Will you come and follow me

This morning in worship at Shepherd of the Valley, our hymn of the day was "Will you come and follow me if I but call your name?" It's a Scottish hymn written by John L. Bell in 1987 after being accepted into the Iona Community. Also known as "The Summons," this hymn is based on Mark 1:16-20. The first stanzas are in the voice of Jesus, calling his disciples to follow him; the final stanza is the singer's response to that call.

The questions asked in the song resonated powerfully as I thought about preparing for another trip to Tanzania in a few months. 

"Will you come and follow me if I but call your name?

Will you go where you don't know and never be the same?

Will you let my love be shown, will you let my name be known,

Will you let my life be grown in you and you in me?"

People often ask us what makes us want to travel to Tanzania? What calls us out of our lives of comfort to go on a journey that can be exhausting, full of unexpected events, expensive, into relationships with people we've never met? Many of us talk about curiosity, or a nudge from someone who had gone before, an unnamed sense of longing to go.  Many of us are uncomfortable naming this as a 'calling' but that's really what it is. 

"Will you leave yourself behind if I but call your name?

Will you care for cruel and kind and never be the same?

Will you risk the hostile stare, should your life attract or scare?

Will you let me answer prayer in you and you in me?"

As we prepare for the journey, we talk a lot about what to pack, what to bring along as gifts. Perhaps we're overly concerned with ensuring we have all our creature comforts. How many outfits, what hair care products, how much duct tape, how many extra batteries? We use the things we pack to fend off the fear of what might go wrong, what we might find we want or need. 

But I think it's helpful to also consider the things we want to leave behind. Some of our things would be ostentatious as we meet our village partners, other things are simply unnecessary in that setting. 

But the song asks what parts of ourself we will leave behind. I hope we leave behind our sense of certainty that we know what to do and what our partners need, instead carrying a desire to listen and learn.  I hope we leave behind some of our certainty that our cultural norms are universal, so that we can observe, ask good questions, and come to understand the value embedded in cultural norms that are different from our own.

That last question is also a powerful one - answering prayer.  Sometimes we travel with too much of an outdated missionary mindset, believing that we are going to help our partners, that we are the givers and they are the receivers. Coming home, we almost always realize we have received much more than we have given, and that it is our lives that have been changed by the grace we have been shown.

"Will you love the you you hide if I but call your name?

Will you quell the fear inside and never be the same?

Will you use the faith you've found to reshape the world around,

Through my sight and touch and sound in you and you in me?"

We all try to hide some parts of ourselves, present ourselves in the best light, put our best foot forward.  There's something about the relentlessness of travel that tends to reveal what is hidden. At the end of a long and tiring day, we may find ourselves being abrupt with our fellow travelers, or just wanting a shower when the water slows to a trickle. Or in a new situation, finding ourselves expected to speak to a congregation at a moment's notice, we try to hide our nerves, or shut down that spark of anger that someone didn't tell us this might happen so that we might be prepared. 

We will find ourselves in these situations every day, and we will experience the grace and hospitality of our partners over and over. When we think we can't walk as far as we need to, someone will offer to carry our bags. When we're nervous or afraid, someone will express their confidence in our ability to handle what comes next. 

I hope we remember to offer grace to ourselves and to one another as well.

Lord, your summons echoes true when you but call my name.

Let me turn and follow you and never be the same.

In your company I'll go where your love and footsteps show.

Thus I'll move and live and grow in you and you in me.

In the middle of each stanza of this hymn, there is the affirmation that in following the call of Jesus, we will never be the same. That is so absolutely true of the journey we take to Tanzania. I've seen the journey change people in what might look like small ways - less materialism, more generous sharing of their resources. I've seen travelers changed in big ways too - career, college majors, restructuring their lives with room for more service.

Going on this journey in the company of Jesus, our fellow travelers, and with the people of our partner congregations, we each will find ways to move and live and grow in Christ.