A well-known American hymn is based on Jesus’s question to James and John about drinking the cup of salvation:
“Are ye able” said the Master,
“To be crucified with me?”
“Yea, the sturdy dreamers answered,
“To the death we follow Thee…”
Looking with love, as upon the first disciples, Jesus puts a question to all those who would follow Him. The “sturdy dreamers” wanted to be disciples; they did not expect to turn tail and run away in fearfulness. And what about that rich young man, who received a loving look from Jesus and was invited into the inner circle of apostles? He went away sad because he had many possessions. The tragic sadness is eternally on both sides: Jesus is disappointed and so are those who walk away from Him. Blessedly, God’s love is patient, and some come back.
Why does it seem so hard, so formidable, to become a disciple? Is one of the factors sheer laziness? As when mum or dad calls the kids to get out of bed for school or work? The hatred of work is surely one of the most depressing effects of the Fall; it may be seen as original sin’s number one partner in crime.
When yoked with self-deceit (adding insult to injury!) laziness justifies itself by virtue-signaling or misapplied religious directives. (Thomas Merton noted this sly tendency among the young monks, who too often would grasp a pious book to get out of work; Merton devised a clever way to satisfy the claims of both work and religion.)
How early self-justification begins! As a young girl, my parents asked the ten-year-old me to help rake leaves one Sunday afternoon. I reluctantly raked, just slowly (Scritch … pause… Scritch) because we were supposed to rest on Sunday. I wondered which commandment was more important: pleasing God by not working or honoring my parents by raking leaves vigorously? Soon, my exasperated parents had endured enough sighing and stalling; they sent me inside as punishment. Despite the disgrace, I secretly glowed with self-comforting pride! After all, I saw myself as a victim of my efforts to honor God above obedience to my parents wishes!
A scene from the 1939 movie Gone with the Wind helped transform this self-deceit into a more godly attitude regarding work and discipleship. The American civil war had ended, and many wounded Confederate soldiers were recovering inside the home of the war-ravaged plantation. An exhausted Scarlett O’Hara asks her sister-in-law, Melanie, how she can keep nursing the wounded, day after day with no relief. Remembering her absent and beloved husband, Melanie replies: “Because they might be Ashley…they might all be Ashley.” Melanie was not far from Jesus’s discipleship.
Discipleship points the way to the Father, through Jesus, in every fair love. Both human relationships and Christian discipleship become holy realities when we love what we ought to love. Without love, discipleship and all work remains a resented chore and drudgery.
Our models for discipleship are the saints. The first disciple was Mary, Mother of God, who accepted God’s Word and so began salvation history. Thirty-three years later, it was Mary Magdalene, who heard the blessed Voice speak lovingly to her by name. The first disciple, Mary, became the mother of the Church. The second disciple of the resurrected Lord, Mary Magdalene, became the apostle to the apostles. These two women, along with all the great saints, including St Joseph and St George Preca, are the models for all discipleship. They loved Jesus rightly, as a disciple ought, and so could do as they wished, since they wished for God’s will as their first priority.
Similarly, the writer, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote, “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” We who aspire to discipleship would do well to teach ourselves and others to long for the beauty of holiness in the Sacraments and to pray that Jesus will look upon each of us with love.
Ruth D. Lasseter
SDC Associate
Indiana, USA
