An Alternative look at Discipleship – by Philip Vinod Peacock

Dissent is a central Christian virtue; we as Christians are called not to be conformed to the world but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds as Paul tells us in Romans chapter 12. It is my conviction that Christian discipleship is embodied in resistance and in refusal to conform to the powers and principalities of the world.

The term discipleship was used in two senses in the gospels.  In one sense of course it was a word that was used exclusively for the twelve that Jesus called out, but in a larger and a wider sense discipleship was also a term used for the followers of Jesus. In fact the mission mandate that Jesus gives to his followers is that they would go into all of the world and make disciples of all. In our present day however, discipleship has become subservient to notions of power and Empire and has been read to mean everything from colonial enterprise and the extension of Empire, be it the British or even American versions of it, to what has become increasingly controversial in the my own Indian context today with the debate on conversion. Of course one would have to admit that the issue of conversion has become just a mere excuse for Christian bashing and violence against Christians from fundamentalist forces in my country.  At the same time we also cannot deny that the Biblical text of Matthew 28: 19 and 20 have been misused by Christian fundamentalists for their own vision of a mission of expansion! However what is to be noted is even this text in Matthew 28: 19-20 does not speak of a numerical increase of Christians but rather speaks of making disciples. The key therefore seems to be that the mission of the Church be disciple making. But what does it really mean to make disciples?

In the light of the abuse of the Matthean text and to perhaps expand our understanding of the concept of discipleship it would be appropriate for us to turn to a Lukan text that speaks of discipleship, I refer here to Luke 10: 1-9. This text indicates to us that Jesus called seventy of those who were his followers or disciples and sends them out with the specific task of preaching the fact that the Kingdom of God is at hand.

After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go.  He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful , but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.  Go on your way.  See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves.  Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road.  Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’  And if anyone is there who shares in peace4, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you.  Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborere deserves to be paid.  Do not move about from house to house.  Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’                Luke 10:1-9, NRSV

The text seems to speak of three things.  First, it speaks about resisting the notion of the accumulation of power.

It is very significant in the text that Jesus sends the disciples out in twos. By doing this Jesus offers his disciples an alternative way of looking at the concept of power. By this every simple act Jesus indicates to us three truths about power. The first truth that he shares with us is that we should move away from notions of power and authority as being individualistic. Power when it becomes individualistic drives others into being slaves and sycophants. When only one person holds all the power then we fall into the danger of this power being abused. It was Lord Acton who spoke the truth when he said that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Power when it is in the hand of only one individual tends towards being absolutistic and therefore has every potential of being abused. And all of us know full well what power in the hands of an individual can do; we are surrounded with singular dictators who wield power in the worst ways possible. It is precisely because of this that power has to be shared, and this is the second lesson that we learn from Jesus sending out the people in twos. Sending the disciples out in twos indicates to us that discipleship is a resistance to the individualization of power.

It is not necessarily true that power is always abused, individualistic power, or power that is found only among certain communities or groups of people is indeed wrong, because if there is to be justice then power is to be shared. Power has the capability of transforming the world but this can only happen when power is shared. This is precisely why Jesus sent out the disciples in twos, so that power would be shared among them.

Second, we find that Jesus sent out the disciples into twos also because they would be accountable for the power that they had to each other. A difficulty with power in the present context is that power is not accountable, it does as it pleases. And when power does as it pleases then it leads to disastrous consequences, one of the terrible things that unchecked unaccountable power did was the Jewish Holocaust. Yet, we find that when power is shared, then a system of accountability comes with the package and power is not allowed to go haywire. But not only did Jesus show that discipleship means a resistance to traditional notions of power but also an alternative way for conceptualizing power.

Last, we see that discipleship means a resistance to economic models which are not based on justice. In the passage we have read verse four explicitly tells the disciples to carry no bag, no purse, no bag, no sandals and to salute no one on the road. The indication here is that Jesus is pointing to an alternative economic system that is not based on accumulation but is rather based on powerlessness. In our modern world as also probably the world that Jesus was in the system was based on accumulation. We are taught that we have to gather as much money and things as possible, in fact consumerism, the ideology of the market system informs us that unless we have, we own we really do not exist. Existence is based on what we buy and own. Rather the economic system that we have in Jesus was based owning nothing;not even footwear! In Biblical times sandals were a symbol of power and prestige, it is no wonder then that we have John saying that he unworthy of even untying the sandals of Jesus. Here by not owning sandals Jesus subverts popular notions of power and wealth and is calling his disciples to give up their notions of power and authority. He further goes on to state that they should not show any undue respect to people they come across on the road either, they are to treat everyone as equals. By asking his disciples not to carry anything with them, not to show symbols of power and do not give others a false sense of power either, Jesus establishes an alternative economic system of mutual co-dependence, where each one will receive their sustenance from the other. This is why the disciples have to eat whatever they are given at whoever welcomes them in.

Our economic system today is based on independence and competition, where each one seeks to serve their own interests in the belief that that the system would somehow work on its own. Yet if we look around us the system does not seem to working; abject poverty stands side by side with extreme wealth. Hunger deaths and starvation are a reality for us. Discipleship demands that we resist such systems and evoke alternatives. It is in this context that Jesus’ economic system of non-hierarchical mutual codependence stands out as a beacon to us. To the disciples of Jesus such alternatives to our present economic system are seen in the ethic of hospitality.

The words of Jesus to his disciples to open themselves to each house that welcomes them in speaks of the centrality of hospitality for discipleship. To those that offer the disciples hospitality, they offer the healing of the gospel – but of course this is the paradox really. To be hospitable to strangers itself means opening oneself to the gospel and becoming a disciple. Equally the disciples by healing those who are sick are returning the spirit of hospitality that is being extended to them. Hospitality is central to the understanding of discipleship. In India we are known for our traditions of hospitality, but if we scrutinize these traditions one would come into the understanding that we have a conditional hospitality here.  Our hospitality is only open to those who belong to our same caste and class. Even within this hospitality we find that it is the women who extend the hospitality – they are the first to offer food and the last to eat. What this means is that we have to rethink our traditions of hospitality to include those who lie on the margins of society, to stop responding in violence to the other and to women.

Discipleship is not conformity to the world, but it is resistance to the accumulation of power and wealth. Such accumulation should be subverted by a Christian ethic of hospitality, which is none other than Christian discipleship.