We need some hope.
Simon and Andrew, James and John, are not looking for Jesus when we find them at the lake. They are too busy with the nets. It is another day of casting and mending. They may not have even noticed Jesus but he not only sees them he speaks to them. Jesus has a way of showing up in the ordinary places of life and interrupting the daily routines of casting and mending nets. That’s what he did to the lives of Simon and Andrew, James and John. That’s what he does to your life and my life.
“Follow me” is Jesus’ invitation to a new life. If these four fishermen accept the invitation, their lives will forever be different. They will be different.
Whatever your life is, however you spend your time, there is in that life Jesus’ call to “Follow me.” “Follow me” is the call to participate with God in God’s own saving work. It’s the work of change and growth.
That work is always about moving to a larger vision, orienting our life in a new direction, and experiencing that our little story of life is connected to and a part of a much larger story of life, God’s life.
As Jesus walked by the Sea of Galilee he saw Simon, Andrew, James, and John. Jesus called them. Mark records no discussions, no questions, no good byes. They simply “left… and followed him.”
I’m afraid that if Mark were writing about me – when he gets to the part when Jesus says, “Follow me” – Mark would write, “and immediately the questions followed.” “Where are we going? What will we do? How long will we be gone? What do I need to take? Where will we stay?”
But this conversation doesn’t take place in today’s gospel. Jesus does not offer a map, an itinerary, or a destination, only an invitation. This is not the type of journey you can prepare for. This is the inner journey, a journey into the deepest part of our being, the place where God resides. It’s not about planning and organizing, making lists, or packing supplies. It’s not that easy. If anything this journey is about leaving things behind. Listen to what Mark says: “Immediately they left their nets and followed him. They left their father Zebedee in the boat…, and followed him.”
The invitation, “follow me,” is also the invitation to leave behind; to leave behind our nets, our boats, and even our fathers.
That’s the hard part for most of us.
We’re pretty good at accumulating and clinging but not so good at letting go. More often than not our spiritual growth involves some kind of letting go. We never get anywhere new as long as we’re unwilling to leave where we are. We accept Jesus’ invitation to follow, not by packing up, but by letting go.
“Follow me” is both the invitation to and the promise of new life. What do we need to let go of and leave behind so that we might follow him?
John Wesley had a desire for his people to “join in a Covenant to serve God with all our heart and with all our soul.” (Wesley’s Journal entry on 6 August 1755). On his instigation, a gathering of 800 believers was first held for this purpose on 11 August 1755 at the former Huguenot chapel in Grey Eagle Street, Spitalfields London, after a day of fasting the preceding Friday. Wesley led the assembly of believers in repeating a prayer for the renewal of one’s covenant with God written by the Puritan Christian, Richard Alleine in 1663.
John Wesley saw the day you said the prayer as a day of solemn reflection and rededication. That these were times of great spiritual blessing is evident from Wesley’s descriptions in his Journal.
For example, on Sunday 1st January 1775 Wesley wrote:
We had a larger congregation at the renewal of the Covenant than we have had for many years; and I do not know that ever we had a greater blessing. Afterwards many desired to return thanks, either for a sense of pardon, for full salvation, or for a fresh manifestation of his grace, healing all their backsliding.
In Wesley’s time the covenant service would be preceded by a period of preparation, including prayer, fasting and exhortation, which helped to underscore the importance of what was taking place.
How do we respond to what God does? Calling us into relationship God invites us into the light, into possibilities.
I was impressed Canon Matthew prayed the covenant prayer in his sermon in the cathedral last Sunday. He called the prayer “a gem” and he introduced it like this:
“A theme runs through the Old Testament - thus says the Lord. I will be your god and you will be my people. We are invited to reaffirm our commitment to being one of God’s people. Accepting the invitation to be in a covenant relationship with God. And the genius of the covenant service is that it is utterly realistic about what it is like for most people to be a Christian in life as it is really lived. It doesn’t ask us to recommit to being super charged extravert evangelists who will talk about Jesus to anyone at the drop of a hat. It doesn’t ask us to commit to being spiritual powerhouses spending hour upon hour in prayer and Bible study. It simply asks us to commit to serving God in whatever life throws at us, thick or thin, in the rough as well as the smooth.”
Serving God as and where God chooses, with people God ranks us with, in every circumstance. I’m using the old version of the prayer this Sunday so need to read this sentence from the service book rubric: the words, ‘Put me to doing, put me to suffering’, have raised difficulties for some people. These words do not mean that we ask God to make us suffer, but rather that we desire, by God’s help, actively to do or patiently to accept whatever is God’s will for us.
The emphasis of the whole service is on God’s readiness to enfold us in generous love, not dependent on our deserving. Our response, also in love, springs with penitent joy from thankful recognition of God’s grace. The covenant is not just a one-to-one transaction between individuals and God, but the act of the whole faith community. So we make it together, because here is where we are called to be. We will get it wrong. We will need to say sorry sometimes. We will struggle to work out what the future holds. Circumstances beyond our control or decisions made by others may alter our journey. But there will be surprises if we look for them and there will be in the words of a prayer I heard once, “explosions of joy” if we are open to them and do less worrying about who is going to be on the coffee rota or how we fix the leaking roof – though both of these things are important.
A new relationship – written on people’s hearts – initiated by God; in fact, a gift of God. This is the covenant which we are renewing today. We thank God that he not only offers this covenant-relationship with him, but gives us the ability to keep it!
If it were not so, the commitment we make today in the words of the covenant prayer would be quite foolish and would last as long as many of the resolutions made with the New Year and already broken. But there is grace here, and the power of God to change us, and it is this that makes us bold to renew the covenant today. May God bless us and keep us in all we do today and in this coming year then.
‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news – the gospel.’
Long years – centuries – of waiting were over; God who had seemed so distant, was at last acting and intervening. And in Jesus, he was restoring the world to what it was intended to be all along, the kingdom of God – heaven itself – in the here and now. No wonder fishermen left their nets, wanting to know and learn and experience more of it. Are we as excited? I hope so. Saying this prayer is a commitment to trust, to life, to hope, and to each other. .
John Wesley said “Lay hold on the Covenant of God, and rely upon his promise of giving grace and strength, whereby you may be enabled to perform your promise. Trust not to your own strength, to the strength of your own resolutions, but take hold on his strength.”
May that be our way forward as Christian disciples. Amen.
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