We’ll worship the hind legs off of Jesus, but never do a darn thing he says.
—Clarence Jordan

Dear Friends in Christ,

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means to be a disciple. My new role is supposed to be one in which I help the Episcopal Church go deeper into the life of Christ and grow as disciples.

Below is a story I’d heard before and re-remembered not long ago.

Two brothers were wrestling about what it means to be a disciple.

Clarence Jordan, the founder of Koinonia Farm, the interracial commune outside Americus, Georgia, grew up in a prosperous family, received a traditional theological education, and a Ph.D. in Greek New Testament.

Jordan was known for his brilliance as a writer, and was en route to becoming a professor. Instead, he left seminary to establish an interracial community in segregated GA in the mid-1950s.

Opposition was not unexpected, but it was led by his own people, the Southern Baptist congregation that later excommunicated the whole Koinonia Community.

The charges leveled against them read: “Said members… have persisted in holding services where both white and colored attend together.”

The excommunication was followed by vandalism, cross burning, legal pressures, beatings, bombings, a comprehensive economic boycott, and shootings by snipers who aimed at any available target on the commune, including children.

Clarence turned to his brother, attorney Robert Jordan, for legal counsel and asked him to become legal representative of the Koinonia Community. Robert, who later served as a Georgia state senator and a justice of the Georgia State Supreme Court, declined.

“Clarence, I can’t do that. You know my political aspirations. Why, if I represented you, I might lose my job, my house, everything I’ve got.”

“We might lose everything too, Bob,” Clarence said.

“Clarence, it’s different for you,” Bob replied.

“Why is it different, Bob? I remember, it seems to me, that you and I joined the church the same Sunday as boys. I expect when we came forward the preacher asked me just about the same question he did you. He asked me, ‘Do you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ What did you say?”

“I follow Jesus, Clarence, up to a point,” said Bob.

“Could that point by any chance be—the cross?”

Bob replied, “That’s right. I follow him to the cross, but not on the cross. I’m not getting myself crucified.”

Then Clarence said to his brother, “Then I don’t believe you’re a disciple. You’re an admirer of Jesus, but not a disciple of his.”

What’s our point? Is it the cross? Are we truly disciples or still only admirers?

These are all hard questions I’ll be wresting with in the weeks ahead and I hope some of you will join me in that work of discernment on the path to deeper discipleship.  

Yours in Christ,

—Fr Robert