Where Do We Go From Here?

In A Disciple's Path we defined a disciple as "a follower of Jesus Christ whose life is centering on loving God and loving others." The continuing present tense indicates that discipleship is an ongoing process of continued growth through which we are becoming more and more clearly centered in our commitment to Christ. Having made that directional decision, the question becomes Where do we go from here? In other words, what is the direction or goal or end toward which the journey of discipleship is taking us?

Benjamin Ingham was searching for that sense of direction early one morning when he made his way through Oxford to John Wesley's apartment at Lincoln College in the spring of 1734. Ingham was drawn to Wesley out of an unrelenting desire for a "holy" life. He was looking for practical ways to develop a richer, deeper, more faithful life as a follower of Jesus Christ. Under Wesley's guidance, Ingham was drawn into a small group with a few other students who met weekly to encourage each other's faith, to hold each other accountable to their spiritual disciplines, and to serve the needs of the poor.

Ingham's journal models the defining elements of discipleship in the Wesleyan tradition.

• It begins as a response to a gnawing, soul-level hunger for a closer relationship with God.

• It involves a personal commitment to become a more faithful follower of Jesus Christ.

• It is formed by specific spiritual and personal disciplines through which the Spirit of God can be at work to continually form us into the likeness of Christ.

• It is lived in community with other disciples who encourage our growth and hold us accountable to our spiritual disciplines.

• It moves us into the world in loving service to others, particularly to people in need.

This week we will discover how the disciplines that enabled the spiritual growth of the early Methodists at Oxford can become practical tools by which the love of God revealed in Jesus transforms our hearts into the likeness of Christ.

Week 1: Day 1

What Are You Looking For?

Scripture Readings

Read John 1:35-42 and Mark 1:16-20.

Today's Message

Everyone who goes fishing has his or her own fishing story. I remember meeting my son-in-law's ninety-something-year-old grandmother, who lived her entire life along the river in the low country of South Carolina. She was a tiny little woman who grabbed my hand with a stronger grip than I expected and showed no intention of letting go. I said, "I hear you like to fish." She looked me straight in the eye and said, "Yep. And I think I hooked a big one this time." It was her way of welcoming me into the family.

All four Gospel writers—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—tell the story of Jesus and the fishermen. But like most fishing stories, each one has his own way of telling it.

In Mark's Gospel, Jesus finds Simon and Andrew casting their nets into the sea because, after all, they were fishermen (Mark 1:16). What else would you expect them to be doing? "Fishermen" defined who they were. "Casting their nets" was their profession. It described what they did to make a living. It was the ordinary pattern of their ordinary lives. Jesus shows up as an unexpected intrusion into their ordinary, net-casting, fish-catching lives. But it turns out that Jesus is the fisherman casting the net this time. He offers them an extraordinary invitation that would change the direction of their lives.

"Come, follow me," he said, "and I'll show you how to fish for people." It was an offer they couldn't refuse. For reasons they probably could never explain, "Right away, they left their nets and followed him" (Mark 1:17-18). Jesus hooked two other fishermen named James and John the same way.

John's version begins with two "spiritual seekers" who have been listening to the preaching of John the Baptist. Dissatisfied with the way life is, they are casting their nets to find a richer, deeper, fuller life in relationship with God. I've known people like them in every community I've served. They are honest skeptics who are not satisfied with simplistic answers to complex questions. They are searching for a faith that makes sense in their brains even as it makes a difference in their hearts.

Jesus greets them with a question. "What are you looking for?" (John 1:38). They say they are looking for a rabbi, a teacher, someone to show them the way to live in a new relationship with God. Jesus offers the invitation, "Come and see." John says, "So they went and saw" (1:39). In fact, they spend the entire day checking Jesus out. At the end of the day, Andrew runs off to tell his brother, Simon, that he has found what he was looking for, and he invites Simon to come and see for himself.

Same fishermen. Different stories. Our tendency is to call out the fact checkers to find out which version got it exactly right, but that's not a question the Gospel writers have any interest in answering. There was no attempt to merge them into one event. They hang both stories out there as if to say, "This is how people meet Jesus."

Sometimes Jesus finds us. He shows up as an unexpected intrusion into our ordinary, busy lives. But we somehow know that if we pass up the invitation to follow him, we will miss out on one of the most important opportunities that ever came our way. It's a lot like falling in love. Sometimes it happens unexpectedly when a special person steps into our lives.

