Following Jesus Page 2

  The intimate relationship between the Father and the Son has a name. It is Spirit. Holy Spirit. “I want you to have my Spirit.” “Spirit” means “breath.” It comes from the ancient Greek word pneuma. “I want you to have my breathing. I want you to have that most intimate part of me so that the relationship that is between you and God is the same as between me and God, which is a divine relationship.”

  What you need to hear with your heart is that you are invited to dwell in the family of God. You are invited to be part of that intimate communion right now.

  The spiritual life means you are part of the family of God.

  When we say “I say this in the name of Jesus” or “I do this in the name of Jesus,” we really mean “I do it from the place of God.” A lot of people today think that if we do something in the name of Jesus it is because Jesus is not there so we do it as a representative of his. But that is not what it means. To speak in the name of Jesus, to dwell in the name of Jesus, to act in the name of Jesus, means that the name is where I am. Where are you? “I am alive in the name and that is where I dwell, that is where my home is.” Once you are living there, you can go out into the world without ever leaving that place.

  Outside of that place, outside of the heart of Jesus, all of our words and all of our thoughts add up to nothing. Whatever you do, never leave that place, because only in that place are you in God. Only from that place comes salvation, and salvation is what we have to bring forth into this world.

  The invitation is “Come and see the place of God.” In the beginning we think it is just his home, his physical place, but as the Gospel of John develops, John shows us that the place of God is the intimate life of God himself—the Father, Son, and Spirit who form a family of love into which we are invited. Following Jesus is the way to enter into that family of love.

  We do not have to follow Jesus. First is the invitation. “Come, come. Come and see.”

  How Do We Respond?

  Listen

  You respond to the invitation by listening to people like John the Baptist. If John hadn’t said, “Look! There is the Lamb of God,” John and Andrew might have missed him. The Gospel story shows that we have to listen to somebody else who points us to Jesus. We don’t find Jesus on our own.

  This person may not be exciting, attractive, or easy. The person who points to Jesus might bug the heck out of us precisely because of our prejudices. We may disregard this person and say, “Look how he dresses.” “I don’t care for the kind of people who talk about Jesus.”

  I want you to realize that we need to listen to these people even if they are not necessarily the ones we feel so comfortable with. Maybe they are too poor. Or they are too rich. Or they have a strange accent. Or they speak in a different language. Somehow there is always a reason to say, “Well, they themselves have got problems.”

  And yet. They point to Jesus.

  We need to listen to people who are not necessarily easy to listen to. It might be a very simple woman, a very simple man, who says, “Do you love Jesus?” And you say, “Oh, come on.”

  Listen.

  Be aware.

  It might be a very powerful man, maybe the Pope himself, who speaks of Jesus, and you might say, “Well, it’s easy if you live in the Vatican with all that stuff around you.” But it doesn’t matter. Listen.

  It might be a very untraditional person who doesn’t follow all the rules. But when someone calls you to “follow Jesus,” be careful. Take that voice very seriously.

  “Look! Look, the Lamb of God!”

  We can come up with a thousand arguments not to look, not to listen. But be very careful.

  Listen.

  If you do not, you might never find Jesus. Those who point to Jesus point away from themselves to him. Take that seriously.

  The Old Testament tells us that Samuel was sleeping in the temple and the Lord says, “Samuel, Samuel!” He then goes to Eli, the priest, and says, “I keep hearing this voice.” At first Eli says, “Go back to bed.” Finally Eli realizes that God was calling the boy and says, “God is speaking to you.” Later, when Samuel hears the voice again, he responds, “Here I am, Lord, your servant is listening” (1 Samuel 3:1–9). Without Eli, Samuel would not have known that God was speaking to him. Without John the Baptist, John and Andrew would not have looked at Jesus. We have to listen to the people in our lives, even the broken ones, and take them very seriously.

  Ask

  After listening, we have to ask.

  John and Andrew ask, “Where do you live?” It is very important that we want to know who Jesus is if we want to follow him. That we really want to know.

  “Lord, where do you live? We want to be with you. We want some idea of what you are about.”

  You have to ask. I have to ask.

  Keep asking.

  “Lord, how is it to be with you? I want to follow you but I am not so sure.”

  Keep asking.

  “I have seen people doing things I don’t really like. Show me what you are like so I can see for myself. Show me. Where do you live?”

  This is where our prayers start. Our prayers start when we say, “Lord, give me a sense of who you are. Some people say this about you, other people say that about you, but I want a real sense of who you are for myself.”

  Do not be afraid to ask.

