"Crowd" Discipleship

I am so blessed this semester to have Father Joseph from the Sudan in two of my classes! In Luke last week, he made an observation and a connection which I found mind-blowing. Very often in Luke's Gospel, there are references to "the crowd" that follows Jesus. Dr. Rowe has continually asked us the question, "whose voice can you trust in Luke's narrative?" The question becomes quite tricky when even the disciples often do not recognize Jesus' mission. It was at this point that Joseph mentioned that we perhaps we cannot and should not trust the crowds that follow Jesus. They may be following Jesus, but are they the ones who Jesus commends for understanding and seeking the way of the Kingdom? In his country, Fr. Joseph speaks of folks who claim allegiance to Jesus yet promote their tribal identity over others the next day. It is the crowd mentality of following Jesus that easily decieves us. They claim to follow, but the Word has not soaked deeply into their souls.

Augustine

"For to taste the sweetness of the Lord was too great, a thing for you; it was too high and remote, and you were too low and cast down into the depths. It was to bridge this great gulf that the mediator was sent. You, as man, could not reach God; God was made man. You cannot reach God, but you can reach man; and now you can come to God through man. Thus there was made a 'mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus' [1 Tim 2:5]. If he were man alone, you would be following what you are, and so you would never arrive. If he were God alone, you would fail to comprehend what you are not, and so you would never arrive. God was made man, so that by following a man, which you can do, you may arrive at God, which you could not do."

--Saint Augustine, On Psalm 135:3