May the mumbling commence!
What do we leave behind, if anything, to follow Jesus in the United States? Jesus told his disciples that the way to the kingdom of God is difficult – only with God is it possible for you and me to enter into it. Does being a follower of Jesus seem difficult in the United States? The first disciples gave up many things. Listen to what Jesus told them from Mark chapter ten:
"I tell you the truth," Jesus replied, "no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields – and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first." (Verses 29-31)
Because I answered the call to serve Jesus as a minister, I can understand this promise that Jesus gave his first disciples; and I can also confirm that it is true. I have known many places as home (Elkhart, Indiana and Americus, Georgia and Hesston, Kansas and Hutchinson, Kansas). My three-year-old son has lived now in four different houses in his short lifetime.
Though I have left my biological brothers and sisters and mother and father, I have come to know many more of my brothers and sisters in the family of God. I come from a large family – I am the youngest of eight children. But I have come to know quite a few more brothers and sisters than that. I have many church families [Community Church of the Brethren (Hutchinson, Kansas), Hesston (Kansas) Mennonite, Americus (Georgia) Mennonite, Faith Mennonite (Goshen, Indiana), Sunnyside Mennonite (Elkhart, Indiana), Hively Avenue Mennonite (Elkhart, Indiana), Prairie Street Mennonite (Elkhart, Indiana), Bethel Mennonite (Wadsworth, Ohio)].
And that’s the church families that I know and love. I also have known great brothers and sisters through the Sumter County Ministerial Association (Georgia) and through the intentional living community at Koinonia Farms (Americus, Georgia). I have met many people through food pantries and delivering meals to shut-in people. There are people from my “secular” workplaces like Buhler (Kansas) Schools, Hesston (Kansas) Schools, Americus-Sumter County (Georgia) Schools, Affordable Auto (Elkhart, Indiana), and Plasti-Kote (Medina, Ohio). The list can go on and on.
I have known many mother and father figures in my path in following the call of Jesus in my life. God put my wife Anita into my life when I went to seminary. Now, I do not know how I would live without her! My son, Micah, has also known many aunts and uncles and grandparents along the way.
I have watched and helped many children grow into adulthood. I have worried and prayed for the children of the Church, and then worried some more. My family is greatly blessed! The one thing I have trouble identifying is the persecutions that come from following Jesus.
I don’t know your story, but this is my story in brief. Maybe you have a story with less moving. Maybe you have a story filled even fuller than mine. It doesn’t matter. Following Jesus is not a competition. All of us receive the grace, good favor, and generosity of God without regard to our own merit. Read the parable from the gospel of Matthew that follows this similar statement:
"For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.
About the third hour he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, 'You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.' So they went.
"He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, 'Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?'
'Because no one has hired us,' they answered.
"He said to them, 'You also go and work in my vineyard.'
When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, 'Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.'
The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 'These men who were hired last worked only one hour,' they said, 'and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.'
But he answered one of them, 'Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn't you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?'
"So the last will be first, and the first will be last." (20:1-16)
Enough mumbling for now...
Peace Out
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