The Gospel as the
Costly Adventure of
Discipleship
.
by Dan Keating
This
article is excerpted from the
Introduction to The Adventure
of Discipleship ©2018 by Daniel A.
Keating and published by Emmaus Road
Publishing, Steubenville, Ohio, USA.
Used with permission. While it was
written from a Roman Catholic
perspective, the material can be
beneficial for Christians from other
traditions as well. – ed.
If anyone would
come after me, let him deny himself and take
up his cross and follow me. For whoever would
save his life will lose it, but whoever loses
his life for my sake and the gospel’s will
save it.
–
Mark 8:34–35, ESV
To hear and believe the good news of Jesus Christ
(the Gospel) is to set out on the costly adventure
of discipleship. “Being a Christian” or “becoming
a Christian” involves much more than staking a
claim to a religious identity. It means more than
taking on a set of practices or attending services
– though practices and services are essential.
When Jesus says, “Come, follow me,” he is inviting
us to become his disciples. When we respond to
this call, we leave behind our own plans and enter
into an adventure not of our own making. This
adventure of discipleship is costly – it
requires the cost of our lives.
Think of Peter and Andrew busily casting their
fishing nets into the sea – or James and John
mending their nets by the seaside. Jesus walks
past and calls them to follow and their lives are
never the same (Matthew 4:18–22). Or consider
Matthew sitting at his tax booth, minding his
business. Jesus approaches and says, “Follow me,”
and Matthew’s life is turned upside down (Matt
9:9). Or recall Saul of Tarsus, chasing Christians
all the way to Damascus. Jesus reveals himself in
blinding light and piercing words, and the
arch-persecutor becomes the great Apostle (Acts
9:1–9).
These, of course, are the dramatic stories of the
first followers of Jesus. All too easily we
bracket them off as exceptional and unique
encounters with Jesus, fit only for the first
generation. We do the same bracketing of the
saints through the ages: these are the especially
holy men and women who experienced a dramatic,
life-changing encounter with Jesus. Yes, there is
something exceptional about the first disciples
and the saints throughout history. But if we have
eyes to see and ears to hear, we recognize that
the kind of experience they had is a model for us
as well. You and I are also given a personal
invitation to follow Jesus the Lord on a path of
costly, adventurous discipleship.
Why this book? Because in my experience many
people, especially young Christians today, lack an
imaginative vision of the Christian life. They reduce
their faith to one of its parts: to a set of
beliefs, or to a moral code, or to attending
religious services, and so on. These are all
essential but they often lack the element of
personal discipleship that the Gospels so clearly
display. Crucially, we often think about being a
Christian primarily as something we do,
something we choose, something that we
arrange and put in order. We place ourselves in
the driver’s seat and we construct our life – and
our understanding of God – according to our own
ideas and preferences. We forge our own religious
identity in the same way that we select
ingredients from a salad bar.
But this is entirely the wrong way round. The life
of a disciple begins when Jesus breaks in
and calls. We become apprenticed to him and learn
from him (and from our fellow disciples) what is
true and good and right. He takes us on a path we
did not expect to traverse. For sure, our choice
is an essential part of this, but it is the choice
of whether or not to follow Jesus on his terms.
Will we follow as Peter and Matthew did, or will
we turn and walk away in sadness like the rich
young man?
The thesis of this book is that the adventure of
discipleship to Jesus Christ is the true and real
story of the world. All other adventures that we
create, read, and retell are reflections and
refractions of this one great adventure. To become
a follower of Jesus Christ is not the private
expression of the religious or spiritual side of
my personality that I express whenever it suits
me. No, becoming a disciple means that we are
taken up – swallowed up, really – into Jesus’s own
life. And it means embarking on a path not of our
own making. We are not in charge of the itinerary.
C. S. Lewis, a Christian writer of the twentieth
century, recounts a crucial episode in his
conversion from atheism to Christianity: it
suddenly dawned on him that the story of the
Gospel is the true story of the world. Lewis had
rejected the Christianity of his youth, but he
loved the ancient myths and lived imaginatively
inside of them. Through the help of his friends at
Oxford (one of whom was J. R. R. Tolkien), Lewis
came to recognize that the Gospel of Jesus Christ
is actually the “true myth,” the real story that
all other myths merely reflect. Once Lewis
recognized this, many of the obstacles to faith
fell away and he was enabled by grace to open
himself to the approach of the God he had long
been denying.1
This book is a product of my own love for
adventure. I owe a great debt to C. S. Lewis, J.
R. R. Tolkien, and many others who have fed my
imagination from early boyhood to the present
time. My hope is that by presenting the Christian
life in terms of the costly adventure of
discipleship, others will be able to see and
embrace this adventure for themselves and may be
inspired to offer themselves freely and fully to
the Lord who is worthy of their whole lives.
