Plato’s Cave is an allegory told by the ancient Greek philosopher. In the allegory he tells of people who live in a cave who have been chained there since childhood. Their limbs have atrophied and their heads are fixed so that they can only look at one wall in the cave. Behind them is a fire. Their captors carry shapes of animals and plants and other things in front of the fire so that they cast a shadow on the wall. The prisoners play a game of naming the various shapes, and when one of the people carrying the shapes speaks, they believe that it is the shadow speaking. They live in a world of darkness and shadows. For them, the cave was not only the real world, it was the only one.
But what would happen, Plato asks, if one of the prisoners is dragged outside? When he is first brought out, he is blinded by the sun and cannot see anything, but soon his eyes adjust and he sees trees, mountains, sky and flowing rivers. He sees, not shadows, but the animals and plants for what they really are. He is enthralled by the variety of plant and animal life, the changing of night to day, the variation in temperature, the dazzling colors and smells of the earth. He returns to the cave and finds that now he can hardly see in the darkness. His desire is to free his fellow prisoners. He begins to tell the others of the wonder and beauty that awaits them outside the cave, but the others don’t want to hear it. They think he is insane and refuse to listen to his rants. In fact, they want to murder him.
Welcome to the life of Jesus. He came into our dark world and announced the good news of a kingdom of light, and that, in fact, he was the light of the world. He said he came to bring us peace, joy and life. He said he was the way to that life. He told about a kingdom that was so great in beauty and ecstatic experiences that the people living in darkness could not begin to imagine it. He said many things that were difficult for the people around him to understand. He said other things that they did not want to hear. They preferred shadows to reality and light. They rejected him and stopped following him. They were fine with the bread that he fed them, but they were not fine with him claiming to be the bread — the bread of heaven. He said to them, “I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life. I am the bread of life. Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world” (John 6:47-51).
It is possible to encounter Jesus, but miss who he really is, because of our preconceived notions of who he is, or who we think he should be and what he should be like. This is why I believe it is so important to study the Gospels, and to read them as if it was the first time you heard the story, attempting to put away all you have ever heard and believed, and let the story of Jesus inform and inspire you as if for the first time. I think it is possible to become so comfortable in our beliefs about Jesus and the Christian faith that we settle for the shadows of what other people have told us, rather than the reality of who he really is. It is possible to be so influenced by our culture, even the American Christian culture, that we miss the radical and exciting person waiting to be discovered in the New Testament. We, like the people in our scripture today, have so accommodated our faith to what we want it to be, an easy and comfortable believism, that we have been lulled to sleep and live in complacency.
We really think we understand it all, and that is precisely the problem. We are content with shadows and we are uncomfortable with light. Light means we will have to think new thoughts, and see things in new ways. We will have to stop wanting Jesus to just be a part of our comfortable lives, and begin to seek first his kingdom. We will have to give up our cozy Christianity that has been adapted to the ways of this world, and be true Christians after the calling and model of Jesus. Our Christian life has become a play thing, a good luck charm, rather than a radically new way of living. It means that we will have to stop preferring shadows to reality and see life through new eyes. But that may mean that we have to face the challenges that Jesus brings. It may mean changes in our priorities and values.
What amazes me about this dialogue, between Jesus and those who were following him, is that he realized that he was offending them and it did not seem to bother him. They were even misunderstanding some things, and he did not stop to explain, because the problem did not lie with him, but with them. Their hearts had become hardened and their spirits had become dull and complacent. They had a preconceived idea of what it meant to belong to God. They needed to be stretched. They needed to be challenged. They wanted to go on with life as they had been living it, and simply include believing in Jesus. They did not want their comfortable world view to be shaken up. They wanted to tack on Jesus to their life in the shadows, and he was wanting to bring them out of the cave. They wanted him to give them bread, and he wanted to give them himself. They wanted blessings, he wanted them to be free to live a whole new way. They wanted him to be a nice part of their lives, he wanted to be their life. They wanted security, he wanted them to risk following him into the unpredictable future. He wanted them to take a chance on him when there were no guarantees.
What does it take to follow Jesus? What it does not take is treating Jesus and his teachings as a religion which is added to one’s life like a garage is added to one’s home. This is not about having your normal life and having Jesus too. It is about tearing down the old house and following him. It is not about having Jesus as a part of your life, it is about seeking him as life itself. So what it means to follow Jesus is: Abandonment. Do you remember the stories of people coming to Jesus wanting to follow him? Here is how the Scripture relates it: “As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’ Jesus replied, ‘Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.’ He said to another man, ‘Follow me.’But the man replied, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’ Still another said, ‘I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family.’ Jesus replied, ‘No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God’” (Luke 9:57-62). Jesus calls for us to abandon our lives to follow him.
You will recall the story about the man we often call the Rich Young Ruler. He asked Jesus what he could do to know God and inherit eternal life. The Bible says, “Jesus looked at him and loved him. ‘One thing you lack,’ he said. ‘Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me’” (Mark 10:21). And then it says, “At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth” (Mark 10:22). Jesus was asking him what he asks of all of us: “Are you willing to abandon all that is secure and comfortable and follow me? Are you willing to abandon trusting anything and everything but me?” And so I have to ask myself, “Am I trusting God for my future or my financial planning? Am I trusting God or the things I have accumulated and planned for? Is Jesus Christ really my Bread, or do I trust in something else to sustain me?”
