is ever really that simple… at least nothing in the gospels is that innocuous. Maybe it’s the image of hiking up a mountain and the psychological effect that has on me, but I immediately began to consider some of the demands that are made of the disciples.

Anyone reading these columns will have discerned by now that I have been reflecting a lot on the theme of discipleship. I’ve been reflecting on if for myself personally, but also for the parish community as a whole. Together with staff and parish leadership, we have been teasing out what it means to be a disciple of Jesus in this time and in this place. I’ve already shared with you in this column (03/12/17) some of the primary characteristics that we have identified in a modern-day disciple here at #thisislourdes. A disciple is someone:

  • who can acknowledge that they need and desire a relationship with God in Jesus,
  • who finds support and nourishment for their life in the Word of God (Scripture) and in the sacramental life of God’s people, 
  • who is committed to deepening their personal relationship with Jesus, and 
  • who comes to share their joy and their passion for Jesus with others.

In that March column, I observed that “A disciple, in the gospels, is a person who has given themselves over as an apprentice, who comes to another to learn from them. More explicitly, in the context of the gospels, a disciple is a person who comes to Jesus, to listen to him, to learn from him, and to follow in his way.” The initial parts of this statement are nice and comforting for me, but that last piece, the “follow in his way” piece… well if it involves hiking then I know for sure that it involves effort and demands consideration of the “cost” of discipleship.

The truth is that there is a dirty secret about Christian discipleship that we’d probably all rather not have to deal with, namely discipline. To be a disciple, is to be a learner. To be a disciple always involves a certain discipline. In a very real way, discipline is the training by which we learn. In the case of Jesus, it is the discipline of following in his way. A few years ago people were asking “what would Jesus do?” That question completely misses the point of discipleship. The real question is “What do I do because I am a follower of the way of Jesus?” Asking the question this way puts the focus on the quality and nature of my discipleship, rather than on some perhaps well-intentioned reflection on what someone else might do, even if that someone else is Jesus.

Many of us are familiar with a pray-poem attributed to St. Teresa of Avila: “Christ has no body but yours, no hands, no feet on earth but yours, yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on this world, yours are the feet with which he walks to do good, yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.” To be a disciple requires discipline, certainly of prayer and of worship, but also of action. A true disciple is not only about right believing (orthodoxy), but also about right doing (orthopraxis). I can just hear Jesus say “Don’t just do as I say. Do as I do.”

 

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