Fans of Jesus?

Last week I wrote about commitment and the Christian life. Discipleship, the following of Jesus Christ in every aspect of one’s life – private and public – is the Biblical call of all Christians. In fact, if you review the official documents or liturgies of virtually every Christian denomination you will find this serious commitment spelled out, sometimes in significant detail, such as in the baptismal vows of the Episcopal Church.  

Of course, we know that many Christians are not committed to their faith in any serious way. We also know in our own hearts that there are aspects of our own lives that are not in alignment with Christian teaching. No one has arrived at the destination of discipleship as long as they walk among the living. Yet there is clearly a difference between a person seeking to be a disciple and a person who has little interest in that level of commitment.

A disturbing realization I had one day was that in some aspects of my life I am striving to be a disciple, but in other aspects I’m really just a fan of Jesus (and more worrisome, seemly content for that to be so). In other words, while I admire Jesus’ own lifestyle and that of His followers over the centuries I’m not so sure I’m ready to do the same. I say, “yes, thank God for people like Francis of Assisi, or the many local saints I’ve know in my Christian life who give so sacrificially of their time, talent, and treasure,” but I’m not going to do that – not at that level – good for them!

I think all of us would do well to come to terms with the fact that often we are more fans of Jesus than we are followers. This recognition will help us to be more humble and less prone to judge others whose Christian commitment we believe is lacking. In addition, this recognition may awaken in us a need to repent and by the power of the Holy Spirit to surrender to Christ in deeper ways.

Committed Christian?

To be a Christian necessarily involves commitment. The first followers of Jesus understood this. They knew that following Christ would come at a cost. These early Christians, like those Christians persecuted today, knew from personal experience that faith in Jesus was a life altering affair. For those of us who grew up in the Church, the cost of Christian living often seems pretty cheap. Show up on Sundays, be a good person, and if you’re a parent make sure your kids get into Sunday school and youth group. For those who want to be more committed come extra hours of volunteer service, the sometimes heated controversies of local church politics (e.g. what color rug should we have in the parish hall, we can’t remove that so and so donated it, etc.), and for the truly heroic, service in the wider denomination, which often means death by meeting.

This Saturday, I will be presiding at the life profession service of one my parishioner’s who is a member of the Anglican Order of Preachers (Dominicans). The taking of religious vows has long been an option for Christians who wish to take their commitment to Christ and His Church seriously. Certainly, joining a religious order is not for the majority of Christians. Nor are those who are members of religious communities somehow innately superior to those who are not. The call to a formal and overtly sacramental life as a member of a religious order or as a priest is only for a few. This is because the ordinary work of the faith, the people through whom God will advance His Kingdom, are not supposed to be priests, religious, church staffers, but so called “ordinary” Christians.

The twenty year old college student and the sixty year old accountant are just as called by God as is the priest or the religious sister. The difference is merely in the details. All four persons are called to grow in prayer, in letting the Holy Spirit shape their characters, in witnessing to the Resurrection and in living out the mission of Jesus to love their neighbors as themselves.  The difference relates to their personalities, their gifts, and the particular role God has directed them to play in the Body of Christ. We must avoid the heretical notion that only some are called to be holy, while others are called to do the grunt work. To be holy, is to be Christ-like. To be holy, is to be fully human. This requires that we cooperate with the Holy Spirit, which honestly, often feels like grunt work. Some of the holiest persons in the world have achieved their closeness with God and their open heartedness toward man by seeking God in the grunt work (whether that was washing dishes, folding laundry, or tending the wounds of the sick and the dying).

The phrase so and so “is a committed Christian” is an unfortunate reflection on the state of Christianity today. By all Biblical standards shouldn’t such a phrase be redundant?