Follow Me

What does it mean to follow Jesus? What should be the characteristics of his followers? The Apostle Paul gives a lengthy list of do’s and don’ts in his letter to the Galatians. The fruits of the Spirit, he writes, are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. He gives an even longer list of things to avoid: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. We do all right in the Church until we get to the enmity and strife part of the list. One of the reasons I don’t read some Anglican blogs is because they contain so much anger, dissension, and factions that I have trouble maintaining any generosity, gentleness, and self-control.

I suppose it should be reassuring that Jesus’ disciples didn’t do much better. After Jesus “set his face to go to Jerusalem,” he had to pass through Samaritan country, where Jerusalem didn’t count for much – so the locals gave him the cold shoulder. James and John, ever ready to earn their Sons of Thunder epithet, want a few lightning bolts to come down on those heathens. Instead, Jesus rebukes them with a Greek word often used to rebuke demons. Clearly the two brothers need to work on their fruits of the Spirit.

Being a follower requires commitment, also. As the group heads on toward Jerusalem, several would-be followers try to join in. To the first Jesus says that he doesn’t have any idea what he’s in for. Another who is invited to follow wants to first mourn the loss of his father, a reasonable request. Yet Jesus is so determined to keep to his schedule that he’s not about to wait, although he does tell the man to go out and proclaim the kingdom of God (presumably after the funeral). The third fellow, like the first, invites himself, but he also has a few things to do first. To him Jesus says, if you’re not ready, don’t act like you are, or you’ll walk as crooked a line as someone who isn’t paying attention to where his plow animal is going.

If it’s so much trouble to follow Jesus, why bother? The best answer is the one Peter gave after Jesus offended a lot of people by talking about eating his flesh and drinking his blood. Noticing that the crowd had suddenly gotten a lot smaller, Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” Peter answered for all of them, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.” That’s really it, isn’t it? Jesus may not be the only game in town, but he’s the best one there is. I, too, struggle with those fruits of the Spirit, yet I recognize that they are the only way to go. They end in life. The other list ends in death. It’s as simple as that. I just wish the journey itself were as easy to follow as a straight, well-planted row.


Pentecost 5: 2 Kings 2:1-2,6-14; Psalm 77:1-2.11-20; Galatians 5:1, 13-25; Luke 9:51-62. The dialogue between Jesus and Peter is in John 6:67-68.