Has YOUR discipleship gotten to that level yet?

As Jesus called his disciples, healed those in need, taught those who listened, he always asked for some active response. Matthew -- and before him Simon Peter and Andrew, James and John -- were asked to make a move in order to accept their new status as disciples. They got up. They left their established routines. They stepped out onto a new road.

The Pharisees who quibbled over Jesus’ dining companions were also asked to actively engage. Jesus gave them his directives, then challenged them to “Go and learn.” Even those to whom Jesus offered healing took some form of initiative. The hemorrhaging woman boldly reached out and touched Jesus, convinced by her faith that her action will bring her “health/salvation/wellness.” The little girl, already gone from this life, is touched by Jesus’ life-giving hand, but she then struggled to her own feet while gripping that hand.

How then did the church become a kind of “Sunday Spa” for the spiritually supine? Where did this “Jacuzzi Jesus” come from? Where and when did we decide that our faith, our discipleship journey, was a weekly “sit and soak” respite, an exercise in pew potato-hood?...(back)