Costly Grace in Bushido-like the Christian Discipleship - A Reflection of the Scripture Reading on the 12th Sunday Year C

Out of this Sunday (12^th Sunday of Ordinary Time Year C), Zechariah 12:10-11;13:1; Galatians 3:26-29, and Luke 9:18-24, what sticks most to me is found in Luke 9:23-24.

 “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it”(Luke 9:23-24) said Jesus to his disciples upon Peter confessed that Jesus is the Messiah. Here, “cross” means death. 

Being a descendant of samurai, these words of Jesus on self-denial and carrying our own crosses as the way to follow him strike home with the essence of my psyche, passed from my samurai ancestors.  These strong commanding words of Jesus really strike a chord with the Cord of Samurai, known as Bushido. In particular, I find these words of Jesus echoing the essence of Bushido, as described in the Book of Hagakure (葉隠). 

Let’s take a closer look at the corresponding portion of the Book of Bushido to better appreciate the words of Jesus on the discipleship.

“武士道といふは､死ぬ事と見付けたり。二つ二つの場にて､早く死ぬ方に片付くばかりなり。別に仔細なし。胸すわって進むなり。図に当らぬは犬死などといふ事は､上方風の打ち上りたる武道なるべし。二つ二つの場にて､図に当るやうにすることは､及ばざることなり。

我人､生くる方が好きなり。多分好きの方に理が付くべし。若し図に外れて生きたらば､腰抜けなり。この境危うきなり。図に外れて死にたらば､犬死気違なり。恥にはならず。これが武道に丈夫なり。毎朝毎夕､改めては死に改めては死に､常住死身になりて居る時は､武道に自由を得､一生落度なく､家職を仕果すべきなり”。（聞書第一）。

William Scott Wilson (Hagakure - The Book of the Samurai, 2012, Shambhala Publication) translates this portion from the first chapter as below:

“The Way of the Samurai is found in death. When it comes to either/or, there is only a quick choice of death. It is not particularly difficult. Be determined and advance. To say that dying without reaching one’s aim is to die a dog’s death is the frivolous way of sophisticates. When pressed with the choice of life or death, it is not necessary to gain one’s aim.

We all want to live. And in large part we make our logic according to what we like. But not having attained our aim and continuing to live is cowardice. This is thin dangerous line. To die without gaining one’s aim is a dog’s death and fanaticism. But there is no shame in this. This is the substance of the Way of the Samurai. If by setting one’s heart right every morning and evening, one is able to live as though his body were already dead, he gains freedom in the Way. His whole life will be without blame, and he will succeed in his calling.”

These words from Hagakure by Tsunetomo Yamamoto, a samurai in Saga, Kyushu, Japan, in the early 18^th century, teach the samurai to intuitively choose to sacrifice their own lives on their mission for their lords, whom they serve with their absolute loyalty.  Samurai (侍) literally means a person who serves (his lord). To the samurai, it is their respective warrior lords, who govern provinces in Japan, while these lords serve their lord, Shogun, who rule all the provinces in Japan, during the Japan’s feudalistic era (1192-1868). 

To the followers of Jesus, the Christ, according to Jesus, it takes the samurai-like absolute resolution for loyalty, which may cost our own lives. This samurai-like self-sacrifice determination for the one whom we serve, the Lord Jesus Christ, is the essence of being Christian. 

As Yamamoto says in Hagakure, it is not vain to die but rather honorable to die on mission, even if the mission is not completely accomplished, Jesus finds it commendable that Christians die on our respective missions, in our faithful pursuant of callings. It is because such a death means following Christ all the way to the Cross he died. 

Because some people believe that the above excerpts from the Book of Hagakure contribute to the fact of higher suicide rate in Japan. They seem to think that the Japanese find it honorable to commit suicide rather than to live in shame and disgrace, influenced by Hagakure philosophy. But, I must say that this is a gross misunderstanding, often promulgated by Western interpreters. What Hagakure teaches is to live an earthly life meaningfully.