I should say at the start that this book is not
intended as a primer on every aspect of the
Christian faith or a substitute for the Catechism
– though the Scriptures, the Creed, and the
Catechism are the foundation for everything I will
say. Rather, my hope is to describe what it means
to be caught up in the costly adventure of
following Jesus on the path of discipleship. Along
the way I will call upon some of the adventures
told (and retold) in our culture today, to show
how they help us grasp what it means to be caught
up in that great and true adventure of following
after Christ. But the most profound examples for
us are the holy men and women of the Scriptures
and throughout the ages: the saints. They
exemplify in the most perfect way what it means to
follow the path of costly discipleship. Each
chapter, therefore, will conclude with a brief
portrait drawn from these saints to serve as a
lamppost for us along the path.
The chapters in the book are ordered to give a
coherent and connected picture of what it means to
follow Christ as his disciples, but each chapter
also stands on its own and carries its own
message. Readers will profit most by reading the
chapters in their given order, but they can also
skip over chapters that they find less interesting
and still find benefit.
This book is addressed primarily to Catholic
readers, and a Catholic understanding of the faith
will be assumed throughout. But I have learned
much from Orthodox, Anglican, and Evangelical
fellow-travelers – I am greatly indebted to them.
I hope that what I write will be insightful and
inspiring for all Christians – and for anyone who
loves adventure.
-------------------------------------------
1
For Lewis’s account of his conversion, see C. S.
Lewis,
Surprised by Joy (New York:
HarperCollins, 1955)
Dan
Keating (Doctor of Philosophy,
University of Oxford) is professor of
theology at Sacred Heart Major
Seminary in Detroit, Michigan, USA and
an elder of The
Servants
of the Word, a lay missionary
brotherhood of men living single for
the Lord.
|
Table
of Contents
Introduction: The
Gospel as the Costly Adventure of
Discipleship
Chapter 1: The Anatomy of Adventure
Chapter 2: A Venturesome Faith
Chapter 3: A Costly Discipleship
Chapter 4: RoboCop, Superheroes, and
the Incarnation
Chapter 5: Providence, Hope, and the
Gift of the Spirit
Chapter 6: Trials and Suffering in
the Costly Adventure of Discipleship
Chapter 7: True Friendship in the
Adventure of Discipleship
Chapter 8: Friendship and Communion
with God
Living the Adventure
Bibliography
|
The Adventure of Discipleship
by Daniel A. Keating
Emmaus Road Publishing, Steubenville, Ohio, USA,
2018.
The
book is available in print or ebook at Amazon
and Emmaus Road Publishing.
“Using the lens of
‘adventure,’ Daniel Keating presents a
wonderfully fresh vision of Christian
discipleship. He is equally at home drawing
from Scripture, J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S.
Lewis, and contemporary adventure tales like
Lost and Batman Begins—appealing especially
to young adults who are seeking more in
their spiritual life. The Adventure of
Discipleship is the sort of book that
engages, invites, and challenges. You may
want to buy several and give them away to
your young adult friends.”
— MARY
HEALY —
Professor of Sacred
Scripture, Sacred HeartSeminary, Detroit,
MI
“This book is about true friendship,
how to endure suffering, and how to offer
our lives to God along the path of real
peace. At the same time, drawing upon The
Lord of the Rings, superhero movies, and
other rich storytelling, Keating shows that
most of us don’t actually want peace—we want
our lives to be a meaningful and glorious
adventure. The inspiring achievement of this
book, then, is to demonstrate that life in
Christ provides the peace that is also the
greatest possible adventure.”
—
MATTHEW LEVERING —
James N. and Mary D.
Perry, Jr. Chair of Theology,Mundelein
Seminary, Mundelein, IL
“Daniel Keating is an excellent scholar with
a keen pastoral sense. His book, The
Adventure of Discipleship, exemplifies both
of these virtues. Keating carefully
articulates the story—the adventure—of what
it means, in all its various facets, to be a
faithful disciple of Jesus Christ and he
does so as a man who has lived this journey
himself and has pastorally shepherded others
to live this venture as well. As all
adventures are exciting, so the reading of
this book is itself invigorating. One cannot
help but be caught up into the adventure of
following Christ, no matter what the cost,
for one perceives that it is a journey of
faith, hope, and love together with Jesus
himself. This is an admirable book for those
Christians who wish to be more fully Jesus’s
disciples and an effective book to place in
the hands of those who are being
evangelized. Both will set out on the grand
adventure that is Christianity.”
—
THOMAS G. WEINANDY, O.F.M., CAP. —
Scholar in Residence
at Capuchin College,Washington, DC, and
Former Member of theFaculty of Theology at
Oxford University and of theVatican’s
International Theological Commission
“The sense of adventure has been
drowned out in modernity, but an ember
remains, ready to burn brightly and engulf
us. The Adventure of Discipleship reminds us
that our lives are a drama so significant
that Jesus Christ came into the world to
take us on adventure with him. The only
adequate response is a no-holds-barred life
of discipleship, on mission to bring others
into the embrace of Our Lord—and Keating’s
book helps us begin this adventure!”
—
CURTIS MARTIN —
Founder and
President, Fellowship of
CatholicUniversity Students (FOCUS)
Top
illustration: The Storm on the Sea of
Galilee by Rembrandt van Rijn, 1633
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