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Each day this month of August we’ll be looking at one of the extraordinary metaphors that the Bible uses to illustrate the nature of our relationship with God.
It’s quite possibly the most challenging certification exam in the world.
We’re talking about the process to become a licensed driver of one of London’s famous black cabs.
Aspiring cabbies have to obtain The Knowledge – a comprehensive grasp of every detail of every street within a six-mile radius of Charing Cross Station in the downtown area of the British capital.
Drivers of the Hackney Carriage, as the black cabs are officially known, have been memorizing the streets of London since the horse-drawn days of 1865. They disdain GPS-based electronic guidance systems. They shrug off Uber drivers as mere wannabes.
Acquiring The Knowledge means mastering more than 25,000 streets and something like 60,000 points of interest – every office, museum, church, school, pub, flower shop, and light pole.
In London, you signal a cab by raising one arm. Then you open the door, slip inside, and indicate a destination. The cabbie, without consulting a single prop, folded map, or flat screen, immediately sets off on the shortest route.
It takes a long time to master The Knowledge. It takes an even longer time to earn the right to drive a Hackney Carriage.
The process generally entails two to four years. Cabbie hopefuls must pass both written and oral exams, demonstrating complete mastery of the 320 essential routes (or “runs,” as they are commonly known).
If an examiner says, “Starting from Manor House Station, go to Gibson Square” (which happens to be the first route listed in the Blue Book, the “Bible” for cabbies), a trainee would need to recite something like the following from memory:
“Leave on the left Greens Lane, right into Brownswood Road, left into Blackstock Road, forward Highbury Park, forward Highbury Grove. Right into St Pauls Road, comply at Highbury Corner, leave by Upper Street, right into Barnsbury Street, left into Milner Square, forward into Milner Place and Gibson Square is facing.”
This is not something one picks up by perusing a book over the course of a weekend.
The Knowledge, it turns out, is far more than just knowing about London’s streets. Cabbie candidates must come to know every avenue and alley through ongoing personal experience – by actually testing out the “runs” day after day after day.
We shouldn’t be surprised that there’s also a world of difference between knowing about Jesus and knowing Jesus.
Knowing about Jesus – what we call theology – is definitely useful. But it is not the essential thing when it comes to following Jesus. One of the unfortunate realities of American church culture is that people have gotten the idea that Christ’s only “ask” is that we get a passing grade on the SAT (Spiritual Aptitude Test). If you memorize the right answers to the right theological questions, and align your opinions with certain political and social views (or so the thinking goes) you receive the grand prize of a great future when you die.
Knowing Jesus, however – what we call discipleship – is the real deal. And it has little to do with mastering theological fine points.
The word “Christian” appears just three times in the New Testament. The word “disciple” makes 261 appearances. It is, by a long shot, the preferred description of Christ-followers. That makes being a disciple or lifelong student one of the key metaphors on the pages of Scripture.
“Disciple” translates the Greek word mathetes, which means “learner.” We believe that Levi was the birth name of the author of the first Gospel. “Matthew” seems to be his nickname – bestowed on him presumably because he was a first-rate student of the things of God.
What does it mean to be a disciple?
A disciple is an intentional imitator…a spiritual apprentice…a lifelong pursuer of the Real and Only Life…a forever student in the school of Jesus Christ. Being a disciple of Jesus means intentionally presenting ourselves to Christ every day, so that our thoughts, words, actions, and motives might gradually become more like his.
Who is qualified to follow this path?
The word disciple, unfortunately, has all too often been used by recent generations as if it were a synonym for “super-Christian.” Some fellowships have even taught that discipleship is optional – a graduate level course for unusually zealous men and women.
All the evidence from the New Testament, however, is that Jesus issued only one call to humanity – a call to a life of absolute dependence on him. A disciple isn’t someone who has achieved a certain level of maturity, but a student who has simply enrolled in becoming like Christ.
First graders may have a long way to go before receiving a bachelor’s degree, but they definitely qualify as committed learners. It’s not how far we’ve gone down the path. What matters is our commitment to being a lifelong path-pursuer.
What might it look like to follow Jesus?
At the end of his monumental, 889-page scholarly introduction to the New Testament, British pastor and theologian N.T. Wright suggests that what we have inherited is “a new way of relating to one another, a way of kindness, a way that accepts the fact of anger but refuses to allow it to dictate the terms of engagement.”
Since Jesus’ death accomplished our forgiveness, we must pass that on to each other. “We must become, must be known as, the people who don’t hold grudges, who don’t sulk. We must be the people who know how to say ‘Sorry,’ and who know what to do when other people say it to us.”
Can you imagine what it would be like if the first thing people associated with Christians was, “Oh, those are the people who don’t sulk and whine”?
We are called to show hospitality.
To serve the poor.
To sustain an ongoing conversation with God.
To give away money cheerfully.
To stand up for those who have been unjustly treated.
But never take private vengeance.
And always show compassion to those who are hurting.
Lifelong learners of Jesus, in the end, are those who remember that in a God-supervised world, there are no grounds for feeling anxious.
The Knowledge will definitely help you get around London.
But the knowledge related to discipleship is better still.
It will help you go from here to the end of life…and beyond.