Discipleship is a journey, one of spiritual and earthly significance.

I did not grow up in the Mennonite church. I grew up in a tradition that views discipleship as something profoundly spiritual. Discipleship was something done to change and shape a person on a deep level. It was about memorizing scripture, hiding it in your heart, and praying as much as possible. Discipleship was done with the goal of maintaining and cultivating personal salvation. When we read passages like Matthew 25 we knew that visiting the imprisoned, clothing the naked, and feeding the hungry were done with the goal of bringing them to Christ, converting them. My frame for discipleship has radically changed.

In this painting I see a road. If you look closely you’ll see brushstrokes that are shaped like the brick squares of a cobblestone road. Some of you may prefer to think of it as a building. We build up our faith lives one step, one brick at a time. Since leaving the church I grew up in I’ve begun to attend Open Table, a small Mennonite house church in Goshen. The church is relatively young and still working out how to do discipleship as a community. We use the phrase (which I believe is the title of a book) “we make the way by walking” to describe how we are journeying together. I love this phrase because it seems to say that the road isn’t truly a road until we start walking. Each step is important. But we don’t need to have it all figured out. We will find out as we take each step.

Jesus went on his own discipleship journey too. He walked long distances to meet the poor, needy, and outcast of society. The Matthew 25 passage that we read this morning takes place toward the end of Jesus’ journey on earth. At this point on his journey Jesus has seen a myriad of suffering and is about to go suffer himself. He is finishing up a round of parables and chooses to end with this one. He describes a scene where two groups are separated sheep, and goats. God praises the sheep for caring for people who are in need and condemns the goats for neglecting the poor. Jesus uses this story to explain that every time we feed, clothe, and visit with the least of these in our society we encounter God. This is what the journey of discipleship is about, encountering the divine in each other as we walk, uncertain in our journey.

I’ll admit I’ve had some trouble looking at this painting in particular through my own lense. My faith history makes it easy for me to get caught and taken aback by interpretations that seem too strict. When the artist described what she was aiming for with this painting she talked about our human muckiness and God’s holiness pulling us up out of our mess. I have difficulty seeing discipleship this way. Focusing on the idea of God removing us from our inevitable human struggle often feels like a game of pointing fingers and struggling to be “good enough” for God. As I’ve wrestled with this painting understanding the symbolism in the colors has helped me think about discipleship in a fresh way. In traditional iconography each color symbolizes something specific. The color white symbolizes the transfigured Christ. Gold symbolizes holiness. Red symbolizes sacrificial blood. And blue symbolizes water.

Water is a place where the metaphorical and symbolic meet the embodied. Spiritually and symbolically, water is seen as purifying, a way to wash away the unclean. But we all know that water is not always clean. Much of the world lacks access to clean water. Not just water that is clean enough to drink. But water that is clean enough to bathe in. Water can represent struggle, lack of access, and different levels of privilege. The way we interact with water points out the lines between those who have and those who don’t. Access to water points out who are the least of these. Water communicates humanity’s muck in a very embodied and concrete way. This is where we meet God most intimately in our discipleship journeys.

With so much of the world experiencing radical, material, need it seems dangerous to think of humanity’s muck as something God pulls us out of. We can’t avoid our humanness. We can’t neglect to do the action of discipleship. God encounters us as we encounter God.

For much of my life I was convinced that if I could just do discipleship right I would be a sheep and not a goat in this story and all the muck and struggle in this world would disappear. I’ve come to realize that this is not what God asks of us in discipleship. God doesn’t ask us for a journey of running away from difficult. But rather, for one that comes face to face with what challenges us. And God asks us to do this, not because God isn’t there and we need to bring the divine into the muck, but because that is where we will encounter God. We encounter God in each other. Jesus seems to be saying that we even encounter God in the people we least expect. Not only that but we encounter the divine while doing incredibly embodied work. There is not much that is more earthy than meeting material needs. Yet, there this is where we meet God.

Now this passage contains another difficult concept to grapple with, especially for those of us who have issues with the idea of eternal punishment. In the parable the sheep are separated from the goats and after the sheep are blessed the attention turns to the goats. God explains that the goats have completely neglected to care for those in need and they are condemned. When reading this passage, it’s tempting to focus in on this aspect, be overwhelmed, and avoid using this passage and passages like it. Worry about doing discipleship just right creeps in and becomes quickly crippling. I’d like to suggest a different way of looking at this. When we neglect opportunities to encounter human suffering we miss out on vital encounters with God that are important to our discipleship journeys. When we turn our backs on human needs we miss out on chances to encounter that of God within our neighbors who are suffering. Pressuring ourselves to do discipleship perfectly is not the goal.

In this painting the colors appear to be layered pretty distinctly. But looking closer, you may notice that there’s a lot of blending. The red, gold, and white reach down into the blue, even slightly at the bottom. Though the darkness at the bottom is difficult to make out, it holds a certain richness. To me, this signifies the way that the holy is blended in with the human. God is part of our messy daily lives. We encounter God naturally as we walk the road one step at a time.

Meeting needs, feeding the poor, and therefore encountering God, as part of discipleship, is also a one step at a time, lifelong journey. It is not always a difficult, fighting thing. But it is also not always a walk in the park. It is a journey full of doubts. There are smooth patches, and rough ones, mountains and valleys. Sometimes we feel as if we are alone. Other times we are surrounded by community. It is not a journey to be taken all at once. But one to take one step at a time. (We make the way by walking.)