4 October 2006

We move today to Bonhoeffer's discussion of the Call to Discipleship.

"As Jesus was walking along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, 'Follow me.' And he got up and followed him." (Mark 2:14)

The call goes out, and without any further ado the obedient deed of the one called follows. The disciple's answer is not a spoken confession of faith in Jesus. Instead, it is the obedient deed. How is this direct relation between call and obedience possible? It is quite offensive to natural reason. Reason is impelled to reject the abruptness of the response. It seeks something to mediate it; it seeks an explanation...
But the text is stubbornly silent on this point; in it, everything depends on call and deed directly facing each other. The text is not interested in psychological explanations for the faithful decisions of a person. Why not? Because there is only one good for the proximity of call and deed: Jesus Christ himself.

Levi got up. Levi got up and followed. Was there a time of deliberation and debate about whether this was an appropriate act? The story simply gives us the kernel of the event. Call...deed. They are not two actions. It is one reality. When Jesus, the Christ of God calls, we are within the realm of a whole new world and new life. Do we live within it...do we follow? Or do we stay in place and contemplate whether it is the best thing to do? The story says we go...we follow...we take the step. It is not about us and what we have been able to put together so that it makes sense to us. It is all about the Reign of God - at hand - now. If we are there in that domain, we reflect it because we trust that it is indeed a call from the one we call Lord. We are being called - all of us - into a life. That means action...that means movement...that means discipline...that means a vision...that means leaping beyond what we control and living within that which Jesus sets before us. The call and the deed.

Connection: So as followers of Jesus, what do we know about what that means as we hit the road today. Is it simply a sweet kiss on the cheek that says do what ever you want because you will be always be my beloved....or does it mean that we are beloved...so be beloved. There is quite a bit of life packed within that gracious status.

When we fall down, O Lord, you are there to pick us up - that is a promise. And yet, before we have anything over which we trip, you are there also, bidding us to come and follow. Let your promised Spirit of life shine on us so we may take part in the life that is promise and reality. Amen.