The Call to Follow

And as he passed by, he saw Levi the son of Alphæus sitting at the receipt of custom, and said unto him, Follow me. And he arose and followed him. MARK 2:14

There is almost nothing in that verse. No account of what Levi was thinking, no description of his inner struggle, no explanation of what he had heard about Jesus beforehand. A man is sitting at his tax table. Jesus passes, speaks two words, and the man gets up and goes. Bonhoeffer, in the second chapter of Discipleship, made a great deal of that silence. The Gospel writer, he observed, is not interested in Levi’s psychology. He is interested in the authority of the one who calls. The only reason given for Levi’s obedience is Jesus himself.

The call, and nothing but the call

This, Bonhoeffer argued, is what discipleship is: attachment to a person. Not to a programme, not to an ideal, not to a set of rules, not even to a doctrine about Jesus, but to Jesus, who goes ahead and says, come after me. The disciple does not know where the road leads. He knows only who is walking it in front of him. That is both the terror and the freedom of it. Any Christianity that turns Jesus into a set of principles, however noble, can be admired without being followed. A living Lord cannot.

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. JOHN 10:27

The call also creates a break. For Levi it was the tax table; for Peter and Andrew the nets. Christ does not merely add himself to a life already full; he steps into the middle of it. Bonhoeffer went so far as to say that every other relationship — to family, to nation, to our own past — is now reached only through him, the mediator between us and everyone else.

The first step

One of the most practical things Bonhoeffer ever wrote concerns what he called the first step. Levi could not believe while sitting at the tax table. He had to get up. The step itself did not earn him anything or prove anything; but it put him in the place where faith was possible. A man who says he cannot obey until he has more faith, Bonhoeffer argued, has things the wrong way round. He must take the step that Jesus commands, and there he will find that faith is given.

From this came a pair of sentences for which Discipleship is often remembered, and which may be summarised like this: it is true that only the one who believes will obey, and it is equally true that only the one who obeys can believe. Bonhoeffer did not mean that obedience manufactures faith. He meant that the two cannot be separated, and that each is the test of the other. To the anxious Christian who takes refuge in the first half — I would obey if only I had more faith — he says the second. To the proud Christian who trusts in his obedience, he says the first.

But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. JAMES 1:22

He added a warning that every pastor will recognise. Many a man who comes asking for help with his doubts is really avoiding a command. There is some plain thing he knows Christ wants of him, and he will not do it; and so he asks clever questions instead. The kindest answer, in such a case, is not another argument. It is to point back to the thing he has not done.

Excuses at the roadside

Luke records three men who met Jesus on the road, each of whom wanted to follow on his own terms.

And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God. LUKE 9:59–60

The word that gives them away, as Bonhoeffer noted, is first. Lord, I will follow thee; but first. Each of them set a condition, and a reasonable one. Each wanted discipleship arranged in advance. And each, in doing so, put himself in charge of the terms. Jesus will not accept that arrangement. The call does not come to us as an offer we may negotiate. It comes as a command from the one who has the right to give it.

No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God. LUKE 9:62

Single-minded obedience

The rich young man brought Jesus a question about eternal life. Bonhoeffer drew attention to the way Jesus refused to let it remain a question. The young man wanted a conversation about the good; Jesus gave him a command.

Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me. But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions. MATTHEW 19:21–22

Here Bonhoeffer introduced one of his sharpest ideas: simple, or single-minded, obedience. The church, he said, has developed a clever way of escaping the commands of Jesus. When Jesus says, sell what you have, we explain that of course he did not mean it literally; he meant that we should hold our possessions loosely, inwardly detached. And then we keep everything, reassured that our hearts are in the right place. Bonhoeffer did not deny that the inner attitude matters, nor that the command to the rich young man was a particular word to a particular man. But he insisted that the habit of interpreting every hard saying into something comfortable is itself a form of disobedience. The first question to ask of a command is not how it might be qualified, but how it might be obeyed.

Readers may reasonably ask whether Bonhoeffer himself read the Gospels too literally at points, and it is worth saying that he later recognised Discipleship carried dangers of its own; from prison he wrote that he still stood by it, while seeing its limits more clearly. But his central warning stands. There is such a thing as an interpretation that exists only to protect us from the text.

Come and die

In the chapter on discipleship and the cross comes the line for which the book is most remembered. Bonhoeffer wrote, in effect, that every call of Christ is at bottom a call to come and die. He did not mean, first of all, martyrdom. He meant the death of the old self — the letting go of our own will, our own plans, our own right to arrange our lives — which begins the moment we answer the call. For some, that death would one day be literal. He was one of them.

Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. MATTHEW 16:24

Bonhoeffer was careful to distinguish the cross from ordinary misfortune. Illness, loss and disappointment come to everyone. The cross is the suffering that comes because we belong to Christ — the rejection, the loss, the shame that fall on the disciple for his Master’s sake. And he was equally careful to say that the cross is not our own invention. We do not go looking for it. It is laid on each disciple, differently, by the Lord who calls.

For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. MATTHEW 16:25

That is the paradox of the call. Everything is lost, and everything is found. The disciple does not follow in order to be crushed, but to live.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Ask Jesus plainly what the next step of obedience is for you. Write down the first clear thing that comes to mind, and take that step before the week is out.

2. Notice where you say, Lord, I will — but first. Name the condition you have set, and lay it down.

3. Is there a doubt you keep raising that is really a way of avoiding a command? Be honest about it with God and with a trusted friend.

4. Choose one hard saying of Jesus you have long explained away. Before you interpret it, ask how it might actually be obeyed in your life.

5. Distinguish, in prayer, between the ordinary troubles of your life and anything you are suffering because you belong to Christ. Give thanks for the second.

A PRAYER

Lord Jesus, You passed by and called, and men left their tables and their nets to follow You. You have called me too, and I have been slow to rise.

Forgive the conditions I have set, the reasons I have given, the clever questions I have asked to avoid a plain command.

Give me grace to take the next step, even before I see the one after it. Where I lack faith, meet me in the obedience; where I trust my obedience, humble me into faith.

I lay down my own right to arrange my life. Let me lose it for Your sake, and find it in You. Amen.