I Have Decided To Follow Jesus

Note: I preached this sermon on June 30, 2019 at St. Anne's Episcopal Church in Annapolis, MD. This was Pride Weekend there, and the parish celebrated Pride Weekend for the first time--participating on Saturday in the Pride Parade in Annapolis. The Rev. Jessica Sexton, Associate Rector, invited me, and I am grateful for her hospitality and welcome, as all who were there.

Gospel: Luke 9:51-62

“No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

I invite you back in time for a few minutes. It is 2003. Gene Robinson has been duly elected as Bishop Coadjutor of the Diocese of New Hampshire. At General Convention that year, he is approved by both the House of Deputies and House of Bishops. A firestorm erupts. Theologically conservative Episcopalians abandon the Episcopal Church. Form the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA). Align themselves with bishops outside the Episcopal Church in America. Lawyers line up. Congregations—and families—split. Priests are defrocked. Ugliness ensues on all sides. Jesus weeps.

On the Eastern Shore of Maryland, the rector of a certain parish is consecrated as Bishop of the Diocese of Easton at the end of January, 2003. Both he and his former Associate—still at the parish—must deal with the fall-out after General Convention, with people spewing hate and division in diocesan forums or parish gatherings.

I was that Associate. Although many folks knew that I had a partner—who was living mostly in her Salisbury home—we had never been public about our relationship—largely because my bishop would not have ordained me in 1999 had I been publicly out. But after General Convention 2003, all bets were off.

Basically, I got kicked out of the closet by people who had never had a conversation with me about this. Suddenly, my path got very rocky, dark, and narrow. I obeyed my instincts. I did not stand on a soap box, but I did not lie. I clung to my prayer life and to my deeply supportive family and friends—including the loving support of my former mother-in-law. At some point, Pat and I were having our nightly telephone conversation, and she asked, “How are you doing this? I cannot imagine how you are doing this.”

I replied, “Well, every morning I get up. I have my quiet time with my Bible and my prayers. Then I put on my make-up and high heels, and go out there and do what I have been called to do: to preach the gospel.” I continued, “You know, everybody seems to think that following Jesus is a piece of cake. It is not. We are called to pick up a cross and follow Jesus. We forget that. So every day, I guess I’m just going to pick up my cross and do that. Jesus calls us to a narrow way. And I’m with him. That’s all I know how to do.”

So that is what I did. The way was not easy. People were not always kind. Yet like many others in challenging situations, I found out who my friends were—and are. My faith was deepened and strengthened in the crucible of discipleship. And by 2007, when I interviewed for St. Philip’s in Laurel, they knew about Pat, welcomed her warmly, and over the years, they say to me, “We love Pat.” Or. . . “Where’s Pat?” Pat is an inextricable part of my ministry and my life, and I am so grateful.

Three years ago on New Year’s Eve, after thirty years together, we were finally able to be legally married in a quiet, small ceremony at the St. Philip’s altar—still decorated with Christmas poinsettias! God is good. All the time. Even on narrow roads that demand costly discipleship.

In today’s gospel, Jesus of Nazareth reminds us of costly discipleship. After three years of walking the way with him, Jesus’ disciples still do not fully understand what is happening. My guess is that as Jesus heads for the final time to Jerusalem, they know something is up—something that makes them uneasy. I doubt they could have imagined that they would end up betraying or abandoning the Master, leaving him to hang alone on a cross with only faithful women watching. Yet I suspect they are on edge and anxious—just as all people are when they sense that a comfortable system is teetering on the edge of massive change. As one theologian has noted about this passage, “A sense of purpose, immediacy, and danger frames this passage.”[1] There is no getting around that. By the way in which Jesus describes how one follows him, you have no illusions that you’re going to get a comfortable home with a comfortable bed, or a predictable, comfortable routine. No, none of that, Jesus says. No comfort food here. No place to call home. No place really to rest well. No possessions, other than what’s on your back. If you’re lucky, you get a cloak that you wear during the day, then wrap yourself in at night as you sleep beside a campfire near the road.

Foxes may have holes. Birds may have nests. Yet if you travel with Jesus, get ready to be homeless. If somebody in your family has died, and you are overwhelmed with responsibilities around the burial, Jesus will advise you to leave behind the “swarm of details and personal confusion”[2] into which the death of a loved one throws you. Instead, Jesus invites you to a whole new way of life now.

