Follow Me

Damon Plimmer - 22 Jan 2012

FOLLOW ME

Last Sunday was my nephew’s birthday. To celebrate we went to a place called Adrenalin Forest out near the Aotea lagoons. It was quite an experience. Walking off the road and into a plantation of towering pine trees it didn’t seem that exceptional. But then we looked up, way up, drawn by the noise and the movement coming from high above. There were ropes and wires everywhere, with people swinging between trees and carefully navigating their way across wobbling wire and wooden bridges, and screams of delight and no doubt of terror!

Understandably our two older children were keen to get started. We bought their tickets, they put on their harnesses, listened to the safety instructions, and then they were off. But not before one of them said, “Dad, come with me”. I looked up and replied “Not today”. “I have got to look after Dominic,” I said. “I have got my good clothes on.” “I want to take some photos.” “The adult prices are too dear.” So they set off without me, and I was left to watch them from below, firmly rooted to the ground, as they grew in confidence with every step.

I have thought of that conversation a bit over the past week. I don’t regret not taking up the opportunity as there will be others. But there are some parallels with our reading from today’s gospel. The setting is certainly different but the invitation to step outside our comfort zones, what we are familiar with, and to embark on a journey into the unknown is echoed in both.

The story of the call of the first disciples is found in all the gospels but the similarities are greatest between Matthew and Mark. In each the story follows the arrest of John the Baptist and the temptations in the wilderness (though Mark’s account is briefer); and is immediately preceded by the proclamation of Jesus. In Mark, Jesus says: “Repent, and believe the gospel.”

As an aside, in one of the commentaries I read, it makes the point that in contrast to the twenty five pages it takes them to lay out the meaning of the gospel, Jesus takes only two verses! “The time is fulfilled,” he says. It’s decision time. “The kingdom of God is at hand.” God’s reign of justice, love and forgiveness has come in the words and the works of Jesus.

That’s the context of our gospel. We must keep it in mind as we hear what happens next.

Living, as we do, beside the sea, I suspect this particular story has some resonance. Who of us hasn’t walked along the water front, and felt the freshness of the breeze brush across their face, breathed in the salt air and wondered at the beauty of the harbour and the mountains? And so we can picture the scene that day beside a lake: the smell of sweat and toil as simple men go about their daily tasks, mending their nets and catching fish enough to support them and their families for another day; the noise and the activity, the laughter and friendly banter, the frustration and foul language, as the big one gets away or the weather turns for the worst.

And then this scene is interrupted by a strange yet familiar voice. Jesus enters the picture and his words are direct and they demand a response. It is decision time beside the Sea of Galilee!
Now for those of us who know how this Gospel begins, this encounter won’t be a complete surprise. In the first verse of the first chapter of Mark, the Evangelist makes clear that what he is writing is “the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God”. But there is no indication in today’s reading that the fishermen had any idea who Jesus was. He may have been a total stranger for all we know. And yet when he speaks they respond but not with words. They don’t ask: “who are you?” They don’t say: “can’t you see we’re busy!” They don’t tell him: “mind your own business”. Rather they leave what they are doing and rise and follow him.

It’s a radical and seemingly foolish thing to do. The implication is they left everything. They left behind their nets, their way of life. They left behind, in the case of James and John, their father with his hopes for his children and his need to be provided for by them in his old age. And although the gospels seem to indicate their ties with family and profession were not completely severed (John’s gospel concludes with Simon and others out fishing), this first encounter between Jesus and these disciples shows it was a decisive moment in their lives. To accept Jesus’ words, to embark on the journey of discipleship, affects every part of our lives.

But I think we know that. The challenge for us is to trust God enough with the first step.

Consider for a moment those times when you’ve heard Jesus say to you: “Come, follow me”. It may seem a strange exercise to do. But the gospels are not simply a record of an event that may have taken place two thousand years ago; the gospels are directed at us today. And just as Jesus walked beside the sea of Galilee calling fishermen to follow him, so he comes into our midst, in the words spoken and in the breaking of the bread, and says “Come, follow me.”

So when have you heard his voice? What was your response? Were you prepared to leave your nets behind, to let go of all that is familiar and certain, and to follow a deeper call?

I recall sitting in a church in my late teens, listening to a guest speaker talk about his work amongst “at-risk” youth and his challenge for us to take the gospel seriously, to let our lives be shaped by a very different vision for our world, to be prepared to go against the flow, and to accept the cost of following Jesus. I recall those words because they were to transform my life. They were to lead me to choose to work with young people from dysfunctional families, to spend time living in a community home in one of the rougher streets in my community, and eventually to begin a process that was to set me on the path towards ordination. But it wasn’t without cost, and a few regrets. I was young and idealistic and still had much to learn.

I expect I wasn’t so different to those young men plying their trade those many years ago.

And what I have come to learn since is this. That Jesus doesn’t speak to us once. “The time is fulfilled” today, right now. This is the moment of decision. And we need to decide what our response will be. Will we choose to follow or to ignore Jesus’ invitation? Will we allow the gospel to shape the whole of our lives, or will we settle for the comfortable and familiar? Will we trust God enough to take the next step, to use us to spread the good news and to be active in causing others to be caught up into the Kingdom of God, or will we let the moment pass?
This is the moment. Now is the time. And we must decide.

I want to finish with a couple of quotes.

The first is from a poem by J.G. Whittier, familiar to many of us as it is also the hymn Dear Lord and Father of mankind. From the second stanza:

In simple trust like theirs who heard
Beside the Syrian sea
The gracious calling of the Lord,
Let us, like them, without a word,
Rise up and follow thee.

The second is from a man I have great admiration for – Albert Schweitzer, the 20th century medical missionary, musician, philosopher and theologian. In the final chapter of his seminal work The Quest of the Historical Jesus, he concludes with these words:

He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lakeside, He comes to those men who knew Him not. He speaks to us the same word: “Follow thou me!” and sets us to the tasks which He has to fulfil 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.

So may we rise up and follow Jesus along the way; and may we, like my children, high up in those trees, grow in confidence as we step out, trusting the one who calls us onward. Amen.

A sermon preached in St Alban’s Anglican Church, Eastbourne, on 22 January 2012, by the Venerable Damon Plimmer.