The Second Sunday before Lent, 4 February 2018,
Sparkford, West Camel (TeaTime), Weston Bampfylde
Now a couple of days before Yeovil Town played host to the mighty Manchester United at Huish Park, who should I see walking down Church Road wearing a bright green and white wooly hat but Bill Talon? Showing his colours for The Glovers – because Bill’s a fan, a follower of our local team! (We won’t mention the score – for in any case, regardless of the ups and, in Yeovil’s case, sadly more often, downs of their team, fans just keep on following). [1]
I think that we’re all followers, we all follow something. Following a particular hobby – hands up members of the West Camel Model Railway Society or the Queen Camel Quilters – The Bridge Club? The Art Group?
Now that’s one way to be a follower – to be the sort of person who takes an active interest in a particular activity. And this can sometimes be something you do alone – I recently visited someone in one of our villages who showed me something which has been a well-kept secret: his large garden shed housing an impressive model railway collection; but sometimes a follower will also join together with other enthusiasts – which is why the car park at Haynes Motor Museum is regularly full of antique vehicles which have chugged along the A303 in both directions to get to a meeting there.
Another way to be a follower is to support and admire a particular person, like following a musician or an actor or a novelist or other artist whose work we love. Social media exploits this trait in each of us – for that’s how Twitter works: one click and you’re a follower of a particular person and every move they record, you get to see in real time, tweet by tweet. But it’s been around forever – come on, who among you will admit you were once a member of the Elvis Presley Fan Club in your day? (Or if not Elvis – who then?) Following someone who inspires you – it’s an important part of who you are. I’m now at that time of life when my heroes in the public eye are starting to pass away, and it’s only when they do that, you look back and realise how indebted you are to them for what they’ve given you over the years. [2]
Connected to this, followers can also be people who support and admire a particular set of ideas: some of our heroes are not just the ones whose songs we sing in the shower, they’re the ones whose thoughts have become our thoughts as we’ve absorbed their writings, listened to their speeches, soaked up their teaching, over the years. Great public figures whose words and works have inspired us on our path through life. Who are yours? Churchill? Corbyn? Christ?
So we can easily see ourselves in the role of fans, of followers, as students or learners from others. It’s natural. There’s another word to describe this aspect of ourselves. We are disciples. We desire to learn from those we admire, we desire to be shaped and formed as people through taking part in those activities which they encourage us to do.
We might describe a disciple as ‘a life-long learner’. The English word disciple in translation essentially means “learner”. And how many of us look back fondly to those experiences we had as students – under great teachers – or as apprentices – learning from the skills of those more experienced ones who took us under their wing. We’ve benefited from our learning.
And the best of us … looking around, that means you … the best of us are those who say, you can never stop learning; we must never stop being open to new experiences, new ideas, to keep mind and spirit alive even as our bodies begin to fail us. I learned this lesson myself when, as a teenager, I used to visit a friend of my gran who was then well into her nineties, bed-bound but so alive in her mind, interested in everything, avid listener to the radio, brilliant at crosswords and quizzes. Kate Harvey’s lively, inquisitive mind came from one source which she keenly acknowledged: her being a disciple of Christ.
Matthew records Jesus calling people to “come to me … and learn from me”. [3] A disciple of Jesus is a life-long learner, for whom Jesus is their most important teacher under whose influence they are shaped and formed. Kate Harvey was one of those. And Jesus said, “I came that you may have life, and have it abundantly”, [4] with no age limit on that abundance.
Around the time I was visiting Kate in the nursing home I was also listening to Bob Dylan, then in his born-again Christian phase, and his song ‘Gotta Serve Somebody’.
It may be the Devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody [5]
– Dylan sang. Which I take as being another way of saying, you’re all followers, you’re all disciples of someone. The choice of who you follow, who you serve, is yours. In every situation, be conscious about the choices you make.
If we choose to follow Jesus, then, how are we to live the life of a disciple?
Well – like a fan, like a follower, like a learner.
Like a fan – showing our colours, by our attendence at church, by our open bible on the table at home, by the prayerbook at our bedside, by the wooden cross we hold in our hands when we pray or by the devotional picture we view before us on our kitchen wall – in these ways we show we are his fans.
Like a follower – with our eyes open to see what Jesus is doing, today, in the world around, and to consciously, prayerfully, try to walk where we feel he is leading us, hour by hour. Putting ourselves in places where we feel able to draw close to him – in these ways we practice being his followers, his apprentices.
Like a learner – with our mind open to learning new things we study his word, we read devotional books or writing which helps us see how his gospel impacts on the life of the world today in all its complexity, we listen to those who teach it on radio Thoughts for the Day or in audiobooks on spiritual themes, we join in with study and discussion groups, Lent courses and so on – in these ways we show we are his students, his learners.
