Following Hope
The church has proven this time and time again, that we cannot follow the simplest instruction- to follow.
Standing along the banks of the Sea of Galilee, organizing their fishing gear, repairing nets, and preparing to go fishing again after completing a day on the water, two sets of brothers dropped what they were doing to follow an unknown Rabbi, who told them he would, “make them fishers of men.”[1] We know they had a profession. Simon Peter and Andrew, James and John were not seeking out a new vocation or way of life. As Jesus moved along the shoreline, the two groups of brothers may not have even noticed Jesus before he approached them, offering them a chance to upend their lives and the lives of their families.
The four disciples acted immediately. The gospel writer does not tell us why the disciples acted without haste. We have received very little of the backstory. This is one of those moments when I wish we had just a sentence or two more so that we might have a better understanding of why these four disciples and the remaining eight were so compelled to stop, drop their nets, and follow Jesus. The disciples were not offered a prophetic mantle. Instead, Jesus commanded their attention.
It seems that as kids get older, the instructions for assembling toys become more and more complicated. As a former engineer, I am a pro when it comes to assembling IKEA furniture. I love step-by-step instructions, schematic drawings, and how-to manuals. As a teenager, I loved reading the Haynes manual for my 1994 Dodge Spirit and, later, my 2001 Chevy Camaro. Step-by-step, piece-by-piece, a good set of instructions can guide us to a desired outcome in most situations. Any project is less burdensome and less intimidating, with a good set of instructions, something to follow without ambiguity, and even a few pictures.
As Jesus called his disciples, he told them, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of anthropoi.”[2] Fishers of men and women. Fishers of people. We don’t have an account of Jesus telling Simon, Peter, and Andrew, or James and John how this would happen. He did not give the disciples a guide to consider before they walked away from their old lives to begin a period of what we in the church call discipleship. The four men left their nets, left their boats, and followed Jesus.
Jesus gave the men very simple instructions. The men and women who would join them on this journey had no idea where this journey would lead them, a journey that would seemingly end on a Roman cross but ultimately culminate on Easter in an empty grave. Those who first followed Jesus may not have expected the miracles and signs they would see, but still they followed.
Discipleship means to follow Christ. It means to become an ambassador of Christ and his kingdom. The invitation to follow shows that God has chosen to not work alone. Jesus is not interested in the intellectual. He didn’t ask, “Does my teaching make sense.” Instead, he commanded the vocational, “Follow me.”[3]
Discipleship can take many forms: worship, being part of a community of grace, spiritual and Christ-like practices, and service and generosity. No matter where you are or how long you have been following Jesus, we believe that these four areas – identified and guided by scripture – are how we begin to respond to Jesus’ invitation to follow.
Jesus Christ is the Hope of the world. Every day, we place hope in one another to get through the day, live as a community, and care for one another, and yet, Jesus tells us, and we see in his ministry, that to follow him means our hope rests in him and nowhere else. This may sound lofty or church of me to say, but when we proclaim Jesus Christ to be Lord, placing our whole trust in his grace, we are saying that the ways of the world, those who ask for our allegiance and fidelity, must take a backseat because have been called by the One in who God chooses to redeem the world.
Jesus Christ is the Hope of the world. In and through him, God reconciled the world. When we choose the ways of this world over the ways of God, the faithfulness of Christ stands. The Hope of Christ remains. When our love for one another, when our love for God fails, the love of Christ stands. In Jesus Christ, the Kingdom of God was at hand, inaugurated by his life, death, and resurrection. The invitation given to his first disciples is an invitation to us to be part of the kingdom-building work that began on the banks of the Jordan River and Sea of Galilee.
Jesus gave a simple instruction, “Follow me.”[4] Two words, without much explanation, and yet those words have set the course for the church, for generation upon generation of Christians, to do one of two things: get it right or get it wrong.
When we get it right, when we drop our nets, reorienting our lives to follow Jesus, miraculous things occur. The hungry are fed. The lost are found. Healing begins as divisions are cast aside. Our focus moves towards God and away from others who ask us to follow them.
Jesus gave a simple instruction, but when the church gets that instruction wrong, the results are anything but miraculous or a sign that the Kingdom of God is at hand. What we get wrong is thinking that the Kingdom of God has anything do with our actions. The church has proven this time and time again, that we cannot follow the simplest instruction- to follow.
To follow Jesus as he fed the hungry on the side of a hill.
To follow Jesus as he stood beside a woman at a well.
To follow Jesus as he healed the sick and invited the marginalized into his Kingdom as honored guests.
To follow Jesus’ call to put our weapons down.
To follow Jesus is to follow the Hope of the world, not storm the castle, secure our own rights, or make anything great. To follow Jesus is to live in the Kingdom of God that is present now and work alongside other disciples as we await the fulfillment of Christ’s kingdom.
I do wish the gospel writers had given us more than “Follow me.”[5] Part of being a disciple is to ask questions. The first disciples certainly asked their fair share of questions. To follow Jesus is not to have everything figured out. Rather, to follow Jesus Christ is to have faith, faith that in Jesus, the fullness of God has been revealed. When we realize this, seeing the hope present in Christ, we are able to follow our own agenda. We are able to follow Jesus and proclaim the arrival of the Kingdom of God; here and now. Swiss theologian Karl Barth wrote, "The command of Jesus . . . is issued with all the freedom and sovereignty of grace against which there can be no legitimate objections, of which no one is worthy, for which there can be no preparation, which none can elect, and in the face of which there can be no qualification."[6]
United Methodist Bishop Will Willimon reminds us that following Jesus Christ, discipleship “is the way God rescues us from vain attempts to make something of your life by giving you a job that’s more important than you. Faced with a broken world, Creation gone awry, God doesn’t ‘send the Marines.’ God casts forth the meek, foolish, and weak.”[7] God calls us, even with our limitations, we, the church, the gathered collection of Christ’s body, are “God’s way of turning the world upside down so God can put things right side up.”[8]
The kingdom where the instruction manual is simple – not as many pictures as I would prefer – and the outcome is assured to us because no matter how many times we get it wrong, skip a step, or lose track of what we are supposed to be going, the invitation remains.
Follow me.
Follow Christ.
Follow Hope.
[1] Mark 1:17
[2] Ibid.
[3] Willimon, Will. God Turned Toward Us – The A, B, C’s of Christian Faith. Pg. 22
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Barth, Karl. Call to Discipleship.
[7] Willimon, Will. God Turned Toward Us – The A, B, C’s of Christian Faith. Pg. 22
[8] Ibid.
Thanks! May we never "outgrow" our fundamental calling to follow.
"To follow Jesus is to live in the Kingdom of God that is present now and work alongside other disciples as we await the fulfillment of Christ’s kingdom."
Great post (and reminder) of what our response to Jesus should be in today's world.