Others find Jesus through an arduous search. Dissatisfied with the way life is, we are looking for something more. During a time of spiritual exploration, we receive the same invitation, "Come and see." We read the story and check out the evidence for ourselves. Along the way we discover in the words, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the one for whom we had always been searching. We discover that Jesus has been what Francis Thompson called "The Hound of Heaven" who was searching for us long before we began searching for him.

However the invitation comes, the decisive moments are those times when we make a commitment to leave our old nets behind and take the next appropriate step in following him. We turn from our past and choose to follow Jesus, not because we know all the answers to all our questions but because we know that he is the one who can lead us toward the answers—that he is the one worth following. We commit all that we know of ourselves to all that we know of Christ, knowing that we still have a lot to learn. The Gospels call this experience repentance. The word literally means to turn in a new direction.

That's when God's work of heart transformation begins. One of the words we use to describe that change is conversion. Like shifting from using a PC to a Mac, it involves a conversion from one operating platform to another. Jesus expresses this change with a Greek play on words when he tells the fishermen that he will show them how to fish for people. Instead of casting their nets for grouper, crabs, or mahi-mahi, they will be casting their nets for other people who will follow them as they follow Jesus. At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus establishes the pattern. People become disciples because other disciples disciple them.

Don't miss the unique way in which Jesus frames the invitation to discipleship in a way that is custom-made for whom these fishermen are. In the same way, Jesus meets Matthew, the tax collector, at his workplace and offers the same invitation, "Follow me." Matthew leaves his old career behind. That evening, we find Jesus having dinner with Matthew's disreputable, irreligious coworkers and friends. Matthew was able to introduce Jesus to a crowd of people the fishermen never could have reached (Matthew 9:9-13).

In the same way, the Risen Christ meets us in the very real places of our very ordinary lives. He calls us to leave behind our old ways of thinking and living in order to turn in a new direction. Then he takes the uniqueness of who we are and what we have to offer and uses us to invite others to follow us as we follow him.

Whoever you are, wherever you've been, whatever you do for a living, whatever you believe or don't believe, the invitation is always the same. We are called to follow Jesus and allow him to transform our lives into the kind of life he lived so that others will see his life in us and follow him.

Your Reflections

• Where do you find yourself in the Scripture Readings? Which character most closely matches your experience with Christ?

• What are the things that you have had to leave behind because of your relationship with Christ and the church?

• What are the "nets" to which you still cling?

• How are you fishing for people? How do you invite people to experience the love of God in Christ?

Your Guide to Prayer and Action

God, I give thanks for your ever-present invitation and for the grace that preceded my decision to respond to your invitation. I pray now that I might invite you into the area of my life that most needs your presence. If I am holding on to a net that prevents me from loving you or loving others, give me the strength to let it go so that I could be more effective in being a fisher of people. Amen.

• Think of a person who is in your life who currently doesn't appear to have a life committed to God. Pray for this person by name throughout the day.

• Pray through Mark 1:16-20 using Lectio Divina, an ancient practice of prayerful meditation of Scripture in which you listen to what Christ has to say. Follow the steps on page 119. Whatever word or phrase God gives you during this time, use it throughout the day to center your thoughts.

Week 1: Day 2

What Kind of Perfection Are You Aiming For?

Scripture Reading

Read Matthew 5:43-48.

Today's Message

Are you going on to perfection?
Do you expect to be made perfect in love in this life?
Are you earnestly striving after perfection in love?

In the Methodist tradition, these three questions are asked of persons who are entering into the ordained ministry, but they also could be asked of every follower of Christ. They go to the heart of the journey of discipleship and invite each of us into lifelong practices of discipleship that enable us to be formed into followers of Jesus whose lives are centering in loving God and loving others. They lure us into an ongoing process of heart transformation that continues throughout our lives.

Jesus' words in the Sermon on the Mount are even more daunting than Wesley's ordination questions. It must have been just as disturbing for his first disciples as it is for us to hear him say, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48 NRSV).

If we apply our current culture's ideas of "perfection" to Jesus' words, we could end up with a neurotic form of perfectionism that is utterly impossible to attain and can lead to destructive personality traits, unhealthy ambition, and broken relationships. We might imagine the perfection of an Olympic ice skater with points being deducted for every minute flaw in his or her performance.

