Will you come and follow me?

Sermon for St Peter’s Bramley, 17 September 2023.
Preceded by the sketch ‘The Call’ from John Bell’s ‘Jesus and Peter’.
Bible reading: Matthew 4:18-22

So there they were, Peter and his brother Andrew, just standing in their fishing boats a little way out in the lake, casting a net to catch fish. All in a day’s work. And along comes Jesus and tells them to follow him, which they do. So do James and John, another fishing crew, a few minutes later. Can it really be that simple?

It seems more likely from the other versions of this story in the Bible that these fishermen had been among the crowds who heard John the Baptist and Jesus himself teaching, before this encounter. That might be you – you’ve heard about Jesus, but never really stopped to think how he might be speaking to you personally. The sketch we’ve just seen explores the sort of conversation that may have occurred on the day, when Jesus challenged them what their response would be to what they had heard.

I want to explore briefly three of the questions that Peter asks, because they’re the sort of questions that lots of people ask when they’ve heard something about Jesus but don’t really know how to respond, whether to follow him or not.

Q1 – with map and GPS unit

Firstly he asks “Where are you going?”  Well, how do you find out where you’re going, or more often, how to get where you know you ought to be going? I’m of the older generation and I still like to use a paper map – this one helps me find my way around the Leeds area. But I also have a GPS unit for my bike, that tells me exactly where I am and which direction to head next. If you have a new car you may have a Satnav system built in that does the same job. But you need to know your destination first. Jesus couldn’t just give Peter a postcode, because for the next three years they were going to be wandering round what we now call Israel and Syria all the time, going wherever God called them and the need was greatest.

When Jesus said to Peter in the sketch that he wasn’t giving an answer because “you might not like it”, he meant that it wouldn’t always be easy. Being a Christian does have its challenges and God often calls people to move to a new place, perhaps more than once, to serve him. It’s a life-changing call, but those who accept it find that actually, we do like it very much!

Q2 – with Bible

The second question is “Just tell me what I need”. Jesus’ answer is quite clear – “just bring yourself”. Of course Peter’s friends came with him, but the point is he needed no special preparation. Not everyone who starts on the Christian life needs to literally leave behind their only means of making a living as Peter did, but what Jesus does ask us all is to bring the gifts and skills he has already given us. Jesus may have seen in Peter and his colleagues a group of young men who were hard-working and courageous, but also patient and prepared to take advice and take risks (as Mark’s version of this story shows us). Those were the qualities, the ‘transferable skills’ to use a modern phrase, that they would need as they went around with Jesus. You might well ask yourself, what skills has God already given me that I could use for him? The other point to make is that in starting afresh following Jesus, we can also leave behind the things that trouble us – you may have heard the phrase ‘born again’, but that basically means putting behind you all the things you are guilty or troubled about in your past life, and starting over with a clean slate. The only other thing you will need, of course, is the Bible – used wisely, it’s still the best guide to how to put those skills to good use.

Q3 – with mirror

At the end of the sketch, Peter asks “Do you want me to end up like you?” it sounds critical, and maybe it is. Let’s be honest, the Church often doesn’t have a good reputation. People have an image of boring old people singing ancient hymns and talking fancy language. Or of someone with a collection plate asking for money as soon as they go in the door. They think they will be judged by their appearance or accent if they go to church.  Mostly of course that’s very far from the truth. I hope you got a good welcome today and you’re finding this service easy to follow, and dare I say it, even fun.

But beneath a question like this is a deeper one, that really means “I hope I won’t have to change”. And the answer to that is in fact, “yes, you will” – but “you will change for the better”.  (mirror) I’m looking now at someone who has changed a lot since he first heard about Jesus forty years ago, but who knows he still has a long way to go to become like Jesus. The journey of following Jesus will change us into better people, if we really let him into our lives.  Can you see a better person in here?

These questions, then: “Where are you going?” “Just tell me what I need” “Do you want me to end up like you?”– they are real questions that real people ask.  To rephrase them slightly, they are the anxieties we all have to address whenever we face a new step in life: “What’s the goal?” “What do I need to achieve it”? and “How will it change me?”

Maybe Grace’s parents  have been asking themselves those questions since her birth. They are honest questions, that deserve honest answers, and sometimes the answers aren’t simple, quick or easy. We may not understand the whole of the answers, or even the questions, until we’ve been on the road with Jesus for a long time. But they are important questions to ask at the start, if we are to understand what it is that Jesus calls us to.  Also, someone who asks questions is ready to learn, and those are the followers Jesus wants.

One question that Peter didn’t ask is “Where do I start from?” The answer was obvious: from this beach, today. Jesus doesn’t answer Peter’s question about becoming like him, instead he just asks for the last time, “are you coming with me?” Because that’s the only way we can change. Life with Jesus can start for you, here and now, as you are.

