I love the story of Jesus' first calls to the disciples. His cousin John the Baptist has been imprisoned for critiquing Herod’s behavior. In this charged political climate, Jesus begins his ministry, recruiting those who are willing to let go of all they are doing to follow him. Nets were dropped, tools put down, schedules abandoned as Jesus’ call took hold of the disciples’ lives, and they could do no other but follow him.
In hindsight, the easy part was the initial call—“Come, follow me.” The disciples left the familiar and ran to Jesus, hungry for direction and meaning. But we get to see the whole story: when the demands of faith seemed too great, the risks of faith too frightening, the disciples shrank in fear.
In fact, being a disciple of Jesus was (and is!) a pretty high-risk venture. It meant leaving oneself open to a great deal of loss: the loss of friends and family, the loss of home and possessions, the loss of job and status. And by the world’s standards, the gains weren’t very pretty. Since Jesus, from his very birth, was considered a political subversive, the disciples risked a great deal to follow him. And when Jesus was arrested and crucified and the going got real tough, the disciples scattered in fear.
God wouldn’t leave them alone but kept beckoning to them. They discovered that their commitment was greater than their fear, so that they were able to live out their call of preaching, teaching, and healing in Jesus’ name.
Living out God’s claim on our life is a scary venture. It calls us into a future that is unknown. It puts us in relationships with people we might not otherwise choose to be in relationship with. It opens us to experiences that we would rather avoid.
Too often we try to put guard rails on faith. We try to stifle where the Spirit calls us. We pull ourselves back from the very places God would have us go. This is not only to our own detriment but also to the world, which God has called us to engage with hearts on fire for compassion, for healing, for justice.
During our Civil Rights Pilgrimage in Montgomery, I read one person’s words that challenged me: “We committed ourselves so completely to the vision of civil rights that the risk of dying was secondary.” I confess reading that while standing in the epicenter of the civil rights movement, learning about how costly the civil rights movement was to those who participated in it, felt like a punch to the gut. How committed am I to my faith, to this life of Love that Jesus calls me to? Am I willing to live it so completely that the risk of death is a secondary thought?
The Love Jesus calls us to live is a demanding Love. This Love isn’t content with the status quo. It demands that structures and systems get shaken up so that people can not merely survive but thrive. It insists on recognizing all persons as possessing the image of God. It always moves us to the margins of any group, any community, to build the center of community (and ministry!) there.
“And they’ll
know we are Christians by our love.” Many of us belted this song out with gusto
when we were young. Is the fire of that faith still burning? Where is Love
leading you and your church today as you follow Jesus?
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