For those who would become followers of Jesus, maybe there should be a little booklet called, “Everything you need to know before you decide to follow Jesus.” Such a booklet might give someone pause.
For instance, Jesus demands that all who follow him must take up their own cross. A cross—capital punishment! “You must lose your life to save it” would be in the booklet. It would say we may lose the love of family members. The little booklet would have the instruction: “Love your enemies.” And the booklet would not be complete without the admonition: “Sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor.”
Retired Bishop William Willimon, American theologian and Professor at Duke Divinity School, preached in the chapel one Sunday on Mark 10:17-27, the narrative of the rich young man. He decided to end his sermon with verse 23 in which Jesus says, “How hard it will be for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God!” Hard! A rich young man comes to Jesus. Jesus invites him to sell all that he has, give the money to the poor and follow him. But the rich man goes away. Willimon just ended the sermon right there. He didn’t try to explain it or tidy it up. He just ended the sermon, “He went away grieving, for he had many possessions.” Hard.
The next morning, in the college cafeteria, he was standing in line with the Chair of the Department of religion, who asked, “What happened yesterday?” William wondered, Yesterday? The Chair continued, “Just sort of got it all out on the table in the sermon and couldn’t figure out how to bring it to a close, could you?” Well, as a matter of fact, that is exactly what William had been thinking. “Well,” the Chair concluded, “don’t worry, you can’t nail it every Sunday, can you?”
William staggered through the cafeteria line. There was the Dean of the Divinity School. “That service yesterday,” he said. “What a downer! After that depressing sermon, then a depressing anthem by the choir, and in Latin! You needed some help from the musicians but what did they give you?” William nodded, then slumped down at a table and began to eat his breakfast.
A graduate student came up to him, “Wow, that sermon yesterday....” Instantly, William said, “Look kid, I have to take that off those old guys but I don’t have to take it off you. Forget the sermon!”
But the student continued, “I went back to my room and just lay on my bed, crying.” William asked, “Crying?”
“I said, ‘Jesus, what do you want from me now?’ As you know, I accepted Christ when I was in high school. Gave my life to him because somebody told me my life would be easier. But my life got worse after I started following him. Every week! He wants me to change this, do that, go this place or that place. I said to him, ‘Jesus, what do you want from me now? Can I keep the bicycle? Is it okay for me to have a CD player?’ This Jesus thing is hard.”
Professor Willimon said to the student, “You see that aging old man over there, yeah, the balding one? Could you go over there and try to explain the sermon to him? Kid, you got it.”
Incidentally, there really are four little booklets that explain how one must live to follow Jesus. They are called the Gospels. Hard.
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