“Follow Me.”
Early Christians were called Followers of The Way. It’s easy to visualize following Jesus in terms of the metaphor of a path.
Sadly, that path is frequently mischaracterized in ways Jesus never intended. Right versus wrong, good versus evil, moral versus immoral, the underlying message is often one of coercion and threat—you’d better get on the path and stay there or God’s gonna zap you!
I don’t see any of that in Jesus’ life. His words are all about invitation and opportunity. He points to a path that offers penetrating light in a world of otherwise all-encompassing darkness.
Jesus says, “Follow Me. Let’s walk together on this path of light, on an incredible adventure of love and hope.”
The thing is, even though the path is well-marked, it’s pretty narrow and surrounded by muck. On our own, we tend to wander. We seek shortcuts, perhaps to validate our comforts or rights or political perspectives, and we end up in darkness with mud on our boots.
Human guides focus a lot on avoiding the mud. Our rules and laws are mostly aimed at punishing those who step in the mud. We seem to believe not-doing bad stuff will get us on the path.
But following Jesus is more—much more—than the absence of negatives.
Jesus didn’t come just to show us how to stay out of the mud. He came to guide us on the path.
“Follow Me.”
I think there’s something unique about Jesus’ invitation—more about that tomorrow.
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[…] time I argued that the path is about more than Avoiding The Mud. Following the path is active—it must be something more than removing the bad […]