In the New Testament, the word perfection comes from the Greek word teleios, meaning "complete" or "whole." Perfection is the end or goal toward which all things are moving. Perfection can also mean "entire," "mature," or "full-grown." Kathleen Norris says that perfection as Jesus defines it means "to make room for growth, for the changes that bring us to maturity, to ripeness."

In the context of the Sermon on the Mount, perfection is neither the faultless fulfillment of an external set of rules and regulations nor our rational ascent to a perfectly comprehended concept or doctrine. Rather, it is God's way of love being worked out in human relationships. It is gracious hospitality to the presence of the living Christ settling into our hearts, taking up residence in our relationships, and taking control of every area of our lives.

Jesus defines "perfection" as loving others the way that God loves us (Matthew 5:43-47). He describes the radical uniqueness of this way of love by calling his disciples to love their enemies and to pray for those who persecute them. It is the universal love God demonstrates in making the sun shine on both the evil and the good and by making rain fall on both the righteous and the unrighteous (Matthew 5:45). Perfection is the fulfillment of the commandment to love God with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love others as we have been loved by God (Luke 10:27; John 13:34).

For disciples in the Wesleyan tradition, the aim of the Christian life is for the love of God that came among us in Jesus to take up residence in every area of our lives so that we become the agents of God's transforming love at work in the world.

My homegrown definition of Christian perfection is that it is what happens in our lives when God's Spirit takes control of our attitudes, values, commitments, relationships, and loyalties so that we are increasingly motivated, led, and directed by nothing less than the love that became flesh among us in Jesus Christ. It is the love of Christ purifying our motives, refining our desires, liberating our spirit, and empowering our actions. It is what the Apostle Paul intended when he prayed that "Christ will live in your hearts through faith. As a result of having strong roots in love, I ask that you'll have the power to grasp love's width and length, height and depth, together with all believers. I ask that you'll know the love of Christ that is beyond knowledge so that you will be filled entirely with the fullness of God" (Ephesians 3:17-19).

Wesley pushed back on the critics who questioned his message of Christian perfection with questions that continue to challenge us today:

By Christian perfection I mean loving God with all our heart. Do you object to this? I mean a heart and life all devoted to God. Do you desire less? ... I mean having all the mind that was in Christ. Is this going too far?

So, here's the question for each of us: If you aren't going on toward perfection, then where are you are going? Why would you want to go in any other direction?

Your Reflections

• Reflect on the three questions ...

* Are you going on to perfection? Is your deepest desire for the love of God to take up residence in every area of your life?

* Do you expect to be made perfect in love in this life (to love others the way that God loves you)?

* Are you earnestly striving after perfection in love?

• What is the difference between the perfection Wesley described and the way perfection is portrayed in our culture? Are there any similarities?

• How has your love grown as you have matured? Name some tangible signs that your love is being made complete in your relationships.

• What attitudes or dispositions are inhibiting you from growing toward greater maturity in Christ? What action can you take to offer those attitudes to Christ so that he may reshape them?

Your Guide to Prayer and Action

Loving God, shape and mold me, my family, my friends, and my faith community into a more complete kind of love. Illuminate any dispositions or attitudes that will prevent us from the Great Commandment of loving with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength, and shape us into who we really are made to be. Amen.

• Use Lectio Divina to pray through Matthew 5:4348 (refer to the steps on page 119). Use the word or phrase God gives you during this time throughout the day to center your thoughts.

• Identify one attitude or disposition of which you are aware that is holding you back from a more robust and mature love of God and others.

* Ask God to enter into your unwillingness to let it go.

* Find a Scripture that counters the attitude. Say it throughout the day.

* Share the attitude and Scripture with a trusted friend, an accountability partner, or a spiritual guide/director.

Week 1: Day 3

Who Really Wants to Be Holy?

Scripture Reading

Read 1 Peter 1:13-16.

Today's Message

What image or picture comes to mind when you think of someone who is "holy"? Some might recall former "Saturday Night Live" cast member Dana Carvey's classic portrayal of "The Church Lady," who looked down her pretentiously pious nose and snarled at her talk show guests with her judgmental "holier-than-thou" attitude.