Follow me? You go first.
"Follow me." Jesus.
What in the world does that mean? Doesn't that take massive guts? Seriously, what in the world did he mean when he said follow me? I know there are some remarkable examples of Jesus in most churches in the world. I have met some of these folks. I thank God for them. You may be one or you may know some. If you are one, I hope this post doesn’t offend you. I am thinking out loud… I am questioning myself via a blog for the world to read.
"Follow me." Some folks think it means to never cuss, smoke, drink or never sneak a peek a your wife’s Victoria Secret or your husband's Mens Health, never steal an ink pen from work, always read the bible everyday, and try to get others to believe the same things about Jesus as they do. I am not suggesting this is bad, but is this why God incarnated? To stop folks from having a glass of wine and telling dirty jokes and then to be brutalized on a cross for those who do because God was so pissed about the wine and dirty jokes? Is this what it mans to be a "Jesus-follower"?
I hear a lot of talk from folks who claim to be "Jesus followers". I just saw a lady on television tonight who was a "Jesus-follower." Just ask her. She wore a lovely full-length fur coat and tons of make-up. It is okay because God gave her dominion over the animals so it was her prerogative, besides as a good Jesus-follower she was blessed with money to buy one. I imagine she had a huge redwood deck attached to her house. It was interesting, however, those who knew her thought she was cruel, rude, insensitive, and evil.
Shouldn’t we be able to spot a Jesus-follower from a mile away? Find a crowd of folks who are despised, rejected, and oppressed and you should be able to locate a Jesus-follower. He or she will be the one proclaiming God’s love and inviting them to God’s table feast and becoming friends with them. Go to your local church and you should be able to find a Jesus-follower there, he or she will be the one calling the church into repentance and demanding that they sell their building and give the money away to those they have oppressed and excluded over the years. The Jesus-follower will probably instruct the folks to build their "temple" in their hearts so that they can love God and their neighbor from and with their hearts. If you are looking for an authentic Jesus-follower listen for the shout of the devoutly religious crowd and walk toward the noise, they’ll be shouting "Crucify, crucify." There’s a good chance a Jesus-follower by his/her very lifestyle will be shaking up the dominant national religion by daring to break the laws and the rules in order to let the love flow.
For those authentic Jesus-followers, God bless you. The world needs you. I want to follow this guy Jesus, but I am scared. Scared to live for the same things he lived for. Scared to be a revolutionary and religious rebel consistently speaking up for those with no voice and for the poor, the sick and the discriminated against. Demetrius Williams reminds us that Jesus lived for mercy, justice, non-violence, healing and spiritual transformation of humankind. The things Jesus lived for cost him his life. I am not so sure that I can love that actively. I am not so sure that I can love that boldly. I am not so sure I am willing to live for the same cause and concerns Jesus lived for and if I am unwilling to live for the things Jesus lived for, then there is no way I am willing to die for the things Jesus died for. If I am not willing to live and die for the same things that Jesus lived for, and therefore died for, how in the world can I really claim to follow him?
9 Comments:
trick,
u gots guts out the ass bro...
funny thing is, is when Jesus is at our very core we're scared NOT to live/die/whatever for the same things that He did, 'cause we know that we know & anything less is nothing short of criminal...
He bled for a reason...
let 'em bleed into every facet, nook & crany of our very being...
then...then, there's no option but to be a JF...
your 1 rockin' mofo of a JF in my book bro...
For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die...
God, i can't even die to my self let alone die for another!
i can say that for the most part, i can *smell* a Christian from a mile away. there is something about someone who is godly; i can also say that i have met people who have proclaimed their Christianity and there is a knot in my stomach that tells me otherwise. this is where our discernment meter kicks in. all we need to is heed.
and yeah, rick - you can claim to follow him. even peter had his bad days.
~peace~
Well Rick, I've been following him for years-- about two miles behind him.
Beautiful post, Rick. Earlier today, I got into conversation with my neighbor's wacko son. He's in his mid to late 20s, living with mom, paranoid schitzophrenic -- ranting about violence much of the time. (bear with me - I'm going somewhere with this)
Set the scene: he's on the balcony of his mother's condo. I'm walking across the lawn. This whole conversation takes place in a wacked-out Romeo/Juliet-type exchange.
Today, he'd just finished some rant about violence when he saw me with my dogs and baby daughter -- and repeatedly said, "you know I wasn't talking to you, right?" I assured him I knew. He said (again - repeating himself is a thing with him) that he was just miserable, hated his life, etc. I told him, I knew -- he had pain, and that it sucked but that it was normal. Everyone has pain, and I knew that to him, his pain had to be just awful.