Well, it’s time for me to go now…..  Are you coming?

Jesus calls us here to meet him

group of people with diverse ages and ethnicities in church
Source : PNG Of People In Church

This weekend’s hymn from Sing Praise is “Jesus calls us here to meet him” by John Bell. The overall theme seems to be that in all the different aspects of the Christian life it is he who makes the first call, and we respond.  As many preachers and writers have put it, it is not we who search for God but God who searches for us.

The first verse is about affirming God’s presence, particularly when people gather in his name.  I’ve attended services in many churches over the years, and there’s a very different atmosphere between those where people come out of habit, treating church as a social club where they sing familiar songs and meet friends over a cup of coffee  (not that there’s anything wrong with those things), and those churches where you can tell people are responding to Jesus’ call by setting aside time from their daily lives to come to a place where they expect to encounter God, as the hymn puts it, “through word and song and prayer”. A good way of knowing which it is, is whether the minutes before the service starts are filled with nattering, or with the silence of anticipation as God’s people prepare for what could be a life-changing encounter.

The second verse is about confessing Jesus (confessing here meaning not repenting of sin, but telling other people that we are Jesus’ disciples). Again, this is a response to his call as we “tell his holy human story”.  The third is about the call to belong to each other, mixing freely and as equals with those of different “creed and colour, class and gender, age and youth”.  We may not often find those of other creeds in our churches, though there will hopefully be seekers coming in among us on their journey towards faith. But in practice, it’s harder than it looks to overcome differences of culture, whether that’s ethnic culture, social class or generational differences.  We believe we are all brothers and sisters in Christ, but truly accepting each other and mixing as freely as we would in our natural families takes a conscious effort. Jesus is the matchmaker here, the perfect party host who introduces people who would otherwise not have spoken to each other.

The last verse is a communion one, and where the call of Christ is perhaps most obvious. It is he who told his disciples to remember him in the breaking of bread.  This is also, as the hymn reminds us, “where the Church in earth and heaven find a common meeting place”. For we, the church of 2021, are only the most recent of the countless disciples who have responded to Jesus’ call over the last 2000 years.

Above the voices of the world around me

Today’s hymn from “Sing Praise” is Timothy Dudley Smith’s “Above the voices of the world around me”. It comes with its own tune, but John played it to the better known Londonderry Air (Danny Boy) which the words do fit, with the odd stretched syllable. The words are copyrighted and too long to be reproduced here without permission but can be found online here.

The three verses are all written in the first person – it’s an introspective hymn – and the theme is being called by Jesus, who is named in each verse.  The first is about the voice of Jesus calling me, as the first line has it, “above the voices of the world around me”.  His call is, as one would expect from a Lenten hymn, to “turn from sins and put the past behind you, take up your cross and come and follow me”.   In Lent we read of Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness where it is the Devil’s voice that tries to distract him from his mission, but the Devil usually works more subtly through other things, whether the classic ‘deadly sins’ of lust, gluttony, anger and so on, or today’s more subtle temptations of TV, social media and Internet.

The second verse asks what my response might be, feeling that I have nothing worthy to offer Jesus, but concludes that “I come … and in repentance turn to you alone”.   The Gospels record Jesus calling his motley crew of fishermen, tax collectors and housewives, without asking for any testimonials.  When he called Nathaniel Bartholomew, he already saw into his heart and knew him to be a “true Israelite”. If Jesus calls us to serve him, he already knows he has found what he’s looking for: we need no qualifications other than willingness, no reference other than his own death on the cross to make us worthy.

The call of Nathaniel (Bartholomew)

The last verse is the promise to serve in faith. In singing it  ith meaning, I ask Jesus to “let me become what you shall choose to make me”, which may well be different from what I had in mind for my life.  Some people find themselves called to a life of poverty or celibacy, others to working in dangerous places and among deprived communities, others to long hours of unpaid voluntary work.  But all in the name of serving Jesus.  What matters is that, as the final line puts it, “in his love my new-born life begins”.

Hope of our calling

The hymn of the day for 15 January is “Hope of our calling” by Ally Barrett.  It follows on from yesterday’s themes of Jesus being called to baptism and service and nuns being called to a life of prayer and work for God, to remind us that all who follow Jesus are answering God’s call.  It’s worded very positively, the theme of hope running through it paired with other positive words (courage, strength, grace, faith and Spirit).  

We are challenged, in the power of that Spirit, to “bring the gospel to a waiting world”, but also to serve in a practical way (‘washing each other’s feet’ as often practised on Maundy Thursday) and to work for righteousness.  This theme links with (and may be inspired by) the Church of England’s “five marks of mission” – to proclaim the Good News; to teach, baptise and nurture new believers; to respond to human need by loving service; to transform unjust structures of society; and to safeguard the integrity of creation. 

