“I Will Follow You But . . . .”

Matthew 8:19-23

Sermon for Called Conference January 28, 2006

First Point: A Christian is someone who tries to follow Jesus. To go where he goes.

Man came up to Jesus saying, “I’ll follow wherever you go.”

Jesus replies, “Even foxes have holes in which to hide, the Son of Man and his people are homeless.”

Another. “Lord, Dad has just died. But as soon as we have the funeral, I’ll follow you.” Our Lord said to him, “Let the dead bury the dead.”

I see me in this text. How many times have I said, with faith rising up, “Here I am Lord, I have heard you calling in the night, where you lead me, I will follow. . . . But . . . .”

And in the scripture, Jesus moves on. Isn’t home ownership a good thing? Isn’t it important to provide a good funeral for your parents?

Note: Jesus does most of his teaching on the move. Jesus performs most of his healing work, on the move. He’s always on a journey, always on the move. We had to nail him to a cross in a futile attempt to get him to stay in one place. On Easter, he was gone again, risen, eternally on the move.

Second Point: If you are going to follow Jesus, you’ve got to be willing to keep moving. It doesn’t work to say, “Jesus, I’ll follow you . . . .but first here are my conditions for discipleship.” No wonder many put their hand to the plow and looked back. If you’re into continuity, stability, roots then Jesus is a problem. He is journey, movement, motion, energy, instability.

Woman. Huntsville, bent over a sink full of other people’s dishes, center for the homeless, ministry of her church. She says to me, “Can you believe what Jesus has got me into now?” Oh the places you’ll go, when you walk with Jesus.

In one of our District Realignment discussion sessions last month, one of you complained, “I feel like I’m being asked to write a blank check! You’re asking me to vote for something without knowing how it will turn out. You’re asking me to write a blank check.”

And we tried to explain as much as we knew. We said, “We’re sure that what we’ve been doing isn’t working, but we can’t say for sure that this will work.”

Later (too late to bring it up at the meeting) I thought of Jesus, walking by the Sea. Fishermen bent over their nets. “Follow me!” he says. And they follow.

It’s always intrigued me. When Jesus said, “Follow me, you’d think their first response would be “Well, define exactly who are you?” Then second, “Where are you going?”

No. They follow. They drop what they’re doing and walk, or run, with Jesus.

You’d think someone would have crawled, “You’re asking me to vote without seeing the benefits. How much is this going to cost? You’re asking me to write a blank check.” Maybe that’s why this episode in which folk are left behind by Jesus, is bracketed by two stories of faith.

Third Point: Following Jesus requires faith. “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Faith is a blank check we sign over to God. It’s (Heb. 1:1) a journey, where were not sure of the destination. It’s stumbling after Jesus even when you’re not sure where he’s going or who he is, and walking anyway.

When Paulette West trains VIM teams to follow Jesus to some place of great need she tells them, “There are three hard and fast rules for Volunteers in Mission: flexibility, flexibility, and flexibility.

Church leadership consultant, Gil Rendle met with the Cabinet to train us for better leadership. Gil tells us, “Your organization is too heavily prescribed, too brittle, overly organized, too well planned. You need to be more supple, more adaptable, more local.” Why? American business is getting ‘lean and mean’?

Gil’s answer: You are following a living Lord and Savior – not a dead one. You’ve got to be flexible to be faithful.

I confess that I want the old “I’ll – follow – you – but.” I want to bring everyone along with me when I go forward. I need guarantees, assurances, cost/benefit analysis. Jesus says, “Let the dead bury the dead. Follow me.”

The Good News: What a challenge, what an adventure, what a risk, what a rush. Rather than just sitting here, going through the motions, playing church, we get to run with Jesus, wherever he’s going. This is the fun of faith.

Jesus is on the move. He leaves one man holding tight to his mortgage, another he leaves to plan Dad’s funeral. Jesus goes forward, always ever onward, gathering those few with the guts to follow. And in the very next story in this gospel, he makes them get on board a tiny little boat, and he turns the prow toward a dark, threatening sky, into the worrisome waves, into the storm they would have avoided, except they’re trying to follow him.

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Will Willimon