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| Do we associate "Follow Me" with Jesus or Social Media? |
© Seth Olson 2020
“Follow me,” doesn’t mean what it once did. Our incessant
connection to social media has changed what we mean by “following” someone. No
longer do we most closely relate this phrase to what Jesus said in this Gospel
text from long ago. Now following refers to keeping up with family, friends,
and neighbors; movie stars, celebrities, and sports teams; politicians,
organizations, and world leaders. Some other media platforms even use this term
to refer to keeping up to date with TV series, blog posts, and podcasts.
Nowadays, the way people move from being acquaintances to being friends has
everything to do with who and what we follow. So, who do you follow?
No, I don’t need to know your favorite celebrity pet on
Instagram or the obscure British TV series you cannot get enough of, or the
crazy uncle you recently un-followed on Facebook. What I really want to know is
despite social and other media’s commandeering of the term, who do you really
follow? Not on Twitter, but IRL—In Real Life.
Several years back someone much wiser than me wrote something
about following that bears repeating. Richard Rohr, who is a Franciscan friar,
a priest, and a writer, challenged readers to realize that Jesus never said,
“worship me.” Instead Jesus repeatedly invited others, saying, “Follow me.”
Presiding Bishop Curry (not to be confused with Bishop-Elect Curry) called
Episcopal Church leadership to realize that the real action doesn’t just happen
in our liturgy. Rather our true service begins at the end of this service.[1] We
are to follow Christ out into the world—to do the work God has given us to do,
to go in peace to love and serve the Lord.
To be clear, I am not suggesting we do away with our Sunday
service. I would be lost without our worship, without the Church’s hymns and
our prayers, God’s Word and our beliefs, confession and pardon, peace and
Communion. It doesn’t get any better than this! However, we would be wise to
remember that the root of the word worship is connected to worth. Or to make it
into a question, “to what do we give worth in this world?” In this inquiry we
hear resonances of my previous one—Who do you follow? Who do you follow and to
what do you give worth in this world?
We can all give the Sunday School answer, on the count of
three. 1-2-3… JESUS! I would guess that like me, everyone here wants to follow
Jesus. That’s presumably why you are here. We all yearn to live life in Christ.
Each of us desires to be one of his disciples. But in our world full of
distraction and noise and brokenness, it can be difficult to discern what
Jesus’ voice sounds like. We may aim to follow Jesus. We may seek to give Him
worth, but how do we walk in His ways?
Before charting our own course or reinventing the wheel, it’s
useful to look at how others accomplished what we hope to do. The
soon-to-be-disciples from today’s Gospel lesson clearly heard Jesus and they
followed him. Seems like a good spot for us to start.
Jesus in flesh and blood, went to Capernaum, walked up to some
boats, and invited two sets of brothers to abandon their lives as fishermen.
Sounds like a tall order, but they dropped their nets immediately! Jesus did this
by saying, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” This sounds so
ridiculous that we may wonder if it truly happened. Would you leave everything
if a stranger invited you to follow?
Jesus though offered up a vision that these brothers could
easily understand. He didn’t say to these fishermen follow me and I will make
you farm for people. Jesus knew to whom he was speaking and what these brothers
spent their lives doing. You might be wondering, “What about with us?”
How will God call us? We say: “I want to follow God, but how
will I hear God’s voice and how will I know to follow Jesus?” God calling you
and me and us is not as preposterous as it sounds. Hearing God speak doesn’t
only happen in extraordinary ways, like Moses hearing a voice in a burning bush
or Martin Luther meeting God in a lightning storm. God speaks in our daily
lives—right where we are—like with these fishermen. God may not appear to us as
a 1st century Palestinian Jewish teacher—he may—but more than likely, Our
Savior will come disguised as something or someone so obvious that we find God
is hiding right in front of us—hiding right within us.
The writer Parker Palmer put it this way, “Vocation [or God’s
call] does not come from a voice ‘out there’ calling me to become something I
am not. It comes from a voice ‘in here’ calling me to be the person I was born
to be, to fulfill the original selfhood given me at birth by God.”[2]
God’s voice calls us to be who we truly are—to be the person God made us to be.
Family, friends, and our church help us to clarify God’s call by listening with
us and testing this truth within a beloved community. But, what does this look
like in action? If only there were a recent event in our community, maybe like a bishop election, where we
could see God’s call in action...
