Follow The Light
One Sunday afternoon in Grace Episcopal Church, Providence,
Rhode Island, I saw, for the first time, the musical Godspell. I was wholly and
completely moved and transformed by a performance produced by another Episcopal
church’s youth group. One could say I saw the light! It was to become the first
of several profound events that, with generous support from The Right Reverend
George Nelson Hunt, Bishop of Rhode Island, sent me to the General Theological
Seminary. One song in particular stuck with me:
Day by day,
Dear Lord, of thee three things I
pray:
To see thee more clearly,
Love thee more dearly,
Follow thee more nearly,
Day by Day.[i]
It is an adaptation of a prayer by Richard of Chichester
(1197-1253), bishop and saint. The prayer outlines what we think of as the
typical journey to ordination or discipleship: to see Jesus clearly as the
center of one’s life, learning to love Jesus more dearly through study of the
tradition, which naturally leads one to follow Jesus more nearly. One day,
however, the Reverend Bill Caradine, at the time chief officer of Stewardship
for the Episcopal Church, pointed out that that is not how Jesus recruits his
disciples. It was Bill’s contention that Saint Richard of Chichester got it all
upside down and backwards.
In Matthew, we hear that Jesus moves to Capernaum in Galilee
after hearing that John has been arrested, where he first calls brothers Simon
and Andrew, and then the Zebedee brothers John and James, to follow him.[ii]
All four are fishermen. Simon and Andrew were casting a net into the sea. John
and James were mending nets in their father’s boat. Jesus says to the four of
them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people!” Unlike John, as he
announces the Good News, he does not ask them to confess their sins. He does
not ask if they have any understanding of the teachings and practices of
Israelite religion. He does not hand them Torah, the first five books of the
Bible, tell them to go home, read, mark and inwardly digest the texts, come
back tomorrow, and if you pass an exam on these five books, I will let you
follow me. He simply says, “Follow me.” Astonishingly, they do!
Furthermore, said Bill, he does not ask anyone if they love
him until after the resurrection when he asks Simon, now called Peter, “Peter,
do you love me?” Peter replies, “Yes, Lord, I love you.” Jesus says, “Feed my
sheep.” Two more time he asks Peter, “Do you love me?” Two more times Peter
says, “Yes! You know I love you.” And Jesus says, “Tend my flock…Feed my
lambs,” adding an enigmatic saying about when you are young you go and do as
you please, but later someone ties a belt around your waist and leads you to
where you need to go.[iii]
Finally, said Bill, “As to seeing Jesus more clearly – we
are still trying to do that! Witness the number of books written, articles
published, sermons preached, movies and TV shows made every year claiming to
clarify who Jesus is! Besides, Jesus as the great light that shines on those
who sit in deep darkness, it is Jesus who leads us to see God, creation and
ourselves more clearly. At the end of the day, our life in and with Christ
begins when he says, ‘Follow me.’”
Epiphany is the season of light. This is why we hear that when
the northern kingdom lived in the darkness of occupation by foreign nations, Isaiah,
in his poem, imagines the day when the people will “see a great light…For the
yoke of their burden, and the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their
oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian.” [Isaiah 9:1-4] Midian, of
course, was that day when Gideon and a small band of 300 soldiers defeated a
mighty enemy simply by smashing clay pots on the ground and blasting away on
300 trumpets, scaring the life out of the enemy who ran for their lives![iv]
It is as the Psalmist David sings while in hiding from King
Saul: “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom then shall I fear? the Lord
is the strength of my life; of whom then shall I be afraid?” [Psalm 27: 1] And Paul,
in his second letter to the church in Corinth wrote, “For God, who said, ‘Let
light shine out of darkness’, has shone in our hearts to give the light of the
knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” [2 Corinthians 4:6]
It is this light that makes Jesus manifest to all the world! The evangelist
Matthew identifies Jesus with this same light Isaiah, David, and Paul imagine
can, will and does shine through whatever darkness surrounds us on all sides. From
the beginning of creation until the time of Jesus, people had faith in the
Light of God, which now shone in the Light of Christ. For 2,200 years of more
darkness, the light still shines and calls: Follow me.
As we sing on Good Friday every year, “Sometimes it causes
me to wonder…”: what inspires us to accept the call to follow Jesus? What can
inspire us to drop our nets, leave home and family, and follow Jesus into the
Light and Life of the world? Peter and Andrew left their nets and their boat –
their means to production – the tools that sustained their life and the lives
of others. James and John left their father to handle all of the day-to-day
operations of Zebedee & Sons Fishing, Incorporated! We know Peter had a
mother-in-law in Capernaum, so he must also have had a wife and family. What
was going through the minds of Mr. Zebedee and Peter’s wife and mother-in-law
as these four fishermen left to become the first people to follow Jesus?
After the resurrection, he trusted these four ordinary
fishermen and many others to continue the work he had begun. He says “you will continue
the work I have done … and greater things than these will you do!”[v]
The season of Epiphany begs the question: Have we done that? Do we drop
everything and follow Jesus? Do we walk in his light? Have we become the Light
of Christ that shines on the darkness of others? All others? Following Jesus,
it turns out, is hard work. It raises all kinds of questions. It’s often
dangerous work. And yet, we know in our hearts that it’s the only work worth
doing. We are called to walk in his light that we too might become light that
shines in the darkness; light which darkness cannot overcome.
In this season of Light, Jesus calls us o’er the tumult of
life’s tempestuous sea. Do we hear him? And if we hear him, do we follow? And
if not now, when? For it appears to be the only way to love him more dearly.
And the only way to see him more clearly is to follow him more nearly. It all
starts when he says to us today, “Follow me!”
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