Theology Major's Time to Shine!! Hazzah!

So, I get back from Christmas break, I step foot in the familiar classroom and see many smiling faces of which I haven't seen in nearly a month, and I get ready for some life-changing literature. The first week passes, and then the second. We go through the fundamental basis of Metaphysics, we journey through Elliot's wasteland, and then we get into Faulkner, and I found myself saying, "I know this is not a Christian Lit. class, but where's the Jesus in all of this? This is a Christian campus by the way!" However, Last week, the Jesus started to flow in abundance, first with Endo in "Silence", and now with Bonhoeffer's "Cost of Discipleship". The Baptist in me is giddy with excitement.

One thing that I noticed early on with Endo is the emphasis on Sacrifice. I found similar arguments in Bonhoeffer, especially in Chapter 6 with the Beatitudes. This is a passage about midway down the page on page 107 of Bonhoeffer:

"Jesus Sees his disciples. They have publicly left the crowd to join him. He has called them, every one, and they have renounced everything at his call. Now they are living in want and privation, the poorest of the poor, the sorest afflicted, and the hungriest of the hungry. They have only him, and with him they have nothing, literally nothing in the world, but everything with and through God."

The disciples had literally abandoned everything else in there life for this man who claimed to be God's son. It says in Matthew 4:21-22: "

"Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them,and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him."

Like we were reading with Frankl last week, meaning is split into 3 categories: Work, Suffering, and Love. The disciples left all three of these things. They left their jobs, where they probably would lose great wealth. Matthew in particular, as a tax collector, would lose considerable fortune. They also left their homes, left their riches, and left their families to follow this man. The disciples left what made up meaning in their life for a greater meaning: to serve and follow Christ.

I think it says a lot that there were only 12 disciples. There were not a great multitude of people who stayed commited to Jesus throughout his ministry. People do not want to give up their meanings and their lives for another person. Take for example the rich man who was told to sell his possessions to the poor in exchange for eternal life, and he refused. He was not able to give up his temporary meaning on Earth.

This leads me to a hard-to-swallow questions: Is society today willing to sacrificed for God? A harder question: Am I willing to sacrifice my possessions and what I want for Christ? Can I give up what is giving me temporary pleasure and meaning for something eternal?