In Bushido, according to Hagakure, a meaningful life is a life of service for a lord. Suicide is far from a form of having a meaningful life. This has been made evident by Viktor Frankl as he promoted his fellow Nazi death camp inmates to survive by overcoming their recurring suicidal temptations by discerning meaning –amidst seemingly meaningless and hopeless hellish reality. Thus, it is absolutely false to link Hagakure’s teaching of “The Way of the Samurai is found in death” with an encouragement of suicide or any form of trivialization of life. 

Neither Jesus nor the author of the Book of Hagakure, Tsunemoto Yamamoto, devalue human life at all. They do not prompt their disciples to commit “sacred suicide”, either. But, it is rather to inspire the disciples/followers/servants to choose the honor of martyrdom if it would cost their own lives in keeping their missions – rather than giving up/abandoning their missions to preserve their own lives. If  Hagakure were to promote suicide, then, it would give the same logic that Jesus, through his words in Luke 9:23-24, had promoted his disciples’ suicides. It is not to be confuse martyrdom, which is honorable, with suicide, which is to be avoided by all means – though we should not blame and shame on those who have committed suicide. 

Now, the words of Jesus in Luke 9:24, “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it”, are paradoxical.  It makes no sense to say that losing life, namely, dying, means saving life, in our common sense. But, it is what Jesus teaches, and we must appreciate this as his paradoxical teaching. 

It is also possible to understand that Jesus was reiterating his teaching on self-denial in Luke 9:23 in this paradoxical teaching in Luke 24. In other words, denying our own ego (self-serving tendency) in Luke 23 means and enables  not clinging to life when we are called to let go of our own lives for the greater purpose (meaning) of life, which is our service for the Lord.  

This paradoxical teaching of Jesus on denying our own lives and saving our own lives in Luke 9:24 for our discipleship reflects Zen teaching’s paradoxical character, especially with Zen Koan riddles. This paradoxical aspect of Zen is also found in the above-excerpts from Hagakure, as it actually teaches the value of life by encouraging to choose a meaningful life by finding its essence in death. 

To indicate Zen element in Hagakure, William Scott Wilson puts these Zen wisdom words (禅林句集):  To preserve your life you must kill it.  Kill it off completely, and you will be at peace for the first time.( 護生須是殺 , 殺尽始安居) , succinctly reflecting  the essence of Bushido. But, I believe that this Zen wisdom also sums up the paradoxical words of Jesus from Luke 9:24, “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it”.  Jesus actually repeats this Zen wisdom in his teaching, “Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses it will save it”(Luke 17:33). 

This Zen aspect in Jesus’ teaching is one of aspects in Christianity that make me wonder if Jesus had been influenced by the teaching of Shakamuni (Gautama )Buddha, who had taught the virtue of non-attachment about 500 years before the time of Jesus. Another element of common wisdom found in Jesus’ teaching to Buddhism teaching is self-denial in Luke 9:23. Jesus puts self-denial as a prerequisite for the discipleship because we cannot carry our respective crosses unless we discipline ourselves to be free from our ego’s influences. As long as we allow our ego to influence our decisions, we cannot carry our respective crosses because of unbearable fears. This  psychological insights on the ego-fear hindering factor to our full engagement in our missions, which can require us to sacrifice our own lives, is also the essence of Bushido, as Hagakure teaches.  In fact, according to Morita Therapy’s clinical theory, what is in the undercurrent of fears is undisciplined desire for our own lives, called “seinoyokubou/生の欲望”. To put in this context, what Morita Therapy sees as the root of fear, “seinoyokubou/生の欲望”is  what inhibits us from practicing the Jesus’ teaching in Luke 9:23-24 and Yamamoto’s teaching on Bushido in the Book of Hagakure. 

Besides the Bushido essence in the Book of Hagakure, what Jesus’ words in Luke 23-24 invoke is Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s 1937 book, “The Cost of Discipleship”, which challenges “cheap grace” in attempts to recover “costly grace” as the essence of Christian discipleship.  Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran theologian, who died in a Nazi concentration camp for his courageous opposition to the Nazi policy, while many Christians in Germany put their conscience to sleep during the Nazi regime so that they would not sent to concentration camps. 

