Thoughts on Leading and Following

And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” (Matthew 4:19)

Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!” (John 21:22)

Lately, I have been trudging through the mountain of assigned reading I have for a class I'm taking at Covenant Theological Seminary.  The subject of the class is "Grace Centered Leadership," and I'm noticing there's a lot of stuff in those pages about the question of how to lead others.  A lot.  Really a lot.  It's great material - but the best of it starts with the question we all ought to ask ourselves first:  Who is leading us? Who are we following?

The two verses quoted above from Gospels of Matthew 4 and John 21 show us two examples of Jesus' words to Peter, the first (in Matthew 4) occurring during those early days when Simon the fisherman first met Jesus on the shore of the Lake of Galilee and the second (in John 21) occurring during those latter days when Peter the apostle was cooking fish on the shore of the same lake.  Peter, hearing the first call, responded by abandoning his life as a fisherman, dropping his nets, walking away from his boat and following Jesus.   The second call comes to Peter from the risen Jesus, when He finds Peter back at the trade from which He had called him.*  

The words, "Follow Me" were the first and last words spoken by Jesus to Peter in a one on one context.*  In between two "Follow Me's" lay the most significant three years of history.  During those three years, there had been many ups and downs for Peter.  On the up side, Peter acknowledged that Jesus is the true anointed Messiah, the Christ of God; when all others desert Jesus, Peter and the eleven stuck by Him; and it was Peter who had testified that Jesus alone has the words of life.  Peter was rescued from drowning by Jesus as He walked on the water;  Peter saw Jesus perform many amazing miracles; he heard Him teach of the kingdom; Peter beheld Him transfigured alongside Elijah and Moses; Peter witnessed His trial and crucifixion, but saw the empty tomb on the day of resurrection.  

But there was the down side as well.  Peter denied Jesus three times; he often spoke in ignorance of what Jesus was called to do.  Peter was sharply rebuked for trying to stand in the way of Jesus' path to the cross.  Peter and the others cowered in a locked room in the days after Jesus' death at the hand of the powerful Roman authorities.

In the ups and downs, the call of Jesus, "Follow Me," never changed - the same yesterday, today and forever.

In light of these two identical calls to Peter, we can learn some lessons.  First, our calling is like Peter's in that it never changes, even in the ups and downs of our own life.  In successes and in failures, the call remains the same: Follow Jesus.  This unwavering message should comfort all who believe in Christ.  It means that our purpose is established.  It means that it is God-given.  It means that it is secure.  It means that it is ultimate.

A second lesson is there to be learned as well: Our calling, though unchanging and secure, is not static or fixed to a particular place in time.**  We do not follow an idea or a set of rules, after all.  Our calling is from a heavenly Father who wants His children to grow into the likeness of His Son and to learn who He is and to love Him like a Father.  He is not impersonal or far off; and though He knows of His children's sins and failures, He is a Father who does not delight in punishing His children.  Rather, He is a Father who knows His children is always ready to forgive and to issue the call again and again.

Peter's call also tells us of one last thing - the call we are given is not one which we can answer whimsically or lightly.  If you look further at the final call of Peter you will see this one last thing.  The final call to Peter is this (and the the call to us is like it):  "...but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this he said to him, “Follow me.”  (John 21:18-19)

The call to follow Jesus will cost us our lives, but to who else's call should we listen?   Why? Because only Jesus' call is the call to eternal life.

* - Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost Of Discipleship

** - John R.W. Stott, Basic Christianity

Crops and Constellations

If you know me at all, you’ll not talk to me very long before you find out that I enjoy Astronomy as a hobby - not the physics of it, mind you, that’s far above my level, but the personal exercise of worship in observing and appreciating them as a work of our Creator as they turn above my head.  I often hum along to the words of Psalm 19 set to the familiar tune, "Rejoice the Lord is King,"

“The spacious heavens declare, the glory of our God,
the firmament displays His handiwork abroad;
Day unto day does utter speech,
and night to night does knowledge teach;”  

When someone else pipes up with anything like a similar interest, I’m keen to engage.  So keen, in fact, that it can try the patience of some around me, I’ll admit.
I have a good friend (another minister) who, whenever we talk on the phone or meet up in person, once we have dispensed with “business,” seem able to go on for hours (as our wives patiently watch us or listen to us) about what we have been seeing lately “up there”.  Our wives understand what motivates us, but sometimes our interest in the details can seem (admittedly) overly enthusiastic.

On the surface, there is a shared passion and fascination between my friend and me in a common interest, but underlying our conversation is something much more. There is is an almost unspoken affirmation that our understanding of Faith is one of a shared frame of reference for encountering the whole world around us, both visible and invisible.  Looking at the stars and galaxies and planets is not just a innocuous hobby on which to spend our time and conversation.   To my friend and me, “religion” or “spirituality” is not a private compartment of our personality but is a controlling way of life encompassing all we do and think and say.