That balance of specifically religious work with the practical building and sustaining of society that engages people of all faiths and none is what a living faith should look like.  Christians are generally not to be set apart from society (the monastic calling that we looked at yesterday is only for the few) but should, as Jesus put it, be ‘salt in the earth and a light to the world’. 

The last verse marks this as a communion hymn by reference to the sacrament, and  appropriately draws on the deacon’s words of dismissal at the end of the communion service – we “go in peace to love and serve the Lord”. To which we respond, “in the name of Christ, Amen”.

When Jesus comes to be baptised

The daily hymn for 14 January is “When Jesus comes to be baptised”, the second on this theme – I just didn’t get round to typing my notes until the following day.  Its composition is attributed not to an individual but to a community – the Catholic nuns of Stanbrook Abbey in Yorkshire. Perhaps this is appropriate, for the words of the hymn meditate on the sacrifice (in a metaphorical sense) that Jesus made by coming forwards to be baptised in the Jordan river.  He “leaves behind the years of safety and peace”, to bear the sins of humankind, and eventually to suffer death on the cross. 

Anyone who becomes a nun, monk or other member of a religious community, but especially those who take lifelong vows, also has to sacrifice the comforts of their former years, and to take on responsibilities – to pray regularly, to study theology, and usually to work hard at whatever occupation keeps the community going financially, be it farming, craft work or teaching.  It’s not an easy life.  

But there’s another side to this religious commitment.  Jesus, the hymn reminds us, was also called to preach the gospel, to bring comfort and healing.  There were frustrations, of course, where he preaching was opposed or healing was not possible for lack of faith.  But he must have found satisfaction when the message was received and understood, when the blind could see or the lame walk.  Likewise, nuns or monks find their satisfaction in the worship of the community, in serving retreatants or other guests, and (if they are not in an enclosed order) in work with the local community.  

When Simon Peter said to Jesus “Look, we have left our homes and followed you”, Jesus replied “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not get back very much more in this age, and in the age to come eternal life.”  (Luke 18:28-30, NRSV). By which, of course, he meant not money, but satisfaction of a more real and lasting kind.

The last verse of the hymn is a Christian doxology (praise to the Holy Trinity).  Perhaps this is because that is the form of words used at Christian baptism, but it’s widely believed that these words attributed to Jesus at the end of Matthew’s gospel were an addition by the community that Matthew belonged to.  They cannot have been used by John at Jesus’ own baptism, because he would effectively have been saying  “I baptise you in the name of the father, and yourself, and the Holy Spirit” which would make no sense.  That doesn’t mean the doctrine of the Trinity is not helpful, just that we shouldn’t see it as something taught by Jesus himself.

The Bible in a Year – 15 November

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

15 November. Luke chapters 4-5

Each of the Gospel writers has different emphases.  Luke was a physician and so it is not surprising that he focuses on the healing miracles of Jesus. But he focuses on other things too.  Unlike Matthew and Mark who suggest that Jesus went straight into a preaching ministry after his baptism, Luke shows Jesus preaching in the synagogues after his baptism (and after the desert temptations).  Only when he is asked to preach on the text from Isaiah about the good news being shown by good deeds does he begin to heal (4:14-19). Even then, “making the blind see” is one of only three signs of the Gospel in that passage, the other being releasing captives and freeing the oppressed.  So for Luke, physical healing from illness or disability was only one aspect of the wholeness that Jesus brought: a right understanding of God and his laws, and freedom from being put down in any way by other people, were at least as important.

Another difference is that Luke has a particular interest in demons and devils.  This is shown in chapter 4 not only in his own desert temptations, but in the demon at Capernaum (34), and the many in Nazareth (41), that recognised him as the “Holy one of God”.  It seems that Jesus knew he had to fight the devil, but wanted to put off that moment as long as necessary.  By resisting the three temptations of working miracles, seeking earthly power and putting God to the test, he made the devil go away “until an opportune time” – which might be seen as the attempt by the men of Nazareth to kill him not long afterwards (29), or as the plots of the Pharisees and the betrayal of Judas that led to his crucifixion three years later.  In between those times, Jesus seems to have been untroubled by demonic activity himself.  Apart from the very few people who genuinely suffer demon possession, for most of us the devil tempts us from time to time, but he does not stick around for long if we don’t take his bait. “Resist the devil and he will flee” (James 4:7).

Finally, I would just like to share an unrelated thought that just came to me as I read about the calling of Levi (5:27-28): “After this he went out and saw a tax-collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he got up, left everything, and followed him.”

