Immediately - For Frank Mauldin McClain

Immediately. “Immediately they left their nets and followed him… Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.” Immediately. [Matthew 4:12-23] Four fishermen, Andrew, Simon, James and John, just left everything and followed Jesus. This alone ought to be enough to make us curious: Who is this guy? And why do people drop everything – livelihood, tools, their day job and their families – just at the invitation to follow Jesus?

The answer to the first question: this Jesus, says Matthew, is light in a world of darkness. Light denotes the presence of God in a dangerous world, a world under threat. The coming of God, the power of light, dispels the darkness and permits well-being. A world without God, without the light, leaves one endlessly endangered and under threat. Those seeking a way out of the darkness turn to the light like the heliotropism of some plants and flowers that follow the sun.

My mentor in ministry, The Reverend Frank M. McClain, wrote about a 19th century theologian, Frederick Denison Maurice (1805-1872). Every now and then, out of respect for all that Frank taught me, I dip back in to F D Maurice. It puts me closer to Frank to study the theological mind that so inspired my mentor, colleague and friend.

Maurice was in fact a kind of anti-theologian. He had no time for denominations, sects (s-e-c-t-s), theological systems, parties and the like. I get that. So much time is wasted writing, arguing, theorizing, blogging, debating, instead of following. While going through an essay by Richard Norris [in F D Maurice: A Study – Cowley Publications, 1982], I ran across this one example of Maurice’s thinking. It is from a letter to Daniel Macmillan, his publisher, in 1844:

“The one thought that possesses me most at this time and, I may say, has always possessed me, is that we have been dosing our people with religion when what they want is not this but the Living God. We are threatened now not with the loss of religious feelings, so-called, or religious notions, or of religious observances, but with Atheism. Everywhere I seem to perceive this peril. That battle within, the battle without is against this: the heart and flesh of our countrymen are crying out for God. We give them a stone for bread, systems for realities.” [Ibid p 15]

Andrew, Simon, James and John dropped everything, family and livelihood, because they were tired of sacred pronouncements from the inner precincts of Jerusalem, and the pronouncements in the synagogues. They wanted nothing of the competing religious systems of their day. Instead, they wanted nothing less than the Living God, as Maurice concludes. When the itinerant teacher from Nazareth came to them and said, “Follow me,” he was, in their experience of the moment, the very embodiment of the Living God. They wanted to turn to the light that was coming into the world. They chose to join with him to dispel the world of darkness and threat.

Now it would be silly to suggest that whatever they may have learned of scripture and both the history and present circumstances of their people had nothing to do with making it easier to recognize the genuine article when it arrives. But it may just have been his presence as he approaches them. We all have been, at one time or another, in the presence of someone or some place that just takes our breath away; stops us in our tracks; makes us suddenly see everything in a new light. We might even experience such moments as an epiphany – epi-phanos, “by light,” “the appearance of light,” or “the coming of light.” We even say, “We have seen the light.”

We can speculate endlessly as to why they follow him, but the story as reported in all four gospels allows for no over-analyzing. With just one word we learn all we need to know: Immediately. Immediately, on the shores of the lake in “Galilee of the Gentiles,” Jesus says, “Follow me,” and immediately four fishermen see the light coming to them. They drop everything and follow him – to the end of the story and beyond the end. For the end of the story is just the beginning of their story and ours.

A colleague posted the essence of this episode on Facebook and asked, “When did you first know that Jesus was saying "Follow me" to you? What was your answer?” My immediate response: it was 1978, attending a youth-group production of Godspell at Grace Episcopal Church, Providence, RI. Amidst tears streaming down my face, I knew. I said yes. And two years later the Diocese of Rhode Island sent me to seminary.

Or, was it when I studied with Rabbi Stanley Kessler in college, which led to my writing a thesis on Elie Wiesel under the guidance of another long-time mentor, Bernice Saltzman.

Or, was it during an informal conversation on the shore of Lake Michigan with Jet Thomas, a camp counselor at Camp Miniwanca, Shelby, Michigan, a house fellow at Harvard when I was playing music near Harvard Square, and eventually Dean of the Faculty of Marlboro College.

Or, was it when Mrs. Mitchell, our Sunday School Teacher at First Congregational Church, Oak Park, IL, who would bring in a trunk of old clothes to let us act out Bible Stories week after week.

Or, or was it when my father gave me a quarter every week to put into the offering plate as a sign that I was, even as a child, a part of this whole thing our Presiding Bishop likes to call The Jesus Movement. Which Maurice very well might say is not a movement, or a system, or a religion, it is simply the experience of the Living God – and that’s enough said about all this. That is all people want – The Living God.

There is so much noise and distraction all around us every minute of every day, that we forget those moments when we first perceived there is something more than us, something beyond ourselves, a light in the darkness, something or someone that calls us to a higher calling and a challenge to be the best version of ourselves possible. That’s what Jesus was about. Not all the stuff the church and others layer and layer on top of the simple fact that he says, “Follow me.” We rarely take the time to think about these things. And so, we end up giving ourselves and others “stones for bread, and systems for realities.”

That is why we read these stories and ask ourselves, “When did you first know that Jesus was saying ‘Follow me’ to you? What was your answer?” We need to remember. For four fishermen there was no question. Immediately they dropped everything and followed him. They saw the light. The world has never been the same. People can debunk the Christian story all they want, but what happens next must have been true: lives were touched, lives were healed, people were reconciled, hungry people were fed, strangers were welcomed – in short lives were changed, and still are. Immediately. Maurice would probably say that’s quite enough evidence to turn to the light and become children of God/children of Light. It is hard, in the end, to disagree with him.

- For Frank Mauldin McClain