The Bible says, “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness” (Colossians 2:6-7). This growth in our pursuit of Jesus leads to joy and thankfulness, but it is a life that not everyone is willing to live — even those calling themselves Christian.
Let me give a few practical suggestions here. It may be that God is calling some people here to do exactly what he asked the Rich Young Ruler to do, that is, sell everything and follow him. That may mean changing your lifestyle. It may mean going to the mission field as the Overholts have done. It may mean moving to another area in order to go to school or pursue something else God is calling you to do. But more likely, God is asking you to live with abandonment here and now. What does that look like? It would mean beginning each day by letting God into your life. I am amazed at Christians who make no time for getting into the Word of God and do not have regular daily prayer. Basically, what you are saying is that you do not need God. You are not living a life of dependence on God, you are living a life of independence. You are saying by your actions that you can live the Christian life all by yourself on your own power. You are in control and, other than the fact that you believe in Christ and try to live a moral life, you are living as though God is not a part of your life. You are saying that you can live for God on your own power and that you do not need the power of prayer. A life of abandonment is a life totally dependent on God. And if you are going to be totally dependent on God, you have to spend time with God and seek him.
Another way that you can live a life of abandonment is to give God what you should be giving him. Are you trusting God with your finances and your future? Are you trusting him to the point that you will give him what he is due? We worry that we are not giving up everything for God when we are not actually even giving a part. Many Christians give what amounts to a tip to God, instead of acting like everything they have belongs to him. It means letting go of what he asks with joy and abandonment.
Another way of living with abandonment is to give God your time. Become involved in some kind of ministry. Not everyone can do the Saturday Night ministry. Not everyone can live in the Oasis House. But we can all do something. This is how we serve God, by serving others. It may be the choir, teaching Sunday School, volunteering for the nursery, or leading Junior Church. It is unbelievable that we cannot find enough people to do these simple things. This is about giving ourselves to God in some service, abandoning the comfort of non-involvement, abandoning our wants, and doing something for God and allowing him to use our lives.
Another way to live with abandonment is to trust God with your future. Trust him to meet your needs. One of the most dangerous things a Christian can do is to try to meet their needs on their own. They have a need and even pray about that need, but then set out to meet the need by themselves. They refuse to wait on God and his timing. They try to answer their own prayer before God gets a chance. They rush ahead of God when he is asking them to wait. He promises to meet their need, but they panic and want to take control to make sure it happens when they want, and the way they want. We are afraid to be vulnerable and abandon ourselves to God. To follow Jesus means that when things are going well, we abandon ourselves to God. When things are not going well, we abandon ourselves to God. It means meeting life with confidence and facing the future with joyful trust.
Sometimes I fantasize and think of what this church could be like. What if everyone in this church was spending time daily with God by studying the Word and being in prayer? How would it change us? What would this church look like if everyone here was serving in some way? What could we accomplish? What would happen if everyone actually tithed? We could completely support two full time missionaries just by ourselves. What would happen if everyone was trusting God with their present dilemmas and their future to God? What joy would fill this place!
What does following Jesus mean? Living with abandon means living with a sense of adventure and a sense of wonder. It means seeing God all around us and exulting in his presence in the world. It means seeing that a life of following Jesus as the greatest challenge of life. It means finding him in unusual places and discovering him in people’s lives you wouldn’t expect. Such a person is Anne Rice. She has been called, “the Queen of the Occult.” She has sold millions of novels about vampires and witches. Many of her books were actually made into films, starring actors like Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. But something happened in Anne’s life. Newsweek magazine, in it’s October issue last year, reported that Anne has had a profound change in her life. She now says, “I promised from now on that I will only write for the Lord.” Her newest novel was released late last year, entitled Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt. It tells the story of Jesus from his own perspective as a 7-year-old child — his dawning awareness of who he is. She worked hard not to contradict Scripture anywhere in the novel. In the Newsweek article she calls Jesus, “the ultimate supernatural hero… the ultimate immortal of them all.” The article states: “It’s the most startling public turnaround since Bob Dylan’s ‘Slow Train Coming’ announced that he’d been born again.” She says, “If I really complete the life of Christ the way I want to do it, then I might go on and write a new type of fiction. It won’t be like the other. It’ll be in a world that includes redemption.”
Anne Rice had a huge following and was well-loved for her novels such as Interview with the Vampire. She had much to lose by coming to Christ, but she abandoned it all to follow him. It changed her career, her lifestyle, her popularity, her prestige and, although she has made plenty of money, it also changed her financial future. And even though she had been heavily into the occult, she was willing to risk it all to follow him.
That is the kind of unlikely follower Jesus is looking for. It would be interesting to know how many Christians are actually going after Jesus with that same kind of abandon. Essentially there are two kinds of followers of Jesus: Those who want bread, and those who want The Bread; Those who are disappointed and offended with Jesus and follow him no more, and those who, even in their confusion, say, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
Rodney J. Buchanan
August 27, 2007
Mulberry St. UMC
Mount Vernon, OH
www.MulberryUMC.org
Rod.Buchanan@MulberryUMC.org