He asked if I believed in God. I said yes. "And Jesus? Do you believe in Jesus Christ?" I said yes, that I did. He started to apologize profusely, assuming that my delicate ears couldn't take his rants. I told him that, yes, I believe in Jesus, but not the Jesus that so many who call themselves Christians profess -- and that I'd think their reference to him probably makes God cry.
We continued for a few minutes, and for the first time, I genuinely didn't feel fear toward him (oddly, also named Rick). I felt hurt for him, and as I left, he told me that I was one of the good kinds...that I had a pure soul.
I don't know about that, but showing a little bit of love to such an unlovable humbled me. All I wanted to do was ensure that if he went on a Columbine spree I wasn't in the crosshairs!
Wow, following Jesus is tough. I'm mediocre at it most of the time. I'm downright bad at don't-drink-don't-smoke-rules-oriented version of it. Thank God I finally realized that the rules weren't what were important. Love is.
Sheesh...wrote my own post there, didn't I? (might have to post that when my site's back up)
Regardless, I'm really enjoying your blog -- added you to my daily reads after finding you via badchristian.
Allison
Wow. Seriously now. Wow....
I don't have the guts most days to follow Him, mostly because I don't even listen to Him well. Oh, I might study my Bible, discourse with friends on what I/we should be doing to bring about the Kingdom of God in our lives and in the world around us, but I'm not sure I can most days. I'm still coming out from under the influence of a perfectionistic/fundamentalist church culture where I had to be good, live good, dress properly, and "be holy" in order to gain access to God. I still struggle with what "living for God" actually looks like, whether in my life or in other Christians.
I know that I'm redeemed by His death, burial, and resurrection. And I know that I shouldn't be struggling with the improper social structures of my former church culture, in terms of them telling me how to live. And I have a decent idea of how to break such molds and get on with Kingdom living, sans the surface-level bombast of the holiness movement. But I still fight the guilt and shame, mostly because I know how inadequately I DO live for Him.
But thanks Rick for your honesty. I love sharing with people like you because I get to realize that I'm not in this life alone. There are people with whom I can share and communicate when I'm feeling down and confused. Thanks for your words.
Following Jesus can be hard for me, but like someone else said, I'm scared not to. I believe there's no other way out of hell.
On my blog, I just asked God to see into my heart and see that I wanted to be honest with Him.
Honestly, sometimes the following is tough, because you pass by things that you feel could be made better, but if Jesus hasn't stopped, I can't either, and that's rough.
I kinda feel like those folks who followed Forrest Gump while he ran back and forth across the United States. Following in that straggly group, and then wondering why he stopped in the middle of the desert and said, "I'm tired, I want to go home now...."
and we couldn't go with (H)im because we didn't live there....yet.
Following Jesus hurts.
let that new life continue to emerge, rick. beautiful post. it is in the love - that beautiful expression of the love of God to others that you will find Him.
all the rest is flesh. only the love is Spirit.
be blessed.
I've been thinking of this a lot, lately, so this is a very timely post, brother...thank you.
You talked about the Jesus followers exhorting the church to sell their mega-buildings and use the money to serve the poor. I think, at the other extreme, JF's would be going into the church with 30 or 60 members, and exhorting them to abandon preserving two hundred year old worship as their reason to be!
I think JF's would be saying, "Just get out of the pews and into the world that Jesus came to die for!"
One mightily servant-oriented church I visited had these words over the main exit doors: "Our mission field begins here." The message in that place was clear: yes, we worship God in here - but we follow Christ out there!
Laura's comment said, "Following Jesus hurts," and that's why I'm not there, so many days. I don't want to be that compassionate, that caring, that poor, for God's sake!
That's why I struggle with folks who's only message is, "You got to get righteous and holy, boy - holy as JEEEEZIS is holy." I know there's a lot of places where my life behavior doesn't honor God - and I'm definitely working to clean up the wreckage of my past. But folks, I'm never gonna BE holy (especially as long as there are Victoria's Secret catalogs and Men's Health magazines!)
I think I hear a post of my own percolating, brother...thanks for the honesty, the challenge, and the ever-so-unsubtle kick in the ass. The problem is, you're gonna have a tough time finding a church that will hear that message. After all, they crucified Jesus for asking folks to follow him...what makes you think you'll be any different?
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