Wow, as usual God provides! For one of us this call has been a
slow and steadily increasing persuasion. A persuasion to pastor our diocese,
administer its staff, be a messenger of God’s Good News, to lead our church,
and defend our faith… sounds easy enough, right Bishop-elect? One is not merely
called to be a bishop, there’s too much there. One must be persuaded to heed
God’s call.
At the risk of speaking for everyone here, we all share in the
joy of this call for it is indeed our collective call for Glenda to serve as
our bishop in this part of the Jesus Movement. You may be here this morning
seeking to Follow Jesus because you heard Glenda say, “I hope to see
you at Church.” This is one way that God’s call rings out in this time and
place, but vocation is not something reserved for people who wear purple
shirts.
On Thursday evening we celebrated the life of Doug Barnes. A
member of the Homewood community whom I did not get to know well—except by the imprint he left behind here. Charles Youngson described Doug as a non-anxious presence, as one who
was completely here, like there was no other place to be. Doug heard God’s call
as an invitation to be. Moses knew God as “I am” and Doug made the “Great I Am”
known by being fully present with us.
There are other ways in which you might hear God beckoning you
to follow. You may hear Jesus asking you to be a voice for the voiceless, to
serve the least of these, or to visit those in prison. You may be called to
attend Cursillo or Kairos, to help lead our children or youth, or to join the
many outreach and in-reach ministries here. Your call may mean a new career, a
new ministry, or maybe simply a new way of looking at what is already here.
Regardless of what it sounds like, each of us is called by God.
I would like to end by sharing the story of when I heard Jesus
say, “Follow me.” And, I invite you to share with each other and with me how you
have been and still are being called ... because in our personal callings we hear
more clearly how God is calling us collectively to follow Jesus.
As a child and adolescent, people told me I would make a good priest. I didn’t buy it! The old matriarch of my childhood church said it, my family said it,
and complete strangers even said it. I had some inkling of this calling because I was the kid who followed around his
priest for career day. But, I tried to
fight it! I even flat out told Bishop Marc Andrus, “No!” when he tried to get
me in the discernment process during college. Like Parker Palmer’s quote, I had to realize the call within me not just out there, but in here!
The summer after I graduated college at Sewanee I was hired
there to be the Lay Chaplain. For three years I had the gift of trying on
church ministry—I could see if the call was in me. To mark that time as holy I decided to renew my baptismal vows. I had been baptized as
an infant, which I don’t remember, and confirmed in the awkward years of middle
school, which I try to forget, so this was the moment when I would truly take
hold of my own mature relationship with God.
After months of preparation, the big day finally arrived. At
the Great Vigil of Easter we entered a completely dark chapel that eventually
beamed with the brightness of the Light of Christ. The baptisms, confirmations,
receptions, and reaffirmations of baptismal vows were beautiful and
transformative. I was floating on a liturgical high known only to a certain
few, known as church nerds. The service then turned towards communion.
That night I had the pleasure of serving chalice. Standing on
the nave altar platform I received the bread and wine, the body and blood.
Then, I approached the altar to pick up the Schwartz Chalice, a giant
fishbowl-sized silver cup. At the same time the congregation came up to
gather around the large altar platform. I took the chalice to commune the first
person. Who was kneeling there? My very first priest, Fr. Francis X. Walter and
his wife Faye.
In that moment I was happy to see them. But, as I lifted the
giant silver chalice back I caught a glimpse of some heavenly vision. There, in
the reflection of that cup, I saw the Great Cloud of Witnesses. It still sounds
crazy, but in that moment I saw not only those kneeling or standing there at
the altar, but also too many to number, to name, or to know.
I nearly fell down. And, for a long time I did not want to talk
about that night because it just didn’t make any sense. But, what I kept coming
back to was that all of us make up the Body of Christ—we are all united by
Christ’s blood under his covenant of love. That night, when Jesus said, “Follow
me” the path led to gathering God’s people around God’s Table.
What is your call? What is our call? Jesus says, “Follow
me.”—not only to this table, but beyond. May we take this table and its gifts
out into the world—following Jesus and fishing for people. Amen.
[1] Matthew Oliver, “Worship or
Works? Engaging Michael Curry and Richard Rohr” The Living Church. https://livingchurch.org/covenant/2016/12/14/worship-or-works-engaging-michael-curry-and-richard-rohr/
[Written: December 14, 2016, Accessed January 23, 2020].
[2] Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak. (San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass, 2000), 10.
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