  Jesus says, “I no longer call you servants anymore. I call you friends because I tell you everything” (John 15:15). We have to pray for that interest. Pray, “Lord, I just want to know you. Give me a sense of who you are so I can speak out of that experience.” Think of John the Evangelist, who says, “What we have seen with our own eyes, heard with our own ears, touched with our own hands” (1 John 1:1). That is what I want for us. To want to talk about what we have seen, what we have heard.

  Dwell

  The third response to the invitation is to dwell. “John and Andrew stayed the whole afternoon until four o’clock.” We have to dwell with Jesus. We have to dare to just be there with him. Be very quiet, be very still. Just dwell there. In John’s Gospel Jesus says, “I want to dwell with you. I want to be your friend. You are not a servant. You are part of my household. Visit me. Stay here. Spend time with me. Dwell with me.”

  To follow Jesus you have to be willing to say, “This half hour I am going to dwell with Jesus. I know I will be distracted. I know I will have a hundred thoughts and a million things to do. But I know you love me and invite me, even when I am antsy and anxious. I am going to dwell.”

  Be with him and listen. Listen to the One who invites you. Be quiet. Like a child dwells in the house with her mother and father. Just dwell. Play around. Be there. A half hour a day. Is it possible? Is it possible for half an hour? Just be there. Sit there and do nothing. Waste time with Jesus. That is what love does. Love always wants to be with her lover. You want to be there. Enjoy it. “It is so good to be here with you, Jesus” (Mark 9:5).

  Slowly, we discover that we are building a home in the Lord and that we are in His house not just for the half hour but for the whole day. We are always in the House of the Lord. We are in a place of the Lord wherever we are, whatever we do. We are already home.

  Even when we are on the way to our house we are home.

  Don’t say, “I am too busy.” Don’t say, “I have better things to do.” Just be there. Every day. Pray and discover. We can live in this hostile, competitive world and be at home.

  Listen, ask, and dwell, and you will slowly grow in Jesus.

  * * *

  —

  FOLLOWING JESUS IS different from following a famous person or joining a movement.

  What do I mean by this?

  A lot of people are “pulled in,” “seduced by,” or “drawn into” things or people. Hero worship is exactly that. We are pulled in by singers and movie stars. These
people have the power to seduce us into another world and we are, in a certain sense, passively drawn into them. This is not following. People might think it is following—like following a folk hero—but this is not the following that Jesus speaks about.

  We are also not followers by being attracted to movements, even good ones. People often ask me, “What are you into these days? Are you into co-counseling, primal scream, psychosynthesis, ESP, intellectual analysis? What are you into?” We learn from these movements and are attracted to them, but what the Gospel speaks about is something else altogether. The spiritual journey is essentially different from being “pulled into” a hero worship situation or being attracted to a very good movement.

  There are all kinds of interesting movements: healing movements, therapeutic movements, and so forth. I myself have been part of many of them. But what is typical of these other forms of following is that they are usually centered on “me.” If you are pulled into hero worship you will find yourself looking for a vicarious self. I spoke with friends who went to a Beatles concert years ago and heard how easy it was to lose their identity to those boys from Liverpool. My friends were swept up. They weren’t here anymore. They were vicariously there. In a way they merged themselves with the music and those people. In joining these movements we are usually searching for some inner harmony, for some healing solution to some pain. We hope that maybe this movement or that will give us more emotional balance or a new inner unity.

  Yet when Jesus says, “Follow me,” something very different is happening. We enter into a different way of following because it is a call away from “me” and toward God. It is a call to let God enter into the center of our being. It is a willingness to let go of “me,” of “I,” and to gradually say, “You, Lord, are the One.”

  It is not a way of searching for the self, but a way of emptying, of leaving the self to create space for a whole new way of being that is of God. Jesus’ life was an increasing giving up of himself so that God could be totally at the center. This is what the crucifixion is all about. When Jesus says, “Follow me,” he is saying, “Leave that place of the self. Leave mother, father, brother, sister, home, familiar possessions. Leave your ‘me’ world—my mother, my brother, my sister, my possessions, my world—and follow me.”

  Jesus says, “Leave it.” Leave it so that God can enter into the center.

  We are invited to leave the familiar place and find God. We are invited to find God and trust that in God we’ll discover who we truly are. The emphasis is not “me” but the Lord.

  Following Jesus is focusing on the One who calls and gradually trusting that we can let go of our familiar world and that something new will come.

  We will become new people!

  We will get a new name!

  Abram answered God’s call and he became Abraham. Saul followed Jesus, he became Paul. Simon followed Jesus and became Peter. Peter left his own, old world and entered into God’s world and found who he truly was in God.

