On Discipline

The Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity

KEEP, we beseech thee, O Lord, thy Church with thy perpetual mercy; and, because the frailty of man without thee cannot but fall, keep us ever by thy help from all things hurtful, and lead us to all things profitable to our salvation; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Discipleship is a key principle, often referred to in our Christian journey. When we say discipleship, however, what precisely do we mean? What does it mean to be a disciple of Christ? The word disciple has the same root as the word discipline, which has a meaning of accepting a teaching, practising a teaching or being taught. In the Christian then, a disciple of Christ is one who submits themselves to Christ’s teachings in order to practice them.

This idea of submission is difficult for many people. It goes against the grain of modern liberalism, which tells us that freedom is the ultimate virtue. The freedom to make up our own mind and do what we want. Discipleship then becomes difficult because we do not want to submit to Christ, but rather to pick and choose the examples of him we will follow. This occurs either by outright ignoring anything which might be difficult or which might challenge us to change our ways, or by trying to justify our actions through creative eisegesis (the reading in of our own interpretation to the Bible).

GK Chesterton once wrote that, “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting, it has been found difficult and left untried.” This is the reality that confronts many Christians who are unwilling to make the changes necessary in their lives to be faithful disciples of Christ.

After freedom, Western society promotes comfort and ease as values. Convenience takes the place of quality and effort. Applied to Christianity, our convenience takes the place of Truth when we refuse to submit. Christianity does not, however, promise ease. It promises Truth. To substitute anything else for it is to remove the essence of Christianity.

Being a disciple of Christ requires discipline. It requires the intentional turning away from that which separates us from Christ’s teachings. It requires an honest desire to live in God’s will and not our own. It requires a willingness to do things we might find uncomfortable. Christ calls us to share the gospel with others; in a society in which it is impolite to speak of religion and politics, it can be challenging to break those norms to speak to others of our faith. Social values Jesus calls us to are radically different than norms of society.

What’s more, if we are truly submit to Christ, it means understanding what Christ asks of us. Sometimes when someone misapplies scripture in order to support their own viewpoint, it is not intentional malice or even cognitive dissonance, but merely a reflection of their poor understanding of Holy Scripture.

Discipline itself is the only solution for anyone who seeks to become a true disciple. Discipline of prayer, of Scripture reading, of contemplation and self-examination and other edifying practices that seek to turn us from our old selves and towards Christ. The use of spiritual disciplines has a history that dates to the Old Testament. The imposition of ashes was a practice used to display repentance towards God, and at times would be engaged in corporately as entire communities sought to turn themselves towards God after a period of rebellion and turning from him. To modern Christians, spiritual disciplines remain integral the practice of discipleship.

The reading of Holy Scripture is one of the most important tools at our command to understand God’s will. In reading it, we come to know God better. It is a recording of God’s interaction with humanity, and of Christ’s life and earthly teachings. By familiarizing ourselves with God’s word, it becomes possible to avoid falling into error through ignorance. While no amount of reading of Scripture can fully prevent us from falling into interpretive error, it does make it far less likely to misinterpret or apply a particular verse when we would know that such an interpretation would place that verse in opposition to other parts of Scripture.

Scripture reading is God’s written testament to us. It is one of his primary tools for communicating himself to us. It is also the most impersonal. It is through prayer that we are able to come to God and learn of him most personally and fully. Where the Bible speaks in broad terms of God’s relationship with Israel, or Christ’s teachings to the Jews and the early disciples, through prayer we can come to know God’s particular will for us.

Prayer comes in many forms, but so far as disciplines that aid us in becoming disciples of Christ, practices such as lectio divina, which uses Scripture as a tool to uncover God’s particular will for us today, and the daily examen of St Ignatius of Loyala, which provides a model of reflection upon our day to help us identify areas where we need God’s support and where we ought to thank God for his blessings.

These prayer disciplines, if used regularly, help us to come into a rhythm of conversation with God in which we explore how we are currently living our lives and how we ought to be living our lives. For the daily examen, knowledge of Scripture is important as it can be difficult to understand where we ought to pray if we know nothing of God’s nature. If we do not know how to identify sin, we do not know how to pray to God for strength to overcome our sinful urges and desires. We do not know what blessings we ought to pray for, what opportunities we ought to pursue with God’s help or the things God calls us to do if we aren’t familiar with Scripture.

It takes discipline to engage in these practices regularly. It also takes practice. Abbot John Chapman of Downside once reflected that we ought to, “pray as best [we] can and not as [we] can’t.” As we take this discipline what we cannot pray becomes less and less, and the discipline of prayer becomes the simple practice of prayer. The discipline of conversation becomes the privilege of conversation. St Ignatius of Loyala wrote that, “it is not hard to obey when we love the one whom we obey.” It is through prayer and the building of our relationship with God that we come to love him.

Discipleship is not easy. It requires intentional discipline. It requires devotion. It requires submission. It requires a willingness to engage in radical change that moves us beyond secular norms of politics and society. In the act of giving up ourselves, however, we become who we are meant to be in Christ.

While we may be called to endure much in our lives, and while taking on such disciplines and being willing to give up who we were can be daunting, it is the assurance of joy that comes from abiding in God’s will that proves Christ’s words: “for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light,” (St Mt 11. 30).