follow means follow

Jesus said you are to love one another as I have loved you, a love that will possibly lead to the bloody, anguish gift of yourself, a love that forgives seven times seven, that keeps no record of wrong. This is the criterion, sole norm, the standard of discipleship in the New Israel of God.”

Brennan Manning, The Furious Longing of God

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most people

who haunt the musty environments of older churches

and the gaudy auditoriums of mega churches

 

those who gather around humble communion tables in tiny rural church

and those whose eyes are fixed on a big screen

in a vast theatre

 

would say that they are disciples of Jesus

 

meaning simply that they claim in some way

to follow Jesus

 

for what does it mean to be a disciple but that you try to pattern your life

after another

 

but what does it mean to follow?

 

as one person simplistically put it

to follow means to follow, to replicate

 

that can happen anywhere

there can be followers in tiny dusty church

in tiny dusty towns

 

there can be followers hidden among the theater seats

in the palatial mega churches

 

Jesus does not care where or how it happens

just that it happens

 

what Jesus does care about is what happens when it happens

what happens when our eyes meet his

and we see the pain,

and the love,

and the plea

and the vulnerability

and the power

 

and are drawn into a love relationship

which moves us like wind

and sears us like fire

and transforms us

 

when we are drawn into the vortex of Christ’s love

we are filled

not so that we can contain grace

but so that we be broken open and poured out

 

and sent into the world to love

to give

to serve

 

we are not sent into places of privilege

to anoint the rich and powerful in their white houses

but into the streets

 

to the blessed poor

 

for grace trickles up

and unless the “least of these”

are feed, clothed, housed, healed

 

the whole system is ill

the center cannot hold

the kingdom cannot come

 

to follow means to follow Jesus

into the broken and messy places

where love is difficult

and often unreturned

 

to follow means to expend to grasp

include not exclude

forgive not judge

 

to enter the world

with love that rises up

and carries everyone with it