Discipleship - 1 Thessalonians 1

Read: 1 Thessalonians 1

This semester I’m taking a class entitled “The Ethics and Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.” For those of you who have not yet heard of him, Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor-theologian who lived during the Third Reich in Nazi Germany. He was perhaps best known as the only pastor who was involved with a plot to assassinate Hitler, and for that reason he was sent to the Flossenburg Concentration Camp and was executed a few weeks before the end of World War II. Dietrich Bonhoeffer visited America twice. In 1930, he came to New York City’s Union Theological Seminary for a postgraduate year. There he met with a fellow friend: Paul Lehmann. My professor, who herself was a close friend of the Lehmanns, would share often of Paul’s stories concerning Bonhoeffer, about the strength and vitality of his faith. Much of this vitality can be sensed in one of Bonhoeffer’s famous books: Discipleship. I recommend it to all of you.

We often think of discipleship as a “mentorship” sort of relationship. Indeed, at WCAC we have a very strong discipleship program that I think all of you should be involved in if you have not yet. But why do we have that program? Why is this discipleship important? For Bonhoeffer, discipleship is ultimately about following Christ, no matter the cost. In his famous first chapter, Bonhoeffer talks about “cheap grace.” The idea of forgiveness without repentance, Christian living without suffering, etc. is cheap grace because it is, to put it differently, cherry-picking the Gospel, picking out what you like about it, and leaving out what you don’t like. We see this all the time. People talk about loving God, but not giving up the things that enslave us, like other gods, money, etc. People talk about following God, but not repenting of sins from our old selves. That is cheap grace.

Bonhoeffer argues that Christianity is about “costly grace,” a grace so costly it costs us our very lives. We see this in the passage we read today. It’s great that God has graciously made Godself known among the Thessalonians (vs. 4-5), but is that enough? What makes the Thessalonian church so much different than just any church that claimed to have received Jesus? We see it in verse 6: they imitated the apostles, who themselves imitated the example set forth by Jesus. And they did that despite “severe suffering”. And in doing so, they preached the Gospel without words, with the Gospel making inroads into Macedonia and Achaia. Paul concludes thusly: “We do not need to say anything about it (v. 8).” Why? The fruits of their witness were plain enough for everyone to see.

Discipleship is fundamentally about imitation. In Jesus’ times, the rabbis would’ve understood what that meant. To be a rabbi begins with becoming a disciple of a famous rabbi. Whatever your master did, you do too. You want to be like your master. If he drank Earl Grey Tea, you’d drink Earl Grey Tea as well, even if you hate it. In our day and age, it’s easy to water down what discipleship is about. Oh, Jesus could not possibly be against homosexuality. Oh, Jesus couldn’t possibly be against having wealth. Oh, Jesus couldn’t possibly be against war. What’s wrong with living in the suburbs? What’s wrong with being patriotic? And by watering down what discipleship is about, we move closer and closer towards cheap grace. Before long, our discipleship becomes a “Denny’s Discipleship.” You meet at Denny’s (McDonald’s or Chik-Fil-A), get your meal, sit together, pray, eat, and then address the most pressing theological and ethical issue of our time: “What do you think of Theo Epstein?” And the rest of the “Denny’s Discipleship” is not so much about Christ as it is about the Cubs and whether this will be the year they’ll experience World Series Resurrection. So much for discipleship.

The challenge for our time today is not liberalism, conservatism, secularism, or whatever “-ism” you can come up with as you try to find a way to fall asleep. No – the challenge for our time today is cheap grace. The challenge for our time today consists of Christians who don’t wish to follow Christ completely, who are unwilling to give up their old idols to serve the one true God; Christians who want to follow Jesus without letting go of their pleasures and possessions. Christians who want to follow Jesus while staying employed. I’m not saying, by the way, that the Cubs, TV, iPods, or a job are bad per se. But so often, they become something we cannot give up.

All the more reason, therefore, that we make authentic discipleship an important part of our fellowship. Let us pray that God will teach us to accept “costly grace” and reject “cheap grace”. May we learn from our disciplers who embody what it means to be saved by costly grace – grace so costly it cost Jesus his dignity and life.