“LEAVING BEHIND”
Scripture Lesson: Matthew 4: 12-23
Dr. Matthew Brown
“When Bruce met Mildred”.
It’s not a title that would attract much attention in
It was a dark stormy night, perfect for a movie and maybe a
fire. But DVD’s wouldn’t arrive for
decades and they didn’t have a fireplace.
So, they drove down Broadway to the movie house and enjoyed, as they
always did, an evening together. When the
movie let out, the rain was really coming down, and my grandfather, ever
gallant and chivalrous, volunteered to go get the car. Pulling his coat over his head, he moved as
fast as he could to the parking place where the Mercury was waiting, and now
drenched he jumped in and started the engine up. He proceeded to drive to
If my mother knows, she has never told me what was said when
the pajama clad Bruce made it back to the theater to find Mildred, but I did at
least comprehend that the moral of the story is that it is important not to
leave certain things or people behind.
And yet we so often do: the purse
at the restaurant; the coat at school; the eyeglasses at the library; the
friend with whom we’ve had a falling out; the umbrellas everywhere.
At many points in our lives we fret over being left
behind: by the popular kids at school;
by the competitors in a foot race; by the competition in the job market; by the
progress of time.
Playing on those fears, the astoundingly popular Left
Behind book series focused on the trials
of those lost souls left behind on the day of Christ. It is a series based, I would say, on a most
questionable interpretation of Scripture which, relying on a “turn or burn”
theology would seek to scare us into heaven.
It’s a theology or interpretation that’s been around for a little over a
hundred years.
I remember as a child, traveling with a friend to his piano
lesson, and while I waited, I came across one of those old, anti-Catholic,
anti-Semitic, scare-the-bejeebers-out-of-you religious cartoon pamphlets or
tracts that basically said that if you didn’t follow step 1, 2, and 3 or go to,
not just any church, but the right church, the dancing flames of Hell would
swallow you but soon. Did it scare
me? You betcha! Man, if that piano teacher had played a few
bars of “Just as I am”, I’d have been looking for an aisle to walk down. But it certainly did not grant me a vision or
an image of the awesome God who has claimed my heart and love.
Their reading of scripture is foreign to me, but more than
that, I think they are missing the point.
We need to focus our lives and our faith not on the fear of being left
behind, but rather, we need to focus our lives and our faith on what we need to
leave behind in order to follow Jesus.
Today’s scripture, in many ways, is a story of leaving
behind. John has just been arrested
which means a couple of things. First,
it was time for Jesus to get out of Dodge, or
Secondly, for Matthew, the arrest of John was the signal
that it was time for Jesus to begin his public ministry. John had fulfilled his purpose. It was time for Jesus to set about fulfilling
his. And so, Jesus left his carpentry,
his childhood friends, and his parents behind.
We seldom talk much about the human element of Jesus’ life here; the
trauma of goodbyes, the temptation to stay in
Change is hard, even for those whose birth was marked by
stars and angel choirs. Change is
hard. But Jesus knew that to fulfill the
purpose God had set before him, he had to leave. And to leave, he would have to allow
relationships to be altered. He would
have to leave behind routines and habits, maybe even leaving behind things he
had come to depend on. Change is hard.
But maybe you remember hearing the words of the Apostle Paul
who said, “Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies
ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in
Christ Jesus.”
Pressing on. Pressing
on often means leaving behind and change is hard. Yet it is important to remember, as we read
this text that Jesus will not ask us to do something that he wouldn’t do.
So Jesus pressed on, fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah,
leaving home, beginning his ministry by the shores of
And as the light of the sun reflected off the gently rolling
water of the sea, the light of Christ shone on four fisherman busy finishing up
the work of another morning, mending the nets that would give them hope for
tomorrow.
It was there that Jesus would utter the invitation that
echoes down through the ages, falling on the ears of any who would be greeted
in his name: “Follow me.”
This story in Matthew is referred to as a call story and the
truth is that every person has a call story.
The voice of Christ beckons each of us to follow the unique path Christ
would set before us.
Fishermen would become fishers of men and women and boys and
girls, and they too, would have the challenge of leaving behind in order to
follow.
As you read the story, you can’t but think about poor ol’
Zebedee, sitting there in the boat. All
of a sudden those fishing nets have become mighty heavy. I heard one person remark that in one fell
swoop he lost his entire work force and his retirement as well.
We really don’t know what happened with Zebedee and his
fishing charters, but it would be presumptuous to presume that he had been
abandoned. James and John are still his
sons. The Christian life is not an
abandonment of responsibilities. But
discipleship does mean that our ways of life may be challenged and discipleship
does mean that there may be things we need to leave behind. Jesus would say, “If any [one] would come
after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” And he would also say, “Whoever would save
his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life form my sake will find it.”
As we see James and John and Andrew and Peter trading in
their fishing boots for walking sandals, have we considered that Jesus may ask
us to leave something behind in order to follow him? What may we need to leave behind in order to
follow Jesus?
It could be radical and all-encompassing, much like the
experience of my friend Dr. Barbara Nagy, a physician, a daughter to aging
parents, a single mother to two beautiful young girls adopted from
What do we need to leave behind in order to follow
Jesus? It could be hopes of athletic
glory. Listen to the story of Jim
Brashler, who writes, “A call to ministry can begin in experiences that seem to
be negative setback. Little did I know
that being cut from the high school baseball team (“Brashler, you can’t hit a
curveball!”) would begin the journey to ministry. It freed up time to join the debate
team. Gathering and organizing research,
debating ‘pro’ and ‘con’ positions extemporaneously, etc. . . . helped prepare
me to enter seminary several years later.
Striking out as a baseball player redirected me toward paths that God
used to call me into ministry.” Brashler
is now serving as Professor of Bible and is the dean of Union Theological
Seminary.”
What do we need to leave behind in order to follow
Jesus? It could be an old wound that is
slowly filling your life with the bitterness of resentment and is allowing
hatred to build a home in your heart. It
could be those old prejudices passed down from generation to generation along
with the chiffarow and the family Bible, the prejudices that blind you to the
love God has for all his children and the grace God is working in their lives.
What do we need to leave behind to follow Jesus? It could be the lifestyle that doesn’t want faith to inconvenience your calendar, making time for God only when the crisis arrives or nothing more exciting comes along. Author Anne Lamotte recalls the old routine of comedian Jonathan Miller where he said, “I’m not really a Jew - I’m Jew-ish,” and she compares it to our hesitancy to buy into this whole “Jesus” thing. Maybe we just want to be “Christian-ish,” or as Lamott suggests, “a vaguely Jesusy bon vivant.”
Wouldn’t want it to disturb our lives.
But disturb it, Jesus does, for he is calling us to so much
more.
What do you need to leave behind to follow Jesus? The pride that assumes the life of faith is
beneath you or the insecurity that assumes you have nothing to offer? Remember the words of Martin Luther, “God can
carve the rotten wood and ride the lame horse.”
What do you need to leave behind to follow Jesus? Change is hard, but on the other side of
losing may be the finding your heart so desires. Amen.
Resources:
Anne Lamott - Traveling Mercies
Dr. James Brashler - Many Gifts: Union/PSCE