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The Sedentary Disciple

Go Home!

Go home! As a kid, this command certainly has a negative connotation. It is usually the ending comment to some childish confrontation during play that becomes irreconcilable. It is a trump card for the kid whose turf the others happen to be playing on. If you are not going to do it my way, then leave. For a Christian, such a command may also seem contrary to the desire to live a committed and full life in Jesus. After all, it does appear from the Gospels that those who are really serious about Jesus, immediately leave their family and livelihood and radically live close to the Master (Mt. 4:22).

It is common to think that the way to live a committed life towards God is to go out from the mundane life of working, commuting, paying bills, and household maintenance. Oh, and let's not forget the most cumbersome task of mundane life—getting along with others. When I was younger, it seemed the only options for a serious Christian life were to either be a minister/priest, a missionary, or join a religious community. The potential to live a fully involved life towards and in Jesus was not easily pictured within the context of just going to a local parish once a week.

Certainly, the call to discipleship found in the Gospel accounts did involve a seemingly abrupt leaving and following. Jesus commanded the twelve to "Come, follow me," at which they "at once left their nets and followed him" (Mt. 4:19-20). At first glance, it would seem that Jesus encouraged all who wanted to follow him to leave their ordinary life behind. When one excited disciple hesitated, Jesus said, "Follow me, and the let the dead bury their own dead" (Mt. 8:22). But when Jesus says to one disciple wannabe, "The Son of Man has no place to lay his head," he may be encouraging this potential disciple to rethink what it means to follow him in terms of being stationary, rather than transitory.

From the perspective of the Gospels, it was Jesus' sole initiative that is the criterion for the get-up-and-leave-everything kind of following Jesus. If Jesus didn't select one for this kind of life, he didn't expect it.

It sometimes goes unnoticed that in every case where Jesus heals someone, he specifically commands him not to follow him. Instead, he instructs him to go home. Stay put. Take what was received from Him and infuse the ordinary life that one lives with a mystical extra-ordinariness.

All go out to encounter Jesus—some, Jesus calls to follow him by leaving and giving up everything, but for most, he asks them to follow him by staying where they are, still giving up everything, yet retaining it. Thus, Jesus instructs the blind man who has just received his sight (Mt. 8:26) to go home! For the crazed man in the cemetery who stood before Jesus sane and calm, Jesus commands the same. Go home. For the paralytic lowered from the roof on a pallet, Jesus first forgives him of his sins, heals him, and then commands him to go home (Mt. 9:6). Many times over, Jesus instructs those who had an extraordinary encounter with Him to go back to their ordinary lives, avoiding both attention and conflict.

In our live-your-dream, be-your-own-person, get-your-own-attention kind of world, this is radical. Most of Jesus' serious followers are sedentary disciples. This is still sometimes a hard notion to swallow. I think my life in Christ should stand out from the usual or the ordinary rather than standing within it.

Thus, The Sedentary Disciple is dedicated to the working out of our commitment to Christ in the day-to-day world that most of us live in. In the confusing and conflicting world of voices, where everyone is talking (or posting their own websites) and seemingly few are listening, The Sedentary Disciple cannot seek to be some clarion voice. It does seek to address the issues and concerns of our lives with healthy doses of Biblical, Patristic, and Byzantine liturgical traditons.

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