To both of us, “Faith and reason, doctrine and life, sacred and secular are on speaking terms,”* and they are perfectly compatible ideas.  It does not seem out of step with all of what we understand about the world and the things in it to spend our time tracking the stars with the same wonder and fervor in any given week in which we also write a sermon or article or poem or hymn on a biblical theme or offer as praise to nature’s Creator or Redeemer.  It is no separate endeavor or subordinate pursuit trying to catch the transit of Ganymede across Jupiter in our telescope to working through the Greek or Hebrew grammar of a passage we’re trying to understand or communicate.  “Truth, goodness and beauty draw all things together in a unified body of knowledge.  No less when exploring the heavens than when poring over Scripture, one (is) engaging in pious meditation upon God’s works.”

This being harvest time in South Dakota, I think the same thing can be also said of the life of many I know in my congregation who share this frame of reference called Faith.  What I see and marvel over in the stars, they behold in the rows of beans and corn brought forth from the earth by the same Power and Majesty.  I can only hope (and do assume) they are humming along with the Creator’s work (Psalm 65:12-13) as they gather the fruit of this season,

“The pastures of the wilderness overflow, the hills gird themselves with joy,
the meadows clothe themselves with flocks, the valleys deck themselves with grain,
they shout and sing together for joy.”

Let all that has breath praise the Lord!

*I owe the inspiration for the thinking here to Michael Horton’s introduction to “Calvin on the Christian Life: Glorifying and Enjoying God Forever” Crossway, Wheaton, IL, 2014: pp 13-15.

A symbol never died for you...

About twenty years ago, I had a conversation with a young man and fellow US Army soldier serving in Germany. We were driving together in my car across the city of Frankfurt from downtown where we worked to our unit’s headquarters in the northeast part of the city. Along the way, in the glacially paced German traffic on Eschenheimer Landstrasse, we had nearly an hour to talk about whatever came to mind. 

Eventually, the conversation turned to spiritual things and I was impressed with the young man’s intelligence and serious questions about what the Bible said about Jesus Christ and what these things could mean in his life. He had no hesitation in offering encouragement to me for the strength of my faith in Jesus Christ and the peace I possessed because of it, but he was just as quick to state that he believed all sincere people of faith eventually find God through the many paths which lead to Him. 

His words to me were polite and good natured, but he was completely unwilling to agree that Jesus was the only way to God. I remember him particularly saying that Christianity, like all other “paths” to God had both human and divine truth; something which was seen clearly in its most prominent symbol, the cross. The two lines, one horizontal and one vertical, represented the love we should have for each other and for God respectively.

I’ll admit I was initially unsure what to make of his statement about the cross. He was not hostile or negative toward the cross. In fact, at first, the elegance of his analogy seemed attractive. ‘Love God and Love people’ - those are the two great commandments, right?

In the years since then, this conversation has always remained sharp in my memory.  Since then, I have had many similar talks with people - people to whom the idea of one way to God seems objectionable. People who, thinking themselves charitable because they seek common ground, congratulate themselves for being "tolerant," “open-minded” and “free-thinking.” They are unaware that this so-called “open-mindedness” and “free-thinking” is nothing but a dark lie clothed in a veil of cleverly worded nonsense about the cross’s symbolism.

In my conversation with the young man, it finally occurred to me that there was a very basic thing he misunderstood about the cross. The cross, to him and to so many like him, is merely a symbol. 

I told the young man that the cross is not anything like a Buddhist wheel or Islamic crescent or even a Jewish star of David - all of which are just representative symbols of some philosophical or sociological system. The cross is a concrete representation of a factual event which took place in the history of the world - an observable event out in the open for all to see.

If you take a glance at the "Coexist" bumper sticker found on some cars you'll see a line of symbols showing the major world faiths.

Each one is a visible drawing of an invisible idea. Typically, you'll see symbols representing Islam (Crescent), Buddhism (Wheel), Taoism (Yin-Yang), Shintoism (Gate), Hinduism (Lotus), Judaism (Star of David) and Christianity (Cross). Only the cross is an expression of an historical event, namely the coming of Jesus Christ, the Word Incarnate, the Creator, the Son of God Himself, who took on flesh, died and rose again from the grave so that he might restore fallen Creation, atone for for the sins of God’s elect people and rule as Lord of all forevermore. 

The cross doesn't merely represent some invisible idea or philosophical notion or doctrine, but testifies to an actual historical event subject to the observation and (one day) acknowledgment of the whole world.

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.  And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.  For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”                 Colossians 1:15-20