What happened to Levi’s money?  This money-obsessed man had been sitting at his booth all day raking in the taxes (some of which he would have kept for himself) then accepted Jesus’ call to follow him, and without further ado walked away.  The people around must have wondered when he was going back, but when they realised he was not returning, surely they would have rejoiced and reclaimed the piles of cash for themselves?  When Jesus calls someone to follow him, it is others who benefit.

The Bible in a Year – 30 May

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

30 May. Ezekiel chapters 1-3

What a dramatic start!  Unlike some of the other prophets of the Old Testament, we hear nothing of Ezekiel’s past, but are presented with both a first-person and third-person accounts of his earth-shaking vision.  Full of vivid imagery of light, noise and motion – wheels, eyes, flashes of lightning, the faces and feet of humans and animals, angels’ wings –  clearly Ezekiel was struggling to put into words what could not really be described. This was the ‘shekinah’ or glory of God, a privilege which few people have ever had (Moses, Jesus and his disciples Peter, James and John among them).

 

The whole of the first three chapters is taken up with his two encounters (or ‘epiphanies’) with this glory. Before we get to read the details of God’s prophecy through Ezekiel to his captive people in Babylonia, we have to understand the instructions given to Ezekiel by God in this vision. Eight times the Jewish exiles are called a “rebellious house”, and it is clear that they are unlikely to act on whatever God’s instructions to them are going to be.  It is also clear that they would oppose Ezekiel, and would be like “briers, thorns and scorpions” to him (those things that prick, scratch and sting).  Nevertheless, Ezekiel would be failing in his calling and duty, and held guilty by God, if he did not pass the instruction on.

 

In a much smaller way, that is the challenge facing all people of faith.  If we believe we have a message for the world from God then we must deliver it, however much opposition we might face.  This week the Archbishops of England have asked all the churches to pray for their communities, and in particular for the spreading of the Christian message among them, under the title “Thy kingdom come” (words taken, of course, from the Lord’s Prayer as taught by Jesus).   Unlike Ezekiel who had no support for his one-man ministry, church members can come together for mutual support in prayer, speaking and action.

 

 

The Bible in a Year – 20 March

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

20 March. Judges chapters 6-8

The story of Gideon is one of those beloved of Sunday school teachers, partly because of the very visual imagery and lots of action – threshing wheat, laying out fleeces, lapping water like dogs, smashing pottery and blowing trumpets.  Strangely, the trampling of captured enemy leaders with thorns and briars is not mentioned so much.  But the story is also popular as it illustrates a couple of things about living by faith.

 

Firstly, that quality is more important than quantity.  When called by God to lead his people into battle, Gideon started with 32,000 men – still a lot fewer than the 135,000 of the Midianite army, but all he could muster from the Northern tribes.  Yet God says that he still had too many, in case the Israelites took credit for a victory.  He gradually reduces the number to three hundred choice troops, those who were not afraid and who lapped water like dogs (one interpretation of this is that they remained alert and looking around them, unlike those who knelt down to use their hands).  With those 300, and under cover of darkness, Gideon achieves a victory by psychological means – imagine the terror of the Midianites roused in the middle of the night by the sounds of trumpets and lights suddenly appearing all around them! So one lesson is that by waiting for the right time when God gives the word, carefully selecting the right people, and making use of all our senses, we can achieve results for God  against what may seem impossible odds.

 

The other lesson that is often taught from these chapters is that of ‘putting out a fleece’ that is, setting a test for God to pass before we accept his will, as Gideon did.  I’m wary of that, as Jesus clearly said “do not put the Lord your God to the test”.  It’s not really for us to dictate to God how he should reveal his will to us.  If you have doubts about whether  a perceived call to Christian service, or word of prophesy, is genuine, it is usually far better to discuss it with the elders of your church, than to set random ‘tests’ for the Almighty.

 

The Bible in a Year – 2 March

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

2 March. Deuteronomy chapters 8-10

Again (see yesterday’s reading ) we see the origins of the discipline of Lent, both in the reminder that “one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (8:3, as quoted by Jesus to the Devil) and also in Moses’ reminder that the twice spent forty days and nights fasting and praying, first to reach a level of enlightenment in which he could know God ‘face to face’ and receive the commandments, and again in prayer for God’s people in their disobedience.  Jesus likewise spent 40 days and nights fasting in the desert as he wrestled with temptation before starting his ministry of teaching and healing.

 

It is a biblical pattern that God calls, people hear, but before they can fully and effectively do God’s work they must receive what the Church calls ‘ministerial and spiritual formation’ – reaching a deeper understanding of God, his teaching through the Bible, and one’s relationships with other people.  Most of us though, take a lifetime of training and experience to achieve this, if at all, rather than the ”crash course” that Moses, Jesus and also St Paul took.