If you say you want to follow Jesus, while looking back at the past, he may well turn to you and say, “You can’t keep looking back, baby. If you keep looking back, you cannot possibly look ahead, toward the horizon. Where are your priorities? Are you determined to follow me? Because I require obedience, sacrifice, singleness of mind and heart.” Or as a certain president—Abraham Lincoln—would say nineteen centuries later: “I walk slowly, but I never walk backwards.”

No looking back. No walking back to the old life. Luke’s Jesus wants us to see and to hear—with our heads and our hearts—the difficult truth. “Discipleship is costly, not cozy and comfortable. The journey to Jerusalem is not a vacation. It is a vocation, and a costly one at that.”[3] More to the point, this vocation is not just for people wearing white collars around their necks. If you are a lay person and thought you got off easy, I am sorry to disappoint you. Have you been baptized? (If not, I’ll bet we could take care of that today in this very church!) If the answer is yes, I will bet a lot of money that God Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, has given you particular gifts and skills. Yes, you can choose to use those in secular ways and no doubt you do.

Yet Jesus may be standing in front of you on this hot summer day in 2019, asking you to pick up your cross—your cross, not somebody’s else, but your cross—and follow him.T

he way to Jerusalem will not be broad. At some point, if you are serious and determined to follow Jesus of Nazareth, you will look around and say, “Where is everybody? I thought there were lots of Christians in America. But I don’t see many on this road.” You won’t see many, because the truth is that too many Christians are busy getting way too comfortable, being part of the status quo. Comfortable Christians are of limited use to a prophetic carpenter whose face has turned away from everything except from God’s vision for the world. Jesus fearlessly speaks Truth to power. Jesus is not a stupid man. He knows full well where speaking Truth to power will get him. Not to a comfortable life. Not to a comfortable home with a comfortable bed with comfort food. It will get him to the hard wood of a cross.

Yet Jesus trusts God, who has sent him to this world to be the most perfect example of love we have ever known. Death will not win. As the apostle Paul has written in 1 Corinthians, “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.”[4] Even on his way to death, Jesus has faith that life will trump death. Always. In every situation, whether that is personal, political, or corporate realms. God wins. God’s love wins. Always. Still.

At the last, God’s love opens everything in Life. It is this kind of fierce, strong, determined love—love forged in the white-hot crucible of discipleship—that will transform you and me so completely that we can leave our selfish, self-centered, “me-first” or “me-only” lives in order to walk that road with Jesus. Totally transformed, we look ahead to the horizon. With Jesus, we walk slowly but never backwards. We never again ask “What would Jesus do?” Instead, we know.

We will do what Jesus did: widen our circles to include folks of all kinds. Stand up for the oppressed and marginalized. Love all of God’s children.

I do not believe Jesus has ever separated people by their race, color, or nationality. Jesus loves us, no matter how much money we earn, or how little. No matter how young or old. No matter what political party. Jesus loves straight people, GLBTQ people, non-binary people, single people, married people, divorced people. Jesus accepts and loves all people. And why would he not? God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit—that sacred mystery of Divine Community—has created each one of us. Each individual. In each person’s DNA, God put a tiny bit of Godself. The Imago Dei. The image of God.

Maybe what God really wants from each of us is to find that bit of God’s image inside us, then to reflect God’s love—back to God and out to God’s people. So on this day when this parish courageously stretches itself to expand your images of God’s amazing and diverse love, don’t be afraid to follow Jesus who loves each one of us as if there were only one of us.Go ahead. Pick up your cross. Walk slowly forward with Jesus. The road will be narrow. It will not be crowded. Yet if you choose to walk with Jesus of Nazareth, I promise you that the journey will be worth it. The journey with the Christ will transform your life. Then, the overwhelming, overflowing, amazing love of Christ—in you, and through you—will help transform the world.

God’s kingdom needs that kind of love. God knows this world needs that kind of amazing love. Amen.

[1] Carol Howard Merritt, in “Pastoral Perspective on Luke 9:51-62” in Feasting on the Gospels: Luke, Vol. 1, Cynthia A. Jarvis & E. Elizabeth Johnson, Editors, (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2014), 278.

[2]Ibid., 282.

[3] Idem. Mitties McDonald Dechamplain in “Homiletical Perspective on Luke 9:51-62” in Feasting on the Gospels. . . 283.

[4] 1 Corinthians 15:26.All images accessed at Google images except for photo of candles, icon & miniature cairn; photo of cross on Good Friday at St. Philip's Episcopal Church in Laurel, MD; and wedding cake. Those three taken by McJilton.

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