Follow Me

“Repent, for the kingdom of God has come near!” Repent!  I don’t know about you, but that phrase, that language, makes me a bit squirmy.  I hear in it the echoes of misguided street preachers and see it’s familiar text on pamphlets left on car windshields.  And too often, that’s the kind of evangelism and discipleship associated with Christian faith and practice.

Despite all of that contemporary baggage, those are the first words utter by Matthew’s Jesus in his public ministry.  And we usually hear them John the Baptist during Advent, too.  So there must be something that we’re missing.  Which is where going to the Greek helps.  Though, “this call to ‘repent’ is [often] understood morally as a call to set aside the ways of sin and to turn to God in righteous living,” the nuance of the English translation and definition isn’t really in line with the original intention of the text.

As Biblical Scholar Dr. Rolf Jacobson explains, “The Greek imperative metanoeite is more accurately understood something like “Be of a new mind!” Or, perhaps as “Change your way of thinking!” Or most simply, “Wrap your mind around this!”  The newest scholarly translation, the Common English Bible, renders Jesus’ first proclamation this way: “Change your hearts and lives! Here comes the kingdom of heaven!” 

And I think that’s the heart of the call to us today.  This well-known story of Jesus’ first disciples is too often glossed over and made more easily digestible for our comfort and convenience.  But I’m worried that our faith and our church might be in trouble if we resist its challenges by tying up its loose ends with a neat bow.  So my hope and prayer is that we can all encounter Jesus’ call to repentance—to change our ways of thinking—so that we might wrap our minds around discipleship anew.  It is a change of heart that we need if we’re going to participate in the coming of the kingdom of heaven.

Here’s the story again:  John the Baptist gets arrested and Jesus leaves Nazareth, his hometown, and settles in Galilee, in the lakeside village of Capernaum.  And that’s where he picks up preaching and proclaiming where John left off:  “Repent, for the kingdom of God has come near!  Change your hearts and lives! Here comes the kingdom of heaven!”  One day, Jesus is walking by the Sea of Galilee (which is actually a very big lake), and he comes across a pair of fishing brothers, Peter and Andrew.  “Come, follow me, and I’ll show you how to fish for people.” 

It’s weird, right??  What does that even mean?  Do they even know who he is?  Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and say they do, where is Jesus going?  Follow him where?  But for some bizarre, inexplicable reason, they do it.  Immediately, according to Matthew. Right away. No questions asked.  Nets get dropped and off they go down the lakeshore.

They’re not down the lakeside beach very far when they come upon another pair of fishing brothers, James and John.  These fishers are in a boat.  With their dad.  Repairing their nets.  And again we get: “Jesus called them and immediately, they left the boat and their father and followed him.”  WHATTTT??  No hesitation, no parting words (at least none that Matthew cares to capture).  And off the five men go, traveling through Galilee teaching in synagoges, calling people to changed hearts and lives, healing people with all manner of diseases and illnesses.

If this isn’t blowing your minds, y’all, it should be.  Because I’m not sure if you’ve considered most of our contemporary models of discipleship and church growth…but they surely don’t look like this!  One preacher describes it this way:  “In our ministries of discipleship making, we often follow a model of “know, grow, go’—teaching the doctrines of the church, trusting in Christian growth through knowing, and them embracing folks into the fellowship and ministry of the church.  In Jesus’ plan, our plan is reversed: go (follow), grow, know” (Mark S. Adams, FOW).

Church, we are doing it backwards!  Church, we do in fact need to repent…metanoia, to turn around, to be transformed, to get reoriented, to change our hearts and our lives.  We’ve got to find a way to get back in touch with the reality which this texts puts before us: discipleship sends us out of this place and these pews, and it costs us something.

And it costs us dearly.  It is not a negotiation, it cannot be done on our terms.  Jesus issues the call, and we follow.  That’s the model.  And this story of Peter and Andrew, or James and John reminds us that, “Discipleship is not cheap.  God’s call in our lives is not convenient.  If anything gets in the way of our call to follow Jesus, we are to leave it behind.” (Mark S. Adams, FOW).

In his Feasting on the Word commentary, Presbyterian minister Mark Adams reminds us that “Our careers, vocations, material possessions, and families are to function in the service of God’s mission.  If they are in any way embodying the powers of the kingdoms of this world that promote oppression, greed, or brokenness, we are called to repent and reorient them so that they reflect and embody salvation, justice, and wholeness.”

Our hearts and our lives…all of them…are for God’s use to bring about the kingdom of heaven.  And the same is true for our church.  He continues, “The church is not an end in itself, but rather a means through which God works to fulfill divine purposes.  The church is not the destination of discipleship, but rather the vehicle through which a community of disciples is joined together to fulfill God’s purposes in the world.”

The church is not a destination, but the vehicle.  And we’ve been doing it backwards, right?  Acting like we’re the perfect destination, if only more people would show up.  Know, grow, go.  But we repent today, and we try to change our way of thinking, to wrap our minds around a more Christ-centered model for discipleship.  Go, grow, know.  When we follow Jesus, we grow and know him more fully.

And at the same time, we are elbow to elbow with neighbors and colleagues and friends in ministry.  Being disciples and bearing witness to the transformation that’s possible for our communities when we show up for one another, when we offer companionship and comfort and healing, when we create more just and equitable systems together.  But the first step is to follow.  To get up and go.

And sometimes, that gets tricky.  It can be tempting in the church today to define our mission first, then invite Jesus to tag along, to ask him to participate in and bless that which is easiest and most makes us feel good.  But when we do that, we’re missing the mark, and we need to repent and reorient ourselves, because discipleship—true discipleship—has to do not with what we want, but with Jesus’ call on our lives and ministries.  All we are called to do is respond and follow.  And as we see in the story of Peter and Andrew, James and John, to be disciples, to follow Jesus, means leaving behind a great deal in the way of comfort and ease.

So church, I wonder: What are we willing to leave behind in the name of discipleship?  What valued traditions and treasured connections are we willing to let go of for the sake of following Jesus?  Are we going to be left standing on the shore with our empty nets or are we going to follow?  Are we going to be left in an empty church with familiar worship and programs or are we going to follow Jesus?  Are we going to stay in our comfort zone regarding who we seek out and make space for here or are we going to follow Jesus?  Are we going to keep quiet about our faith and what it means to us or are we going to fish for people and follow Jesus?

Friends, to follow Jesus take enormous faith.  To try and make Jesus fit into the tidy boxes of our lives and our church and our comfort takes no faith.  To follow Jesus takes enormous risk.  To protect our bank accounts and our buildings and “the way it has always been” takes no risk.  To follow Jesus takes a change of heart and life.  To maintain the status quo here and in our community takes nothing.

So what’s it going to be?  What are we going to do?  What kind of disciples are we going to be?  I think this pandemic season continues to confront us with these questions directly; it challenges us to do ministry differently.  To let go of what used to work and to try some new ways of doing church and being a community.

And I hope and pray the Spirit of repentance and reorientation, the Spirit of change and transformation, the Spirit of true “go and follow” discipleship takes hold and carries us into our community and a flourishing future that proclaims: Here comes the kingdom of heaven!  May it be so.  This day and each day.  Amen.