The Disciple's Way

Robert Frost’s lines have a way of showing up at graduations and inspirational posters, usually read as a simple call to be bold, to choose the unconventional path. But read the whole poem, and it’s stranger and more honest than that. The speaker admits both roads were worn “really about the same.” He doesn't know, and won’t know for years, whether his choice was the right one. He only knows it was his choice, and that choosing shaped everything after.

 I don’t think discipleship is about two roads—one marked salvation, one marked ruin, and we'd better pick correctly or else. That’s not the gospel we've been living with all summer in Matthew. The Christian life isn’t a fork where one path is safe and the other is a trap. It’s more like Frost’s speaker standing in the wood, looking at what’s in front of him, and choosing to walk—not out of fear, but because walking is what he’s made for.

 We just finished a summer in the Gospel of Matthew, ending with the Great Commission—Jesus sending the disciples out to make disciples, to baptize, to teach, promising to be with us "always, to the end of the age." We talked about how that ending is not necessarily a command to go somewhere far away. Rather, it’s an invitation to participate—to join the presence of God, the healing work of God, the inbreaking of God’s kingdom, right where we already are. In a classroom. At a kitchen table. In a hospital waiting room. Whether we’re the teacher or the student, the parent or the grandparent, the staff or the volunteer—that’s the road. Not a road away from ordinary life, but a road straight through the middle of it.

Now we’ve begun a new sermon series around the United Methodist Council of Bishops’ vision statement—asking together what it actually means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ in this denomination, at this moment. I hope it’s a time of refreshing and reflection. How is God calling us to walk the disciple’s way: a way of loving, serving, leading, being transformed, and transforming the world around us in the process?

 Here’s the thing I keep coming back to: the choice in front of us isn’t “grit your teeth and try harder.” It’s more: Will we let ourselves be led by the Holy Spirit? Will we let ourselves be changed from the inside out, instead of just managing our own behavior from the outside in? Will we partner with God, using the particular gifts and abilities God has already placed in our hands? For this time and this place? 

 That’s the road less traveled—not because it’s mysterious and strange, but because surrender is rare. Letting ourselves be led is harder than leading ourselves. But we don’t walk it alone. Jesus is with us, Matthew tells us, to the very end of the age.

 So—where is God inviting you to participate today? What would it look like to let yourself be led?

Caminando contigo / Walking with you,

Pastor Sarah