Becoming A Blackbelt Christian

One of my favorite karate stories came up again the other day. We were talking about the committment and dedication it takes to become a blackbelt. Most people think earning a blackbelt means you’re a skilled martial artist, but after you’ve been in karate for a while you realize that getting to the level "shodan" i.e. first degree blackbelt, just means you’re ready to learn karate. The real martial artists, the guys who can literally kill people with their hands, are the "godans" fifth degrees and above.

But just getting to shodan, first degree, the level where you can begin to learn karate, takes a tremendous amount of commitment. The vast majority of  people, I’m guessing well over 95%, who begin the journey never make it to first degree. They never make it to the level where they are ready to start learning karate.

This poses a dilemma for the sensei. On the one hand he wants to teach people real karate on the other he wants to have a successful dojo, i.e. one with lots of students. But the two desires work against each other. If you want to produce real blackbelts the way to a blackbelt will be hard, but if you want to have lots of students the way to a blackbelt needs to be easy. Put another way, if you make getting a blackbelt easy the blackbelts you produce may look like blackbelts but they won’t be able to deliver. If you make getting a blackbelt difficult you won’t produce very many of them but each one you do produce will be a formidable martial artist.

That’s where my favorite karate story comes in.

In the old days, on Okinawa, if you wanted to learn karate you would
go find a sensei, a master. You’d ask him to teach you and he might say, "First,
go weed my garden." After you had finished weeding the garden he might
ask you to rebuild his fence. After you had finished that he might ask
you to dig him a new ditch. It might go on like this for a year or two
before he would actually start teaching you karate. The master was
testing your commitment. He didn’t want to waste his time on a disciple
who wasn’t going to stick with it. "Karate Do", the way of karate, was
much too important to the master, for him to waste time on people
who weren’t prepared to give their lives to Karate.

You can see a picture of this in the movie, Karate Kid.
Mr. Miyagi tells Daniel he’s going to teach him karate but makes him
first promise to do whatever Miyagi asks him to do. So he has Daniel
wash his car, and sand his deck and paint his fence. After a while
Daniel gets upset and starts thinking that Miyagi is taking advantage
of him. In the movie it turns out that the work Miyagi was having
Daniel do was actually developing his karate reflexes. But the real
story is that obedience or submission or commitment to the sensei was part of the training.

So what’s your point, Big Dan?

Well my real point is about becoming a blackbelt Christian. Jesus
approached raising up disciples the same way those old Okinawan Karate
masters approached raising up karatecas. Jesus set the cost of discipleship quite high. It’s hard for us Americans to see
this because we tend to equate disciple with Christian. We think every
Christian is a disciple. But that’s just not so. There were many people
in Jesus day who admired him, loved his ministry, enjoyed his teaching,
maybe even believed he was the messiah but they never became his
disciples. We have many church members in America but we have very,
very, very, few disciples of Jesus. In fact, in American evangelical
church culture we’ll take lots of church members over a few committed
disciples any day of the week. Jesus wasn’t like that.

Professor David Flusser,
a proferssor at Hebrew University, a rabbi, and an expert on Judaism in
the second temple period and early Christianity put it this way,
(According to Joseph Frankovic
in a tape I was listening to recently.) Jesus was not looking for a
cult following. He wasn’t looking to be a cult leader. The only people
he wanted following him were those willing to give their lives to the
Kingdom of God. Jesus was looking for disciples. Jesus set the cost of
discipleship extremely high.

Once you start looking for it you readily see this in Jesus teaching. The obvious example is of course,

Luke
14:25-33 “25 And there went great multitudes with him: and he turned,
and said unto them, 26 If any man come to me, and hate not his father,
and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and
his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. 27 And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple. … 33 So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.”

You
can see it in less obvious passages as well. One passage that I
recently realized  was setting forth Jesus’ absolutely radical approach
to discipleship is the passage about serving God and mammon and seeking
first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness.

Matthew
6:24-34 “24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the
one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise
the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. 25 Therefore
I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or
what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is
not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? 26 Behold the
fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather
into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much
better than they? … 31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? 32
(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly
Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. 33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness;
and all these things shall be added unto you. 34 Take therefore no
thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the
things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

In
this passage of scripture Jesus is telling his listeners that to be his
disciples they must cease from the pursuit of wealth and instead put
God’s redemptive agenda first place in their lives. He assures them
that if they do so God will take care of their material needs. That’s
pretty radical if you think about it. In order to be a disciple of
Jesus you must look totally to God for your material needs, you must
put the Kingdom of God first. Hmm… Wow…  Jesus obviously hadn’t read any
of the church growth material. Somebody should have gotten him a copy
of How To Win Friends And Influence People.

I could give you more examples but I think these make the point
adequately. But finally the point is this: Jesus put the cost of
discipleship so high because he was trying to produce high quality
disciples. He was producing disciples who didn’t just look like their
master but who would actually be able to do the works of the master.