The Follow-through

 

I get the Gospel reading. It is short and curt and seems not so hospitable, perhaps even nasty. I get this way when I am on a mission. In the middle of working on a project, when I am focused I like to plow ahead uninterrupted. It makes me a little short with people around me. I don’t listen well to outside voices. My focus is solely on the task at hand that leads to the envisioned end product.

Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem, focusing on God’s mission and the steps to bring it to fruition.

I can imagine that Jesus is thinking out the steps of the mission and preparing to face critics and backlash in Jerusalem and strengthening resolve to stand firm in proclaiming a new way.

Jesus is not interested in engaging in religious or racial squabbles with the disciples, or the Samaritans. Jesus has completed ministry in the hinterland and is not interested in people joining the cause or leaving the cause; Jesus knows the climax of the story and message is in process and about to happen; and this will change everything.

 

Since the time Luke wrote the Gospel, people have spent hours interpreting and preaching these few verses, defining and making rules about what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

 

What does it mean to follow Jesus?

My answer today is different from what it would have been three years ago when we heard this same text. Pandemic has changed the answer; or created a more complete answer.

Following Jesus through pandemic has been faithfulness – faithfulness in prayer, worship, Bible study, devotions, and in continuing to find ways to be church and share the Gospel with the world.

Following Jesus has been kindness – giving people space and compassion to feel what they are feeling; gentleness – in listening to other peoples’ stories and finding ways to be community and have safe social interactions; generosity – through collections of items, redistribution of personal property, virtual and mail-in offerings.

What does it mean to follow Jesus?

Although one might describe the pandemic experience as being sheltered and cut-off, following Jesus has meant an increase in ministry. I know, hard at first to get one’s head around. We have managed to share the Gospel, through worship, Word, music, with more people than ever before. We have had more engagement in Bible study, prayer, intimate conversation, and devotion than in pre-COVID times.  Pandemic has changed us. We have been more faithful in our following of Jesus.

 

From conversations that I have had recently with friends, and opin pieces and blogs describing where people are at, there seems to be a malaise that has settled over us. Articles speak of exhaustion, people quitting jobs or not going back, others giving up on masks and precautions ‘we’re all going to get it anyway’, and those who persevere to stay safe.

This past week with colleagues we read literature from the Alban Institute on burn out – of clergy and congregations as a whole, I think their three part definition can apply to the malaise that has settled inside and outside the church.

Burn out has three parts:

Exhaustion – a depletion of mental and/or physical resources;

Cynical detachment – a depletion of social connectedness;

Reduced sense of efficacy – a depletion of value for oneself.

 

I feel all three: exhaustion, cynical detachment, and a reduced sense of efficacy. Not every day. Not necessarily all in the same moment. Not always about me – sometimes about work, or the neighbourhood, or the world – particularly the world.

 

Everything – all the energy and resources Jesus had- Jesus put into that last trip to Jerusalem. Jesus knew that it was the end of the road, before a new beginning.

Human Jesus was not leaving Jerusalem alive; every particle would bleed out to saturate the world with love, joy, peace.

 

What is it to follow Jesus?

Crucifixion is not the end for most of us.

Yet, by the end of life if every particle of ourselves bled out to saturate the world with love…

that would be following Jesus.

 

What is it to follow Jesus? To get to - my whole being – the churches whole being- ‘saturating the world with love’

Bishop Kathy Martin, of the BC Synod, interprets today’s Gospel into a focused set of life-restoring practices to set us on the path to ‘our’ Jerusalem; highlighting the action in the text from Luke in a positive, do-able way.

Kathy writes:

Let go of the past.

Bury what is dead and move on.

Leave the comforts of home.

And get moving.

 

Covered in malaise, dancing around burn-out, these are four steps on the path.

Four steps to help us continue to be faithful, kind, generous, gentle, self-controlled, peaceable, joyful, and loving --- for the healing of the whole world.

 

Go continue in faithfulness as you follow Jesus.