How to be a disciple of Jesus

A Gospel Enquiry

Introduction

I recall a time when a colleague suggested that we supply students in our school with wrist bands with the letters WWJD printed on them. WWJD? “What would Jesus do?” So we purchased some and handed them out to the students. Many wore them, not as an expression of faith necessarily, but more for the thrill of breaking a school rule that forbade the wearing of any form of bracelet other than medical bracelets. How did we get past the rule? We called the wristband a religious symbol. The students soon grew tired of wearing them because of the added burden of providing a reasonable answer to the question, “What would Jesus do?” 

The memory of this past event was stirred by the following story from Luke’s Gospel. The persecution and deprivation suffered by St John of the Cross (1542-1591) - the passage is the Gospel reading for his Feastday Mass - is evidence of how seriously the saint took Jesus’ teaching: “Whoever is not willing to carry his cross and follow me cannot be my follower.”

Gospel

Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and he turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to me but loves his father, mother, wife, children, brothers, or sisters—or even life—more than me, he cannot be my follower. Whoever is not willing to carry his cross and follow me cannot be my follower. If you want to build a tower, you first sit down and decide how much it will cost, to see if you have enough money to finish the job. If you don’t, you might lay the foundation, but you would not be able to finish. Then all who would see it would make fun of you, saying, ‘This person began to build but was not able to finish.’

“If a king is going to fight another king, first he will sit down and plan. He will decide if he and his ten thousand soldiers can defeat the other king who has twenty thousand soldiers. If he can’t, then while the other king is still far away, he will send some people to speak to him and ask for peace. In the same way, you must give up everything you have to be my follower. (Luke 14:25-33 - New Century Version)

The Enquiry 

See

• What happens in this Gospel story? What are its elements? Think of commitments you have made: Have you always followed your commitments through to their completion? Or have you sometimes settled for a compromise? 

• If you were one of the crowd following Jesus, why would you have been there? Were you there just to observe? Did you have an exit plan? How would Jesus have known this about some of those who were following him?  

• What would have happened after Jesus said this to the crowd? How would those who stayed have felt when people around them turned back and went home? What value do you place on commitment when it brings suffering and even death because of it? 

Judge

• What do you think about Jesus’ teaching and the stories he tells? 

• What is your faith (the faith that you own, that you try to live by) saying to you about his teaching? About following him?

• Ideally, what should have happened in this scene from Luke’s Gospel?

Act

• What needs to change so that the ideal becomes the reality, so that people take up their crosses and follow Jesus? 

• What small action can you commit to that will help to bring about this change in people you know and love?

• Who can you involve in your action and how and when will you get them to participate in your action?

Author: Pat Branson 

Image source: https://breadoflifebangalore.com/from-a-devotee-to-a-disciple/