Why follow Jesus?

Matthew 4:12-23

12 Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. 13 He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, 14 so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:

15 “Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali,    on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the gentiles—

16 the people who sat in darkness    have seen a great light,and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.”

17 From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

    18 As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea—for they were fishers. 19 And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of people.” 20 Immediately they left their nets and followed him. 21 As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. 22 Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.

     23 Jesus went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.

Why do the disciples follow Jesus?  Why does anyone?  

The way the Gospel of Matthew tells it, Jesus is walking beside the sea of Galilee, stumbles upon two brothers fishing, invites them to follow him, and….they do.  This is the entire account as to how these fisherman became disciples.  Because the story doesn’t provide a clear rationale for why they made this decision, interpreters of the story often supply an explanation.  Surely there must have been more to this encounter than Matthew has reported.  We might conjecture that Jesus took some time to explain who he was, where he was going, and what following him entailed, that he revealed his identity to them, that he promised a future reward.  Even more common is the speculation that their willingness to follow owed to Jesus’ magnetic charisma, something irresistible in his countenance, some compelling quality they discerned which rendered words or even rational deliberation unnecessary.  

All of this and more might indeed be true, but we might also consider the possibility that the Gospel account is more or less exactly how the interaction went between Jesus and the would-be disciples.  And, in any case, this is the story we actually have, and that might be no accident.  It might be that the Gospel, in this account, wishes to teach us something essential about what it means to follow Jesus.  

When the disciples heed Jesus’ call, leave their nets behind, and follow him, they really have no idea who he is or where he’s going.  They cannot see the road before them, but they decide to walk it anyway, for reasons we don’t know - for reasons they may very well not have known themselves.  

When I was ordained to the ministry over 20 years ago, it happened, in typical Baptist fashion, at my home church, the place where I grew up.  I was interviewed by a couple of different committees, including one made of current and former ministers.  I knew all of these people, except for one older man who repeatedly pressed me to tell of my conversion experience.  He seemed to want to make Paul’s experience on the Damascus road a paradigm into which all stories of coming to faith must fit.  He didn’t seem impressed with my story about how, because I’d grown up in a church which taught me to follow Jesus from an early age - I couldn’t really point to a time when I moved from unbelief to belief.  I was never converted.  

Feeling under pressure, I somehow seized upon the experience of the first disciples who, like me as a child, began following Jesus before they knew who he was and then learned to be a Christian along the way.  “When were they converted?”,  I asked - “When did we see them move from unbelief to belief?”.  Insisting that coming to faith must be punctiliar - that there is a specific moment in time you can point to - not only didn’t make sense of my experience, it didn’t make sense of the disciples’ experience in the Gospels.  

We assume that people follow Jesus because they’ve reached a decision about him, that they’ve come to believe in who he is, and/or that they’ve had some compelling experience that has revealed his identity, which has moved them from unbelief to belief.   This may indeed happen some of the time - it may have happened to you (or, at least, this may be how you’ve learned to tell your story) - but the reality for most of us is quite different.  

We assume that faith precedes following, that some thought must convince you or some feeling must compel you to follow, but until that happens - if that happens - following isn’t really an option.   And we might find ourselves stuck in that moment, listening to sermons, singing songs, waiting and hoping that something might overcome our unbelief and enable us to really buy in.  Or you might be the sort of person who cannot imagine becoming convinced that all this stuff about Jesus is true, who cannot imagine any experience that would move you, and therefore you can’t imagine ever following Jesus.  The prerequisites have not been met.  

Last Sunday we read a passage from the first chapter of John where, rather than saying “follow me”, Jesus tells the nascent disciples, “come and see”.  In either case Jesus issues an invitation to discover who he is, to find out where he’s going, where that path leads.  Throughout the Gospels Jesus seems less interested in explaining than in showing.  You can only actually get to know who he is by following, by coming to see what he’s all about.   The disciples do not grasp this all in a moment but instead go on a journey which is often bewildering and disappointing.  Even as they follow him it becomes clear that they don’t really get it yet.  They have to follow him all the way to the end for it finally to make sense.  And the Gospels also make clear that none who refuse to follow him ever really understand.  They have rejected him only as they imagine him to be, not as he really is. 

How do we come to believe something is true?  The prevailing story we tell ourselves is that truth claims - claims like Jesus is lord - can be objectively scrutinized, interrogated, that arguments can be mounted for and against, and that we decide what is true based primarily, even entirely, upon this rational investigation.  But many questions - the most important questions - cannot be answered via the scientific method.  There is no neutral position we can adopt from which to dispassionately evaluate the claims and evidence before us.  Instead, we learn primarily by doing.  You can’t really understand something until you’ve tried it.  You can’t understand a way of life until you’ve lived it.  The decision to follow is not the result of faith; it is the very substance of faith.  

When Jesus tells us that we must have faith like a child, part of what he means, I think, is that we must be those who, like children who don’t know any better, simply follow Jesus when he calls.  When I was a kid it never occurred to me that the stories told me about Jesus were anything other than true.  To follow Jesus is always, in a way, to adopt a kind of naïveté, to lay aside the kind of objections that come so easily to us.  This seems like a counsel toward irrationality, but then the whole point is that our fundamental orientation to the world is not nearly as rational as we tell ourselves.  We have to discover the truth.  

You might then say, that’s all well and good, but then why decide to follow Jesus over anything else?  Why not explore all paths and see where they lead?  How can you know until you’ve tried it?   This is where we have an advantage over the disciples - not just that we know how the story ends, for we can still doubt or reject the story - but that we can witness the lives of those who have followed Jesus, we can observe the fruit that these lives have borne, and we can follow them as they follow Christ.  Does the path that these people walk lead to life?  Does it end up some place I’d like to go?  Do I want my life to look like that person’s?   We certainly hope the answer is yes, but the sad truth is that the fruit borne by those who claim to follow Jesus is non-existent, or rotten.   

My hope - maybe your hope - is that this community would be a place where we follow Jesus together, not because we’ve got everything figured out, but because we know we haven’t, not because we know the whole truth but because we want to discover it.   Like the disciples who, at moments, undoubtedly wondered just what they’d gotten themselves into, just why they thought responding to Jesus’ invitation was a good idea, you might be wondering wondering what you’re doing here.  We are here to try to follow Jesus, and we can do this even when - perhaps especially when - we aren’t even sure if we believe.  We’re all here in the hope that we might just find this is true.   It’s not as crazy as it seems.