Being an apprentice

Since my last Blog I have started reading Michael Hardin's book. I'm only halfway so I'll probably add more quotes and comments as I go. Hardin dives into some pretty big arenas. He says: "I have simply tried in this book to reframe orthodoxy in its most generous fashion (to paraphrase Brian McLaren). It seems to me that conversations in both Mainline and Emergent communities require this. Christianity is changing and there is nothing we can do to stop it. it is changing because it is finally being recognized that some theological paradigms handed down to us for centuries and millennia don't really work and are being given up." (Italics mine.)

At first the title of the book really irritated me because I tend to resist exhortations to be "driven" (as in The Purpose Driven Life). But as it turns out I was irritated for the same reason Hardin chose to use this title! He says: "I deliberately played off Pastor Warren's title because I was not satisfied with the assumption that a 'purpose' should push me from behind, as though discipleship was to be a Type-A personality experience. There are certain Augustinian/Calvinist assumptions here worth questioning. I use the word 'Driven' in the more modest sense of traveling with Jesus, journeying through life with him as our chauffeur, if you will. Discipleship seems to me to become a walk of friends side-by-side (John 15:15)."

So having got that straight...! Some thoughts on discipleship as apprenticeship.

"A disciple is more like an apprentice than a modern student. The Master does not expect the the new apprentice to be perfect. A wise Master knows that mistakes will be made. A patient master will watch progress and affirm it. Following Jesus is just like this." Hardin goes on to use Matthew 11:25-30 as a key text for understanding this kind of apprenticeship. This is the well known passage where Jesus invites his followers to "take my yoke upon you... for my yoke is easy...". Hardin says: "The yoke functions to keep the mules from going in directions different than the farmer would have them go. I am told that when a young mule is first learning to plow a field, they team him up with a veteran mule that has plowed the field for many years. This way the younger mule learns how to respond to the farmer's guidance because when the older mule turns, the younger has to go the same way, the yoke making it impossible for him to go another.

In the same way, we are yoked with Jesus who knows the Abba's will. When the Father moves the reins in a certain direction Jesus responds and we respond not by choosing, nor out of our own initiative but simply by submitting to the yoke. The only choice we make is to be yoked with  Jesus. After that it is no longer about choice but about something entirely different. It is about 'trust'."

Putting these images together discipleship can be thought of as:

• a walk of friends side by side 
• being the apprentice to a patient and affirming Master 
• being yoked to the one who knows how to respond to the lightest touch of God's direction

To me this builds a very secure picture  of relaxing and letting Jesus drive!