The Call of Our Savior

"Matt, the dog kennel is a mess. Go clean it up.” Or, “Matt, the dog kennel is a mess. Let’s go clean it up.” I’m not going to tell you which command I heard more often in my home growing up, but I bet you know which one I wanted to hear. Having someone labor alongside you in a difficult job can make all the difference in the world. They help share the burden. And beyond that, you gain the sense of camaraderie when a partner joins you in a job like that. It’s even greater when the person who is commanding you (your parent, boss, etc.) bears that burden with you. When that happens, you sense that what you are doing actually matters. It’s not just pointless effort… Which reminds me of my two least favorite words when pieced together…

“Around there!” Those two words still give me shivers of disgust. My football coach would yell those words out during practice, and they signaled us to go run around the various power poles positioned around the practice field. We’d go run about fifty yards, round a pole, run right back to coach, do push-ups, sit-ups, up-downs, or some other instrument of torture, and then wait to see if we were going to do another circuit around another pole with another set of calisthenics. It all depended on what kind of mood the coach was in.

I love football, but I absolutely hate running, sweating, panting, barfing—basically all the things that come with practicing to play football. So I dreaded those two words each practice. They were a call of death to me… And even having co-laborers with me didn’t help as much as you’d expect. We had camaraderie, but we were just fellow bitter sufferers under the tyranny of our coach. (Sorry, coach… I know you meant well).

But imagine my surprise one day when my pastor (also an assistant coach) started to join us when we did the end-of-practice circuits around the poles. I kind of thought he was an odd duck before, but he quickly became the coach I liked best. He seemed more human and approachable to me. He suffered with me. He didn’t remove the burden of my suffering (which I didn’t really want anyway), but instead, he joined me in it. And actually, he went even further, he invited me to follow him into it. He would lead the pack, set the pace, and invite us all to follow him in the day’s mission of getting better. And while he did not remove the pain of running, panting, and barfing, he did remove some of the bitterness that came with it. I was reminded that the reason the coach was making us run was not that he wanted us to suffer needlessly. No, by joining us and leading us in our suffering, our coach reminded us that it had a purpose and that we would be better for it. After all, he didn’t need to run with us, but he chose to, anyway. He reminded us of its value.

I have so often forgotten this aspect of Jesus’ call on my life to follow him, and perhaps you have too. I’ve often approached it as a call to “be good” for Jesus. I’ve treated it as a call to obey for Jesus. I’ve so often approached his call in a way that belittles and disrespects him by treating him as someone who needs me to do something that he either cannot or does not want to do himself. So when I’ve heard his call to follow him in the past, I have subtly changed the words in my head to mean, “Follow his instructions.” I’ve made it into a call to obedience that is disconnected from the person who is making the call.

But in Jesus, we have someone who does not just call us to follow his instructions but someone who calls us to follow him. We have someone who invites us to believe what he believes and to do what he does. We don’t have someone who just yells out, “Around there!”—expecting us to go out into the world to suffer as his faithful little minions. We don’t have someone who calls us to go off alone in obedience. We don’t have someone who calls us to love, serve, and work for our neighbor’s reconciliation, so that he doesn’t have to. We don’t work to connect them to him, his community, and his mission for him. No, we have someone who calls us to do these things with him. Jesus isn’t sending us out away from him to do his bidding for him. Instead, he is calling us to join him as he does those very things. He is sending us out into his mission field, and as we go out there, we find him running alongside us.

As Greg Finke proclaimed in his seminar at the CLB Convention this summer, “Jesus is on the loose!” He’s doing stuff. He’s working in the hearts and lives of the people around us. He is present in their lives. He is active in their workplaces, in their families, in their communities, and in their cities. And Jesus is inviting us to join him in his work there.

Jesus isn’t calling us to do something he has not already done himself or to go somewhere he is not already present. He is with us always, even to the very end of the age (Matthew 28:20). His call is not merely to represent him in this world. No, his call is to join him where he is already present and active. It is a call to join him in his work.

So in his call to you today, Jesus is not saying, “Church of the Lutheran Brethren, the world is a mess; go clean it up.” No! Jesus is actually saying, “Church of the Lutheran Brethren, the world is a mess; let’s go clean it up together. Your neighbors need to be loved like I am loving you; so let’s go love them together. Your neighbors need someone to serve them like I am serving you; so let’s go serve them together. Your neighbors need to be reconciled and connected to me, to true community, and to my mission, like I am in the process of reconciling and connecting you; so let’s go work for that together.” Jesus’ call to follow is a call to join him as he works his grand mission to restore all that has been marred and broken by sin.

May we be a people who follow this call of our Savior, who is so gracious to us that he invites us to join him in his mission.