One great disciple of Jesus of the last century was a German theologian, a Lutheran called Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He spent the last year or so of his life in a German Nazi prison and he was executed by the Nazis just before the end of the war. But in those last days in prison he reflected deeply on the meaning of Christianity in the modern world, and of Christian discipleship.
One of his great books was called The Cost of Discipleship, and he warns us in the modern world to beware of what he calls ‘cheap grace’. Cheap grace is the mortal enemy of our church he says. And our struggle today is for costly grace – grace that costs us. What is cheap grace? It’s the kind we give ourselves; it’s the kind we get when we use the church to satisfy ourselves. It’s grace without really following, without really being a disciple. It’s the kind of cheap grace of the Christian who says I’d like to stay as I am. I’m okay, leave me alone; don’t ask me to grow, I’m just happy where I am. That’s not the way of a disciple. The way of a disciple is to be growing, which is to be going deeper. The twelve apostles each gave their lives for their discipleship, and the cross is at the heart of Christian discipleship.
(Christian Life in the Light of Christian Meditation 1: Discipleship by Laurence Freeman OSB )
