WILL WE FOLLOW?

The desire to be a “follower of Jesus” is obviously a good and noble thing, presumably none of us would be here now if we were not interested in being his followers. But do we fully understand what that means?  What that demands? To follow this man is a great calling until he shows us just where he is going.  Then it becomes a dangerous calling, very likely a scary one.

How many empty seats would there be on the plane that I just chartered to fly to Afghanistan?  In the cargo hold I have T-Shirts for everyone to wear that say “USA” on the front, as well as lots of boxes of bibles to distribute once we arrive. 

I’m chartering another plane tomorrow with one-way tickets to Haiti for anyone who wants to come along.  It’s a free trip – all you have to do is follow me.  There will be snacks and refreshments while in flight, but you’ll be on your own once we arrive.  And no, you can’t bring your credit card or buy travel insurance.

That’s exactly the kind of offer that Jesus in the gospel of Mark is holding out to his friends and asking them. “Are you sure you want to follow with me?”  And they all say, “You bet!”  In today’s readings, Jesus and the others are on the journey to Jerusalem.  And Jesus is telling them, not for the first time, not that something tragic and disorienting might happen to him there, but that it surely would happen…like the cross, like death.

Still want to come along?  And they all answer, “Absolutely!” And by the way, added James and John, “We’d also like a share in that glory that you will be receiving.”  Jesus must have just shaken his head.  Only he knew how completely they failed to understand what it means to be a follower of him.

When we use that language today, “following Jesus,” it can be easy to sort of narrow it down in order to mean, “doing kind things” or “helping other people.”  And that is surely a big part of it, because he did that too.

But that was in Galilee, where the story of his ministry began.  And we aren’t there anymore.  In Mark’s gospel, we are literally on a death march now, and no matter how often Jesus tells them so, his followers just don’t get it.  We are headed to Jerusalem to Calvary, to certain martyrdom.  “Can you do this?” he asks them. And without a moment’s hesitation they say, “We can!”

These are the same people who are nowhere to be found at the foot of the cross when it matters.

So, what happened here? How did Jesus the celebrity in Galilee, who was so popular and sought after for his generosity that he barely had time to sleep or pray, how did he become this hated, ridiculed, condemned criminal by the time he arrived in Jerusalem?  What changed was his audience.  In Galilee he was the friend of the poor and the grieving, the widows and the sick, the foreigners and the rejected.  In Jerusalem, he began, as they say, to speak truth to power.  The message was the same, but instead of speaking to the victims of suffering, he was now confronting those who inflicted suffering on others, often under the guise of political authority and often even on appeal to religion.  He spoke boldly and critically to those who had the ability to change society but chose not to. He suggested — no he informed —  the leaders that God is ultimately the master and judge of creation, not they.  He was condemned by governors and kings and high priests and soldiers of the emperor.

This is where being a follower starts to take on an element of danger.  His first followers never understood, until now, that Jesus’ mission was a whole lot bigger than just being a nice guy or a wise teacher.  He was here to change the world.  And people who have been made important and wealthy and privileged by the world as it is, really hate that.

Still today, we can be tempted to make Jesus and his gospel too small, too polite, and too constricted to my personal behavior because it is much safer that way.  But the story of Jesus is not, in the end, a story about safety.  He told us that today himself.  It is rather the story of risk taking for the sake of those who are oppressed, and to tell the truth about the effects of people and structure who create the oppression:  Governments, businesses, military forces, Churches, and clergy.  Dangerous business.  The question that Jesus puts out there to James and John is the very same one to all of us:  Are you ready and willing to follow…not into glory, but into suffering? Are you?  Are we? There will eventually be a reward for all this, but it may very well not be here and now.

Can you drink the cup that I drink?  Can you bear the baptism that I offer?  Before you are too quick to say, “I can!” consider very carefully whom you are following.  Jesus, of course, never turned anybody away from his followers, but a good many of them eventually self-selected out of the mission because they were awakened to its demands.  Those demands have not changed: justice, hospitality, peace, forgiveness, suffering, and yes, resistance to forces of oppression and speaking unpopular truths.  Can we?  Will we?