By Cecilia González-Andrieu, Ph.D.
“Disciple” is a word we rarely use outside a religious setting. My abuela, who had been a great singer in her youth, consistently used “disciple” to describe the complex relationship between her and her students. Violeta was her discipula, she insisted. This meant that my abuela was methodically sharing knowledge, experience and technique with Violeta. But the end goal was not for Violeta to know about singing; no, the goal for a disciple was different.
She didn’t just have to read music or know the intricacies of time signatures; all of this was there to facilitate an action — that glorious moment when Violeta’s own beautiful voice would emerge to continue what my abuela had started with her own singing. Violeta would sing and outlive my abuela, and continue giving to others not simply knowledge about singing, but what it is to actually sing.
As we are called to relationship in the Gospels, it is as disciples with Jesus our teacher. Through every parable and how he lives in the world, Jesus prepares us to sing the way he has been singing. The way he understands God wants us to sing. Discipleship is a choice where we have made the teacher’s very being the inspiration for how we are to be in the world.
This moment of our journey discloses that it is time for us as disciples to act. As we acknowledge the deep mystery of God’s Word dwelling among us, we also hear with great clarity Jesus articulating who he is.
In the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Luke, we see the young Galilean find his own voice. Just prior, he had been following John, a fiery prophet who baptizes him. Something happens at that river that powerfully discloses God to Jesus. Afterward, he seeks solitude, and it is there that everything that would stand as an obstacle to his embodiment of God’s vision becomes clear.
In the privation of the desert, he is confronted with the glamorous lure of comfort and power. And this sets up the stage for him to decide to return to his community where he is handed the Sacred Scriptures and asked to read,
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring glad tidings to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord” (Luke 4:18-19).
What Jesus notices as he reads the scroll is that the Spirit is sending him out to act. Rather than giving up power, Jesus defines power differently. Instead of power over, he claims as his own the power for. The vulnerable, oppressed, sick, poor and imprisoned are the most powerless of the world, and Jesus resolves that his power is for them, to free, heal, feed and tear down the structures that create victims.
In a time when many communities face uncertainty and fear, Jesus’ call to act with power for the most vulnerable resonates with particular urgency. Jesus asks us to be vigilant and act when we are confronted by situations that would harm others or our planet. He calls us to this today and always. To be Jesus’ disciples we must sing as he does — constantly and fearlessly. Our God acts in history and our work alongside Jesus is urgently needed. There’s a horizon toward which we are walking together. More about that next month. Happy New Year.
Theologian Cecilia González-Andrieu, Ph.D., is a professor at Loyola Marymount University.