Now one thing which is certain to me is that Jesus doesn’t want us to be blind followers with fixed ideas, immovable in our faith; he wants us to be questioning, critical, open-hearted and open-minded disciples.
In Hilary Mantel’s novel Wolf Hall, Thomas Cromwell compares himself to Thomas More as he says,
What’s wrong with you? Or what’s wrong with me? Why does everything you know, and everything you’ve learned, confirm you in what you believed before? Whereas in my case, what I grew up with, and what I thought I believed, is chipped away a little and a little, a fragment then a piece and then a piece more. With every month that passes, the corners are knocked off the certainties of this world and then the next world too. [6]
If you relate less to Thomas More and more to Thomas Cromwell you’re on a healthy road to discipleship, for the beginning of learning is self-awareness and questioning.
It strikes me from the portrayal of Jesus in the gospels that he is far more welcoming to those who come to him with open questions than to those who come to him already knowing what they think and wanting him to conform to their worldview. There’s a world of difference between the Pharisees asking Jesus, “Why are your followers doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath day?” [7] and Peter asking Jesus, “Lord, if my brother keeps on sinning against me, how many times do I have to forgive him? Seven times?”[8]
As people who struggle with our own discipleship it’s amusing at times, and heartening, to see how mixed up and clueless the disciples are in the gospels. They constantly misunderstand what Jesus is getting at in his teachings; they quibble over which of them will sit next to him in heaven whilst he tries to direct their thoughts to how they will serve him here on earth.
And as people who may have been badly taught that religion is all about following unbreakable rules, accepting unshakeable truths, it’s enlightening – if not challenging – to realise that in his life Jesus was the ultimate rule breaker, and that in his teachings Jesus used not doctrines but parables – so designed that those who had ‘ears to hear’, as he often put it, could decide for themselves the direction they should take in response to what he told them. Parables are not fixed certainties – they are conversation-starters, they introduce topics for discussion about the nature and outworking of the kingdom of God on earth. [9]
Now Bristol’s own rule-breaking guerrilla artist Banksy has been quoted as saying, “The greatest crimes in the world are not committed by people breaking the rules. It’s people who follow orders that drop bombs and massacre villages.” [10]
And that great rule-breaker St Paul, in his letter to the Romans, famously instructed we disciples of Christ, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.” [11]
Three centuries before Paul wrote to the Romans, the Greek philosopher Aristotle said, “He who cannot be a good follower cannot be a good leader.” [12] Just as Jesus calls us to be his disciples, he also calls us to ‘disciple’ others, to help others along their journey of faith. Those of us who have spent a lifetime with the questions are called, not to have all the answers, but to help others along the road with their own enquiries; the young ones we are involved with, those who connect with our churches through our schools and family work, welcomed in baptism and wedding services, those who come to us at a time of death, to the funeral services we host, with their questions.
With the insight of an honest atheist the author H. P. Lovecraft once wrote,
If religion were true, its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into an artificial conformity; but would merely insist on their unbending quest for truth, irrespective of artificial backgrounds or practical consequences. [13]
So we are called to follow and to encourage others in their following. We are called to be formed into the likeness of Christ, and that is a lifelong task. It’s also a task we share in with each other. The Archbishop of York John Sentamu talks about corporate discipleship – the idea started by Jesus himself, that the Church is “a mixed community of sinners called to be saints, a divine society where the risen Christ in the midst of it is grace and truth, and the Holy Spirit is at work within it. An inclusive and generous friendship, where each person is affirmed as of infinite worth, dignity and influence. A community of love, overflowing in gratitude and wholehearted surrender, because it participates in the life of God.” [14] We are disciples together.
Where will we disciples end up? Where will all this following get us? In his poem Little Gidding, T. S. Eliot suggests it will get us to a place of deep understanding, of who we are and of our place in the world.
With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time. [15]
Notes
* ’I am your fan’ is a direct quote from the title track of the album ‘Fanatical’ by Calvin’s Dream. I’m a fan of theirs.
[1] The score in the FA Cup Fourth Round tie on 26 January 2018 was Yeovil Town 0 Manchester United 4.
[2] This sermon was prepared in the period following the death of Mark E Smith, architect and agitator of The Fall, whose music and performances I’ve been closely following since the 1980s.
[3] Matt 11:28-9.
[4] John 10.10.
[5] Bob Dylan, Gotta Serve Somebody, from Slow Train Coming, 1979.
[6] Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall, p.39.
[7] Mark 2.24.
[8] Matthew 18.21.
[9] See William R. Herzog, Parables As Subversive Speech: Jesus as Pedagogue of the Oppressed.
[10] Wikiquote: Banksy.
[11] Romans 12.12.
[12] Goodreads: Aristotle Quotes.
[13] H.P. Lovecraft, Selected Letters, Volume 3.
[14] The Archbishop of York: Discipleship.
[15] T. S. Eliot, Little Gidding in Four Quartets.
