Follow Me
The following is an abbreviated version of the homily for June 11, 2023
As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he got up and followed him.
Matthew was just doing his job…as a despised agent of an oppressive foreign power, when Jesus, strangely, unexpectedly called him.
Who, in their right mind, abandons their life’s work on such short notice! Jesus had a charismatic effect on people.
But that was then…I wanted to know how people responded to this invitation to Follow me in our own time.
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But why is it even important to understand what it means to Follow me?
There are several answers. Jesus in his human form left us about 2100 years ago. We don’t get to experience his personal magnetism as the first disciples did and sense what it was that people were responding to. We lack his visual presence and sense of immediacy.
Secondly, the institutional church is less inspiring than it might be. Sexual scandals and the history of residential schools and self-absorption have undermined the institutional church.
Third…despite these negatives…. people find relevance for their lives and for the life of the church community by being conscious followers.
So the question is: what draws people to answer the call to follow, today, in their own way
I asked people in the congregation to tell me what it meant to them to answer the call.
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The responses have been deep, wide, profound and astonishing. People spoke sincerely of their personal responses. I have had to cut out a lot of what they said and give just a small sample of the replies. I recorded most of the discussions and two people wrote lengthy emails explaining their call. I hope I do justice to the authenticity and energy of the responses. All the people are members of the congregation.
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One story goes like this.
"When I was 16 there was a girl I had a huge crush on. She went to a church where there was a big youth group. I started going, basically to try to talk to this girl. During the services I didn’t sing or participate in any way.
"The church had organized a trip for the day school ended. We were going to stay at a motel on the beach for free and I remember saying to my friends, 'Let’s do this. No parents. No cost. We were into skimboarding. It’s going to be great.'
"On the last day of school, I got my skimboard and went to church and looked around and none of my friends or the girl were there but I was stuck.
"I just sat in the back of the bus thinking, 'I’m way too cool for this.'
"In the evening the pastor introduced the owner of the hotel where we were staying…it wasn’t a fancy place…The pastor said that the owner had a policy that any youth group from a church who wanted to come could stay for free.
"This guy got up. He was 6’4”, had long blond hair, He was extremely good looking, very muscular. A perfect specimen of masculinity. I thought “this guy is amazing”. “I want to be just like you.”
"He started talking about how he used to be a Chippindale dancer … a male stripper. He would fly around to New York, LA, Vegas, flying first class …and he had the lifestyle that went along with that.
"And one day he asked himself, 'If this plane went down where would I go?'. And that led him down the path of devoting his life to following Christ, changing his lifestyle, taking the money he had earned and buying this hotel…and part of his gift was hospitality to churches.
"This blew me away. I thought, 'ou had everything in life that I thought I wanted and you’ve just given it away. That’s ridiculous'.
"Then I wondered, 'what would happen to me when I die'. And I went and talked to the pastor. We talked then he invited me to answer the call to 'follow me'. I told him “I’ll sign up”.
“He said, ‘Congratulations, you’ve just made one of your most important life decisions. There’s a bunch of people on the beach praying for you.'
"It was the leadership team and they were praying for people after the service. He asked me to go down and tell them what just happened.
"I told them I just accepted Christ as my savior.
"They whooped and celebrated.
"These were people that I hadn’t treated well. I’d been dismissive and this was way different than I expected.
"During the summer I started showing up more often to the youth group and I joined a bible study. I started to see the way that God had orchestrated things that I hadn’t recognized at the time. Looking back I saw God’s hand that wasn’t evident in the moment.
"God was constantly calling me sometimes in ways that I recognize but also in ways that are subtle.
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Another person talked about the call to “follow me” as being alert to the call in daily life.
“I was sitting one very cold winter day, at an intersection in a warm car with my girlfriend. A young obviously handicapped boy walked in front of the car; his ears bright red from the cold. My girlfriend started to cry and it occurred to me to offer the boy a ride. In that moment of hesitation, the light turned green, a car behind honked its horn and I drove through the intersection and away. I often think about that instant and that I failed to act when action was needed.
