Becoming Committed – Will you Come and Follow Me?
Morning Psalms for the week: 119, 145 (Monday); 34, 146 (Tuesday); 5, 147:1-11 (Wednesday); 27, 147:12-20 (Thursday); 22, 148 (Friday); 43, 149 (Saturday)
Evening Psalms for the week: 121, 6 (Monday); 25, 91 (Tuesday); 27, 51 (Wednesday); 126, 102 (Thursday); 105, 130 (Friday; 31, 143 (Saturday)
Old Testament: Gen. 49:1 – 50:26; Exod. 1:6 – 3:15
Epistle: 1 Cor. 10:14 – 13:3
Gospel: Mark 7:24 – 9:29
Believing in Jesus does not mean believing doctrines about him. Rather, it means to give one’s heart, one’s self, at its deepest level. Marcus Borg, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time
Detail from Caravaggio’s The Calling of Saint Matthew
Will you come and follow me if I but call your name? Will you go where you
don’t know and never be the same? Will you let my love be shown; will you
let my name be known; will you let my life be grown in you and you in me?
Will you leave yourself behind if I but call your name? Will you care for cruel
and kind and never be the same? Will you risk the hostile stare should your
life attract or scare? Will you let me answer prayer in you and you in me?
Several weeks ago during worship we sang these words from my favorite hymn. I cry every time I sing them. On the most immediate level, I am moved by such a simple and explicit invitation—one that calls for our intentional and uncompromising response. On a more subliminal level, I can’t help but remember all the stories we have inherited through Scripture that speak to us of calling. God cries to Moses from a burning bush: “Moses, Moses!” And Moses responds, “Here I am.” God calls to Samuel, “Samuel, Samuel!” Again the response is “Here I am”—though of course it takes the boy Samuel several tries before he realizes it is God who is speaking to him. Finally, he says to God, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” When God sends the angel Gabriel to Mary, she says, “Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be according to your word.” Then, of course, are all the invitations of Jesus, originating with his call to the first disciples and echoed down to us now for over two thousand years. Will you come and follow me?
Maybe the reason this hymn always brings tears to my eyes is that it just feels so darn personal. As Marcus Borg suggests, it speaks to my heart at its deepest level. What else can you do if you hear Jesus calling you by name other than answer? How else can you respond except to offer your own commitment in response? When a friend or family member asks you to do something, you don’t ask questions. When an injustice requires your response, you don’t run and hide. When you see a way to bring your special gifts to bear on behalf of another or for your community, you gladly share them. You don’t ask what’s in it for you…all you see is the holy gesture—the hand of a friend reaching out for your support. You “leave yourself behind.” The beautiful thing about the words of this hymn is that they resonate not with command, but with invitation and intimacy.
The other thing that really grabs me is the emphasis on reciprocity. “Will you let my life be grown in you and you in me?” These are words about relationship—a relationship that develops through our becoming committed with, through and in Christ to show love, spread good news, and care for others despite their cruelty or kindness. The idea that we grow through Christ (and through this effort) is nothing new. That Christ grows through us? Now that is something to think about! To believe that we have a role in expanding the cosmic presence of Christ—the Christ—in the world is perhaps the most powerful invitation of all. Love, equity, reciprocity, transformation….that is what Jesus’ call to the disciples—and to us—involves. Throughout Paul’s first letter to the Church in Corinth, we see him exploring what it means to live a Spirit-guided life, as individuals and as part of a community—combining ideas of freedom and love, living from the heart and being moral agents in the wider world, celebrating one’s unique gifts and using them for the greater good. For Paul, our Christian faith is lived in community—and in loving relationship.
This challenge is not without risk. We are to be bold, even if that means risking a “hostile stare.” Marcus Borg writes: “As a journeying with Jesus, discipleship means being on the road with him. It means to be an itinerant, a sojourner…it means undertaking the journey from the life of conventional wisdom, from life in our Egypt and life in our Babylon, to the alternative wisdom of life in the Spirit….to become part of the alternate community of Jesus.” It is not always easy, as the stories in Mark this week show us. But as Frederick Buechner writes in The Longing for Home, “We have God’s joy in our blood,” and the reward of our commitment to following Jesus into the unknown is that we are irrevocably changed—as the hymn says, “Will you go where you don’t know and never be the same?”
In her famous description of being visited by an angel of God, Saint Teresa talks about the “gentle wooing” between God and the soul. As you make your way through this week, may you find ways to create the space in your heart and soul to hear Jesus calling you—ever so gently and intimately, so softly and tenderly—by name. And may you find the love, courage and commitment to answer, “Here I am.” I leave you with these moving words of Albert Schweitzer from The Quest for the Historical Jesus as inspiration:
He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lakeside, He came to those who knew Him. He speaks to us the same word: “Follow thou me!” and sets us to the tasks which He has to fulfill for our time. He commands. And to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple, He will reveal Himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in His fellowship, and, as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience Who He is.
AMEN
Sunrise on the freedom highway between Selma and Montgomery
October 2022.
It was not enough to come out and listen to a great sermon or message every Sunday morning and be confined to those four walls and those four corners. You had to get out and do something. John Lewis following the death of George Floyd
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