Sunday, March 28, 2021

Lent Six: Follow

The first words I learned in another language were these: 
He decidido seguir a Cristo,
He decidido seguir a Cristo
He decidido seguir a Cristo,
No vuelvo atrás, no vuelvo atrás.

I learned the words from missionaries on sabbatical from Peru who visited the little Bible camp in the Catskills where I spent my childhood summers. They taught us about life in Peru, shared stories of their time in the Andean mountains, and taught us to sing that song in Spanish.

I already knew the words in English:

I have decided to follow Jesus.
No turning back, no turning back. 

I was probably nine or ten at the time. My family attended a small Christian and Missionary Alliance Church, not far from the denominational headquarters in Nyack, New York, so I already knew quite a few missionaries. One of my grandmother's closest friends was a single woman who spent most of her life planting churches in Ethiopia. From my tiniest years I had heard the stories of Nate Saint, Jim Elliot and the three other young men who died in Ecuador in 1956, killed by indigenous warriors. 

I was reminded of all that a few weeks ago when my husband, Whitney, gave the sermon at our church, on the text of Mark 8:31-38. He mentioned Jim Elliot and a comment scrawled in Elliot's journal, a line I heard often as a kid, again at the Christian college I attended: "He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."


In his sermon, Whitney reflected on the ways he has tried to follow Jesus. That's been a core foundation of our marriage: attempting to find out what it means to follow, commitment to follow even when it costs us. 

Those verses from Mark suggest cost is part of the calling: 

Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?
Looking back on the decades since I first sang those words, I find I have always gained far more than I lost in any attempt to follow Jesus. In the moment, the sacrifices seem real. In retrospect, they're incredibly small compared to the growth and gain in wisdom and joy along the way. 

This week, Holy Week, the week between Palm Sunday and the celebration of resurrection, is always an odd one for me. We wait in that space between hosannah, grief, and unexpected new life.  

We walk with the disciples between obedience and worship, doubt and betrayal, fear, disbelief, then greater faith and understanding.

We wave our palms, throw them down, wrestle over who will be most faithful.

We assume we're the ones who will get it right, who will always follow, not matter what. Then, if we're listening well, we come face to face with how far we got it wrong. 

In this week, we hold our hearts open to the space between: between death and resurrection, between kingdom of this earth and kingdom to come, between being known and fully knowing, between judgement and everlasting love.

In all of that, Jesus invites us to follow.  

I decided to do that long ago but I'm still learning what it means. 

I'm sharing Whitney's sermon here. And sharing a few more words of that childhood song, words I never learned in Spanish, but have done my best to live in English, always aware that, like those early disciples, I often get it wrong:

The world behind me, the cross before me;
The world behind me, the cross before me;
The world behind me, the cross before me;
No turning back, no turning back. 


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