He said, “It’s easy in the moment to pass by and pretend you didn’t notice.” This person experienced “the call” as an invitation to interrupt his daily life in the name of service.
He has subsequently become amazingly open to these moments of need.
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Another parishioner had a slightly different take. It involved a change in consciousness.
“Before I found my faith I had always attempted to take care of people and not hurt them. It was how I was raised…
"One day about 15 years ago I was reading a Gideon bible that had been given to me when I was 15 or 16… People had been reading the bible for two thousand years and I figured there must be something to it.
"I was in the living room and I experienced a feeling of great power and overwhelming presence. And I felt it saying 'I will have you' (I say it because I object to gender) and I thought it got the wrong person…You mean me?
"I started to read the bible every day. I felt I was “claimed”. It wasn’t something I was looking for, at all except it seemed to answer questions for me…
"It took about 3 years before I started to sneak into St. Aidan’s and hope no one would notice
"Following Jesus has not been about changing my actions but changing my mental processes. I now catch myself judging people and I try not to …. I still get angry with someone’s behaviour but it’s getting easier to love the person.
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The call to “follow me” was also experienced as coming from the community as a whole. It elicited a response to join community. But it also came in the voice of others who may or may not have intended to speak on God’s behalf.
Another person told me,
“As a teenager with hurt feelings, I told a lovely wise man I worked for that I just wanted to move into the woods and be a hermit.
“He said he was sure I could succeed at that because I was capable and independent. Then he said, 'But while you could survive without us, we could not survive without you.'
“Many of us could be independent believers, but we can only truly survive and live out the teachings of the gospel as a community.
“…. it can be hard to find a reason to be a part of the organized church, especially when there is a lack of direction or sense of community.
“Regardless of bad headlines, my faith calls me to be a part of a community. We still have so much more good to do in Christ’s name.
Our words and actions as a group can be an invitation to others to follow Christ.
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Not everyone hears the call to follow me in such a profound and serious way. Sometimes it comes with a sense of whimsy. Here is one person’s story
"About three years ago I was in Israel on a business trip and I took a personal side trip to Galilee, Nazareth, Caesarea and to the Jordan river, to a site where they say Jesus was baptised.
"It’s a bus tour from Tel Aviv. And while I’m on the bus the song 'I’ve decided to follow Jesus' was in my head for most of the two hour drive.
"When we got there, it was very interesting. There were a couple of people being baptized in the Jordan. In a different area there was an open theatre space, with benches and a microphone
"I was standing there, overlooking the river and a man from this small group of people who had been baptizing came up to the mike, plugged in an electric guitar and sang “I have decided to follow Jesus.” Then he stopped and that was the only music we heard.
"It was a very neat experience.
"I liked that song because of the history behind it. It was composed by a man in India who was martyred because of his conversion to Christianity.*
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The call to ‘follow me” comes in in many forms
… By being attracted to another person
… In the inspired words of a former stripper.
… From the moment-to-moment call of people in need.
… Suddenly from scripture,
… from the community,
…and from a nameless musician at the river Jordan.
It is sometimes a thunderbolt of recognition. But it can also occur as a gradual dawning of awareness.
Each person who talked with me was open to the possibility of hearing God’s call and was willing to take the next step and the one after that.
One of this morning’s gospel messages is to be receptive to the presence of God calling in everyday experiences.
These different stories also illustrate that Christ is at work in the world calling each of us uniquely, by name and based on who we are.
Our task is to be alert to that call in our lives and to respond to it.
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None of these interviews sounded like the other. If I listened to stories for more weeks I’m sure that I’d find that each person hears Christ’s call to “follow me” in their own way.
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I, personally, found the stories inspiring and full of faith. They were as unlikely as the call to the tax collector in this morning’s gospel.
If anyone else has a personal story that they would like to share, I’d welcome the opportunity to hear it. Speak me or contact me.
It might make it into the second chapter of this continuing homily.
God bless you.
* The lyrics to “I have decided to follow Jesus” are based on the last words of Nokseng, a Garo man, a tribe from Meghalaya in India who converted to Christianity and was killed for it.