Bonhoeffer sharply criticized modern-day Christians’ tendency to hijack grace by their own self-interest, thus, making “cheap grace” – which is used to serve ego-driven interests under the disguise of grace. He argues that “cheap grace” is what rots the Church. In response to this problem of infestation of “cheap grace”, Bonhoeffer attempted to redeem the real authentic grace, which he calls “costly grace”, rooted in the New Testament. 

In “The Cost of Discipleship”,  Bonhoeffer writes: “Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly  because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and is grace because it gives a man the only true life………. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: “ye were bought at a price”, and what has cost God must cannot be cheap for us.”  And, these passionate words of Bonhoeffer on “costly grace”, which is what it takes to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, resembles the powerful words of Jesus in Luke 9:23-24. 

Certainly, there is no place for a coward in the discipleship of the Lord Jesus Christ , just as a faint-heart cannot be a samurai to serve his lord.  Those who lack the courage to overcome fear of dying by denying self cannot carry their respective crosses. In this context, the cross means the fulfilling the mission specifically given to each disciple, with the ultimate self-sacrifice. 

To overcome this fear, Jesus in Luke 9:23 encourages us to deny our ego (self-denial). To put this in the context of Buddhism teaching, which also teaches self-denial, it is about striving for anatman , the state of no ego – the state of no attachment.  To put this in the context of Morita Therapy, anatman is the state in which “seinoyokubou/生の欲望”, the root of fear, like kleshas, is completely overcome with spiritual disciplines.  This is what both the Christian discipleship and the Bushido in Hagakure demands. 

The courage to overcome the fear of losing our own lives – even though we know in our heard that it is noble to have honorable death in martyr, Paul  offers some encouraging thought.

“For through faith you are all children of God – in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendant, hairs according to the promise” (Galatians 3:26-29).

Namely, according to Paul, the Christ we are clothed with – the Christ who covers us and unites us in one – help us overcome the fear of dying – fear of losing life. Christ, who overs us, protects us from this fear so that we will not let the fear of dying prevent us from faithfully pursuing our respective missions of carrying our crosses.  It also helps us fight temptation to cling back to our own lives. 

The courage of San Lorenzo Ruiz de Manila is a good example of  “costly grace” in the Christian discipleship, reflecting the essence of Bushido in Hagakure, as he fended off  a temptation to give up his mission for the Lord Jesus Christ for saving his own life.  San Lorenzo was about to be executed in Nagasaki, Japan, at the height of persecution of Christians in Japan, because he came to Japan on the Christian missionary from the Philippines. A Japanese executioner took pity on young Lorenzo and tried to strike a deal with him to save his life. The executioner told Lorenzo that he could be spared from execution and be sent back to the Philippines if he would denounce his Christian faith.  To this, Lorenzo flatly declined such an offer as he was so determined to die for Christ (invoking the essence of Bushido as noble martyr death in the Book of Hagakure). So, Lorenzo said, “I am a Christian and I will remain a Christian even to the point of death. Only to God will I offer my life. Even if I had a thousand lives, I would still offer them to Him. This is the reason why I came here to Japan, to leave my native land as a Christian and die here as a Christian, offering my life to God alone.”

As the essence of Bushido in the Book of Hagakure is “The Way of the Samurai is found in death”, the essence of Christian discipleship is also put as such: “The Way of the Christian discipleship is found in death”, because, as Bonhoeffer argues, the Christian discipleship is reflecting the “costly grace”, which stems from the price God had paid to redeem us, the sinners.  

Though in Luke 9:18-24, the weight of Jesus’ words in Luke9: 23-24 did not sink into the heart of Peter, who confessed Jesus as the Messiah, in John 21:18-19, Peter must have begun to finally understand what Jesus meant by his words in Luke 9:23-24. 

“‘Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.’ He said this signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God. And when he had said this, he said to him, ‘Follow me’” (John 21:18-19).

And, Peter, indeed, became courageous and did not hesitate to choose death, as taught in the Book of Hagakure, for his Lord Jesus Christ, in Rome.  Being Christian means to follow not only the path of Jesus but also to follow paths of such courageous Saints of martyrdom, such as St. Peter and San Lorenzo - great Christian "samurais".