Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat but if it dies, it produces much fruit. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there also will my servant be. The Father will honor whoever serves me.
(John 12:24-25)
Follow me.
Two simple words that Jesus said to all of His disciples. Two simple words that we find in today’s Gospel. Two simple words that all of us have heard in our hearts.
Christ used the image of the seed to represent change. I would imagine for most of us, seeds of change were planted in our hearts not just from one single source, but from all the many gentle nudges of the Holy Spirit through those we encountered. That question, “Have you thought about this ministry?” or that comment, “You would be good at that ministry,” were moments when Our Lord was planting the seed of change in you.
But in order for that seed to grow, there is one thing that we must do: follow Him.
In her book Forming Intentional Disciples, Sherry Weddell speaks about the apathy that is found in many of us Catholics, where many make religion a mindless habit. In this way, we compartmentalize our hearts and separate God from our daily lives. I’m sure that doesn’t apply to most of you who are reading this. But I must confess that in my first year of Diaconate formation, I looked at my classes and my assignments as things that needed to get done; they were boxes that had to be checked off in order to work my way to ordination. By God’s grace, I have come to understand that while this is a time of work, it is more importantly a time of formation. CS Lewis wrote, “we might think that God wanted simply obedience to a set of rules: whereas He really wants people of a particular sort.” In other words, this is a time for God to change me.
And that is why following Him can be a little scary because it is a kind of death because it is a transformation. God is calling us out of our comfort zone to become something else. This means we have to let go of our old selves. Following will cost you, just as it did the many of the saints; just as it did all of the 12.
Following is an act of faith because we don’t know what it will cost us. I think of Samwise Gamgee in The Lord of the Rings who decided to follow his friend Frodo into the fires of Mordor. Sam gave up so much to follow him. But in the book, one of the things that made Sam the saddest was having to throw out his cookware. It seems like such a silly thing to be upset about. And yet, how many of us have those little indulgences of life and the Lord says that we follow Him, we have to let it go?
We are transformed by following Him. And we follow Him because He redeemed us.
The first movie I ever saw in the theater as a kid was Flash Gordon. It is a silly sci-fi film, but in the movie Flash and one of his enemies are forced to fight to the death. When his enemy is most vulnerable, Flash saves his life. To express his gratitude and change of heart, all his enemy can say to Flash is: “Where you go: I follow.”
Today is the feast of St. Matthew. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus comes to him when he is a tax collector and he simply says: "Follow me."
On the show The Chosen, one of my absolute favorite moments comes from an interaction that the Apostle Matthew has with his old bodyguard Gaius. The roman is worried about so many important things with his family and his responsibilities. Matthew looks at Gaius and says, "I have only one thing to do today: follow Him. The rest takes care of itself."
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