  What is your new name? What is mine?

  Lord Jesus,

  Help me in this moment to set aside all that has preoccupied me today.

  Take away the many fears that rage around me. Take away the many feelings of insecurity and low self-esteem, and let me be shaped by you, the Lamb of God.

  Help me to enter more deeply into your silence, where I can listen to you and hear how you call me, and find the strength and courage to follow you. I ask you to be with me as I listen to your word and come to a deeper understanding of your mystery of calling me to follow you.

  Be with me now and always.

  AMEN

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE CALL

  “Come Follow Me”

  Here is a story of how Jesus called the first disciples:

  Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, the sea of Galilee, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.

  LUKE 5:1–11

  Jesus is speaking to the people. There are so many people that Jesus can’t see them all well. He asks to sit in a boat to get a bit of distance so he can see all the people and they can see him.

  Imagine Jesus in the boat. See the banks by the water filled with people. You are on the banks with the crowd. You hear Jesus preaching.

  What is Jesus preaching about? Like he did on many occasions, he is preaching about the Kingdom. He is preaching about that entirely new way of being. Jesus is speaking of the Kingdom in which the poor are blessed, in which the gentle are blessed, in which the mourning are blessed, in which the peacemakers are blessed, in which those who hunger and thirst for justice are blessed, in which the persecuted are blessed, in which the pure of heart are blessed. (See Matthew 5:3–11.)

  The Kingdom is where everything is turned upside down. Those who are marginal, those considered not respectable, are suddenly proclaimed as the people who are called to the Kingdom. The part of us that is weak, broken, or poor suddenly becomes the place where something new can begin. Jesus says, “Be in touch with your brokenness. Be in touch with your sinfulness. Turn to God because the Kingdom is close at hand. If you are ready to listen from your brokenness then something new can come forth in you.”

  When the sermon is over the people do what we often do; they say, “Now let’s go and do what we were doing before. We know about this! We’d like to go on where we were.” But Jesus says, “Throw out your nets for a catch.”

  He does not go back to his normal day-to-day living where everything is as it was before he started the sermon. He wants to move very concretely from the old way of being to the new way of being. But the disciples are still talking as they were talking before the sermon.

  As we talk today.

  At first they say, “Listen, Jesus, you are not a fisherman. You don’t know how to fish. You are a preacher. We have been fishing all night and the night fish are usually closer to the surface than during the day, so if we didn’t catch anything at night we are not going to catch anything during the day. It doesn’t make any sense to try again. Can’t you trust our judgment?” Then they say with a kind of grudging defeat, “If you say so. Okay, we’ll do it.”

  The disciples respond with the normal logic. We see them do it all the time. Think about the story of the loaves and fish. Five loaves, two fish. Jesus says to his disciples, “Give the crowd five loaves of bread and two fish,” and they say to Jesus, “Can’t you count! Five loaves and two fish won’t feed everyone!” And Jesus says, “Feed the multitude.” (See Mark 6:38 and Matthew 14:17.)

  Jesus says, “Throw out your nets,” and they do. And they catch fish! But, interestingly, they do not catch as many fish as they need. They catch so many that they get embarrassed. It was the same thing with the loaves. Jesus doesn’t say everyone should get a litt
le piece of bread. No, there is so much bread left over that they don’t know what to do with it. Here, in this story, their boats are filled so full they are embarrassed. They don’t need so many fish! They would have been very happy with a normal catch.

  Jesus breaks right through human logic. He’s not interested. He is moving the whole reality to the Kingdom. Suddenly the disciples are no longer within the logic of the world. They have entered into the illogic of God. They are beyond all logic. They have entered into a whole new world. When Peter finally understands this, he doesn’t say, “Lord, I was wrong. You do know how to fish.” He says, “Lord, I am a sinful man.” Peter’s response is very beautiful because Peter senses he hadn’t trusted in what was happening. He had heard the Lord speak about the Kingdom, about the new world order, but he realized he hadn’t heard it at all. He hadn’t taken it very seriously. He hadn’t taken Jesus very seriously. But when the Lord breaks right through his logic, Peter says, “I am a sinful man. I haven’t been willing to give you a chance. I was still doing my own thing, on my own terms, to get my little project done.”

  In the presence of the Kingdom, in the presence of that new reality, Peter understands that up until that point he was invested in himself. “Me, I want to catch fish. That is why I went out the whole night.” He realizes that all that he was doing he did for himself.

  Peter is not alone. The disciples constantly hear Jesus’ stories from the perspective of power, from the perspective of the old world. You hear this all through the Gospel.