Follow Me

Wild Strawberries grow amazingly well here, if you are lucky enough to find them. My favorite spot to find them is on dead fallen trees in the summer.

Follow me, Jesus says. Give up everything to follow me. Everything. All of your hopes and dreams, all your possessions and security and wealth, all your certainties and plans, all of your life. Everything. And come, follow me. Follow me to stand in solidarity with the suffering, with the sinner and the outcast and the disrespected, follow me to stand against the power of the world. It sounds like a harsh call. A call of hardship and loss. Come and die, Jesus says. Come, follow me to the cross, follow me into suffering and death. Who would ever wish to take up such a call? 

“And you will have treasure in heaven.” Too often, we think of this as a future reward in some distant place. But perhaps that is not at all what Jesus meant. Follow me and die, yes, but follow me too into resurrection. Follow me into new life. Just as the seed dies in winter to bring forth new life in spring, just as wild strawberries grow on fallen trees, so you too will find abundant life. For the kingdom, which is not yet, is also among you. That is the mystery of the gospel. In dying, you will find life. You will dream new dreams. You will find community and belonging in fellowship with me. You will find joy and friendship on the edges and in the forgotten places. You will live, fully and freely, as you never have before. Follow me, give up everything, and you will find abundant life. 

That is the paradox of the gospel.