Parish Missions

The Call and the Cost of Discipleship

During World War II, a German widow hid Jewish

refugees in her home. Once her friends learned of her

activities, they were alarmed and extremely fearful for

her safety.

“You are risking your own life!” they told her.

“I know that,” she said.

“Then why, why do you persist in this foolishness?”

Her answer was stark and to the point: “I am doing this

because the time is now and I am here.”

--Source: Pax Christi

That little bit of history could easily be defined as a WWJD moment, for in a real sense that is exactly what Jesus is talking about in the images he uses to further refine his definition of discipleship. He clearly states that discipleship is not for the timid, not for the self-possessed, not for the faint of heart. What Jesus wants are people so free, so unencumbered, that their response to any issue confronting the human spirit is swift, principled and decisive.

The issues that Jesus confronted in his ministry provide us with all the agenda we need, even two thousand years later. He proposed taking care of the least among us. Whether it was his response to the parent of a dead child, a woman bent over, a man marginalized by his disease, or a woman caught in adultery, Jesus always opted for healing those most oppressed by their circumstances. This essential theme is also evident in his most powerful parables, as when his stories focus on a lost sheep or a prodigal son. His expectation is that we, too, exercise our discipleship in ways that clearly mark our option for the least in our midst.

In our time it includes not just the traditional “widow and orphans,” but all those who find themselves unable to care for themselves. We, of course, can easily catalog those in need in areas of the world where natural disasters have left people helpless and hopeless. A disciple responds with generosity and the urgency these catastrophes demand. But what of the less than catastrophic in our own midst? The recent widow, the elderly neighbor in a nursing home, the parishioner in the hospital are all daily reminders of the kind of decisive discipleship demanded by today’s Scriptures.

We sometimes overlook the obvious in responding to the needs of others as disciples. A retired friend of mine, not a Christian, has for a number of years offered a morning a week during the school year to tutor a child in a nearby grade school. I recently asked a couple of local Catholic school teachers how many parishioners annually offer to tutor children in their schools. I was surprised to hear “not as many as we need” and “I don’t think there are any.” Would an offer to do so be considered a part of discipleship? Would it be a witness of decisive discipleship for a group of senior citizens in a parish to consider organizing a corps of tutors during these summer months that could then be offered to the school’s principal in the fall? Wouldn’t it be decisive, and totally uncomplicated, to send a greeting to people on the parish sick list to let them know that they are being thought of?

If we see the urgency of the Gospel story as something earth-shattering, we may be missing the most obvious point of the message. Becoming a focused, committed disciple doesn’t necessarily come in one life-transforming decision. My experience is that it comes one day at a time, in a myriad of simple, little acts of putting others before self, like sending a greeting card to a sick person or reading a book to a child in school.

St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians helps us sort out the struggle that we face in being decisive disciples. He presents the very basic human conflict between the “flesh,” a whole array of our baser instincts, and the work of the Spirit, the willingness to accept the will and the way of God. This is at the heart of the dilemma in the call to discipleship. Each of us is continually confronted with choices that benefit self over others. Though a significant struggle, St. Paul reminds us of a solution that is as simple as the ancient, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

In our society, so riddled with consumerism run amok, it is easy to succumb to self-interest. To overcome this onslaught takes a deliberate course of action, one that begins with what the famed bumper sticker claims are “random acts of kindness.” It was probably a life full of such little acts of kindness that led the widow in that story of World War II Germany to a dangerous act of kindness in putting her life on the line for another human being in crisis.

That’s the call and the cost of discipleship:because the time is now and I am here.