“Follow me” | a sermon

A sermon by Jamie Howison on the 35th anniversary of his ordination

In the small leather-bound Bible that sits on the table beside my reading chair, the opening portion of tonight’s Gospel reading is titled, “The call of Matthew.” It is a an almost starkly brief episode.

 As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And Matthew got up and followed him.

And here Stanley Hauerwas comments,

What did Matthew think he was doing? Did he feel guilty about being a tax collector? Was there an emptiness in his life that he saw Jesus filling? But such questions should be resisted. All we need to know is that Matthew followed him—a following that makes sense only if Jesus is the one with the authority to forgive sins. (Hauerwas, Matthew)

This is then followed by an episode in which Jesus is at dinner, with “many tax-collectors—including Matthew—and sinners… sitting with him and his disciples,” which riles up the hostility of some Pharisees, whose sense of religious propriety is mightily offended. Why in heaven’s name does your teacher keep company and share a meal with that lot of reprobates? Doesn’t he know better? To which Jesus replies, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice’—that’s a saying which quotes the prophet Hosea—“For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”

Again from Hauerwas:

The Pharisees’ desire to live holy lives is right, but the critical issue is the grounds of holiness. The Pharisees ask Jesus’ disciples why Jesus, by eating with sinners, defies what they think is required of the law. They seem hesitant to ask Jesus directly, but he hears their challenge and in response makes clear his differences with them. He has come to the sick, not to the well: it is the sick who need mercy. It seems that holiness begins with the recognition that we are not well.

Which of course begs the question, namely were the Pharisees already “well”? Jesus uses the medical image of the physician, essentially saying to them that these tax collectors can see that they are not well and not healthy, and so he will meet with them, talk with them, share a meal with them, because they know their need. “Those who are well have no need of a physician,” he says, but are the Pharisees actually all that well? Do they not need this physician Jesus as much as anyone else needs him? That’s one of the questions—the tensions—that underlies a good many of Jesus’ parables—The Good Samaritan, the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, for instance—as well as a good number of his interactions—recall the Pharisee Nicodemus, coming to talk to Jesus in the dark of night.

If we’re honest, can any of us ever be entirely “well” on our own steam? Or don’t all of us need that lovely thing called grace, to say nothing of the company of one another when we’re facing particularly hard patches in our lives? I believe—strongly believe—that we do.

And it would seem that those simple words, “Follow me”—in Greek akolouthei moi—were all that Matthew needed to begin to recognize his need, set down what he’d been doing, and join Jesus’ company as a disciple.

Thirty-five years ago today, I knelt in St John’s Cathedral and was ordained a priest by our then-bishop, Walter Jones. Some seven years earlier, I had absolutely no sense that priestly ministry would be my call. I knew what I was going to do with my life, or at least I thought I knew. I was studying at the University of Winnipeg, working away at a degree in Psychology, with an eye toward doing a Masters in Clinical Psych. I wasn’t really all that riveted by my studies in that field, but I knew that I loved to work with troubled kids, so this way going to be the path. I was also doing a minor in Religious Studies, which was actually where my passions and deep interests actually lay.

In a recent podcast hosted by Jennifer Wiens, I told the story of how I experienced a strong and repeated nudging toward acknowledging that I might indeed have a call to ministry, so I won’t repeat that all here. Suffice it to say that it took about six months of being nudged by ten different people before I more or less surrendered and went to talk to my parish priest, whose opening comment was, “I wondered when you were going to call me about this.”

Well at that point I still had a year of university to go, followed by a year in which I worked and saved money for my theological studies. Three years in Toronto attending Trinity College were next, which was an exciting and invigorating time. Field placements in two different parishes and in the Toronto East Detention Centre were all a part of those years, as was a summer working in a church-run storefront drop-in centre and food bank. When I came back to Winnipeg it was to take up a position as the assistant at St Paul’s Church in Fort Garry, and so was ordained a deacon on June 24, 1987—The Nativity of John the Baptist—and then priested on St Barnabas Day, thirty-five years ago from today.

But you know, even with all of those years of preparation—those voices of affirmation, the studies and field placements, and a full year as a deacon at St Paul’s, the week before I was to be ordained a priest I found myself strangely anxious, even unsure of myself. I spoke to that in my sermon at St Paul’s on the last Sunday before my ordination, and after the liturgy a woman came to me, looked me firmly in the eyes, and said, “Come to me across the water, Peter.” She was, of course, referencing the story of Jesus walking on the water, and Peter—dear Peter—saying to him, “Lord, command me to come to you on the water.” “Come to me, Peter,” Jesus says. “Come to me across the water,” and so Peter steps out… but soon falters, afraid, and begins to sink. And I heard in that woman’s reference to that story a clear message to step forward, and trust. Trust in a way that at that moment Peter couldn’t, or at least he couldn’t once he was confronted with what he was doing! Just step forward, Jamie, and trust. Don’t fear the storm, don’t fear the waves. Just come.

And so I did. The ordination took place on the morning of June 11, and it was one of those fiercely hot and humid days. The temperature in St John’s Cathedral had soared, and I remember having a modest dread of how hot it would be in my vestments. Yet once the liturgy had begun, I was completely unaware of the heat, and by the time I was kneeling in front of Bishop Walter to receive the laying on of hands I was aware only of his words and the weight of his hands on my head. It was right and it was good, and I’ve never once looked back with any sense of regret or of second guessing my call.

Akolouthei moi, Jesus said to Matthew. “Follow me”. And he did, just like that. It took me seven years, and still I had to wrestle with those jitters and nerves in that final week. Maybe I envy Matthew, just a little bit, for the simple and straightforward way in which he could just get up and follow his Lord. Then again, like him what it took was having to confront my need for grace and mercy, and then the courage to follow as best as I’ve been able.

And I’d not trade that away for all of the gold in the world. I think it is fair to say neither would Matthew.