The Road That I Must Walk

A Disciple’s Journey

Darrin W. Snyder Belousek

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9781625643650
  9781498205801
• eBook ISBN:
  9781630873516
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

How much of myself (and my stuff) must I give up to follow Jesus? How does belonging to a faith community shape being a Christian? How do I walk in faith with friends whose faith is unclear or uncertain? What gives Christians hope in the face of power politics? Can I be pro-life and decry war, too? How do I make peace amidst the wrongs of the world? If you wonder about such questions, this book is for you. The Road That I Must Walk represents the author's own wrestling with the call and cost of discipleship across a decade. Rather than an academic attempt to define or describe discipleship, these are simply the words of a disciple, one who has sought to walk in the way of Jesus. Arising from various circumstances and responding to various concerns, the several pieces collected here comprise a sketchbook of ethical reflections, biblical meditations, and spiritual ponderings drawn from one person's journey of following Jesus.

The Way of Life

“I came that they may have life,

and have it abundantly.”

—John 10:10

“I am the way,

and the truth,

and the life.”

—John 14:6

There are two Ways:

a Way of Life and a Way of Death,

and the difference between these two Ways is great.

—The Didache 1.126

7

What We Live By—

A Disciple’s Daily Bread

Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters;

and you that have no money, come, buy and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.

Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,

and your labor for that which does not satisfy?

Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good,

and delight yourselves in rich food.

Incline your ear, and come to me;

listen, so that you may live.

—Isaiah 55:1–3a

About a year after I had made a whole-life commitment to follow Jesus, in the spring of 2000, I was presented with an offer I could not refuse but almost did. On two separate occasions, fellow congregation members suggested that I should consider becoming the next leader of Jeremiah House, a Service Adventure unit of Mennonite Mission Network that was supported by our congregation, Kern Road Mennonite Church, in South Bend, Indiana. At first I was hesitant: voluntary service is a fine thing, I thought, but did I want to become entangled in the messiness of community life? After the second prompting, however, I knew that the Holy Spirit was at work in the words of my sister and brother. I realized that I needed to pray about this, and following a time of discernment I said “yes”—which proved to be a pivotal “yes” in my life in unexpected ways.

I had never before lived in, much less been the leader of, an intentional Christian community. It was a steep learning curve—a difficult challenge, to say the least, but a grace-filled process, as I would eventually discover. Indeed, it was through this experience that I came to understand personally that the true substance of life, the real stuff of abundant life, is nothing other than grace. Throughout my time as house leader, I relied for counsel on that time-tested guide for Christian community, the Rule of Saint Benedict, whose wisdom nurtured in my heart and mind a sense and vision for Christian life suffused in grace.

The following piece draws from two sources: a worship presentation at Kern Road Mennonite Church, in June 2002, and a public presentation on the occasion of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, in January 2004, at a workshop to promote a new Youth Justice Project as an alternative to the juvenile justice system.27

We Live by Grace

“We live by gifts, not by what we earn.” So did Garrison Keillor, renowned storyteller and folk theologian, sum up “the news from Lake Wobegon” one Saturday evening on his radio program, A Prairie Home Companion. When I’d realized what he’d said, I sat stunned for a moment at what I’d heard; for it occurred to me that I could not think of a simpler way to summarize the gospel, the good news of God’s grace. It reminds me of the message proclaimed by the prophet, who invites us to feast freely on the riches of God’s goodness, to satisfy our souls with abundant bread from heaven, the bread that gives life. The source and sustenance of our life is not in us, our own efforts or merits or entitlements, but rather in what we undeservedly and unexpectedly receive from and give to others—and, ultimately, God. After securing all our individual gains, after counting all our personal successes, we are still needy, if only because we can neither manufacture nor earn for ourselves one essential thing—love. Thus the prophet asks us: Why expend yourself on what does not satisfy your soul, much less give you life?

After proclaiming the good news of the resurrection of Christ and confessing his own inadequacy to be called an apostle, the Apostle Paul declares that, nonetheless, grace is the substance of his being, the means of his existence: “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain” (1 Cor 15:10). According to Paul, the primary giver and sustainer of life is Christ; and we live in Christ by freely receiving his love in faith, so that we who live by faith in the love of Christ no longer live on the merit of our own effort: “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20). The grace by which I live is not the Reformation theological abstraction whereby guilt inherited through original sin is cancelled in a legal transaction between God the Father and God the Son at the cross, a satisfaction of God that leaves me, this person in the flesh, substantially unchanged. Paul said otherwise—grace is precisely that reality whereby God-in-Christ lives in me in the flesh. Day by day, as I freely receive the love of Christ in faith, I am being personally transformed so that Christ is really present in me and sustains my every breath. Paul speaks of this transformation as a radical renewal of creation: “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new” (2 Cor 5:17)! Furthermore, Christ did not die so that I might live for myself alone. That I live by faith in the love of Christ—indeed, that the crucified and risen Christ lives in and through me—entails that I must now live for Christ: “For the love of Christ urges us on … [Christ] died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them”...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword - Alan and Eleanor Kreider
• Preface
• Prologue: Plea for Grace—A Disciple's Prayer
• The Call to Follow
• The Valley of Shadows
• The Way of Life
• The Way of Peace
• Epilogue: Path to Peace—A Disciple's Pilgrimage
• Bibliography