Following Jesus (Midweek Message)

Following Jesus

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

April 13, 2016

I am writing this from the Diocesan clergy conference, held at the Oregon Garden in Silverton.  The Rev. Scott A. Gunn, director of the Forward Movement and co-founder of Lent Madness, is the main presenter.  One of the central ideas Scott has been discussing is what it means to be a disciple of Jesus, a person who follows Jesus. 

“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,” says Jesus (Matthew 11:28-30), “For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”  The path of following Jesus is not full of super heroic demands and denials: it is gentle and grows organically from where we are.  Jesus loves and has the best interest of everyone he encounters in mind, yet he challenges us all.  To the woman caught in adultery, he says, “Neither do I accuse you” (John 8:11).  But then he adds, “Go, and don’t sin anymore.”  He is asking her to turn from her past, not demanding that she be perfect right here and now.  

When Jesus seems at times to make impossible demands of us (“cut off your hand, or put out your eye, if that’s what you need to do to keep from sin,” Mark 9:43-45; “be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect,” Matthew 5:48), I think this is more by way of saying just how impossible it is to be right with God on our own.   “But what is impossible for us humans is possible with God” (Luke 18:27).

The point is, we must turn aside, like Moses noticing that burning bush (Exodus 3:3), and be present for God.  We must learn.  We must follow.  We must pray.  We must serve.  We must share—both our stuff and our faith.  And sharing faith means both in words and example. 

Presiding Bishop Michael Curry’s call to us to be followers of Jesus, fervent members of the Jesus Movement underscores this need for us to be disciples.   It means being ever open to change, and being willing to take Jesus and his teachings seriously. 

I think that one of the great reasons that the Church is in such bad odor in our society, both for the religious and the non-religious, is that we have made Jesus into a point of doctrine, and believing in him a point of division between insiders and outsiders.  We have not been disciples, trying always to follow him and to learn from him. 

Yet he invites us to this still.  And his yoke is easy, his burden light. 

Grace and Peace. 

--Fr. Tony+