I don’t imagine that he thought we could immediately do the most difficult things, but I think he was describing a way of living that could occur when we are shaped by a community that has taught us to live in accordance with values that differ from those that are generally operative in human society. Discipleship is a process of voluntarily adopting practices that will help us unlearn some habits and learn new ones, so that over time we draw closer to the goal of caring about others as much as we care about ourselves. Jesus himself is the model of this way of living. Committing ourselves to learning such a way of life means doing things that people may find surprising because they reflect a different vision of what genuinely human life should be.