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Dear friends in Christ, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

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As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth and

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he said to him, follow me.

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And he rose and followed him.

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Yesterday we wrapped up our 33rd annual Theological Symposium here at Concordia Seminary.

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I hope many of you enjoyed the event.

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On the first day, one of our presenters invited us to reflect on the First Article of the

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Apostles Creed and how doing so might help us live by hope.

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That was the theme of the symposium in case you missed it, Living by Hope in a Secular

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Age.

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And so we thought about what it means to be creatures.

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Creatures of the Creator.

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We thought about what it means to be dependent on someone else.

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We considered the fact that all people, all creatures live by faith, by dependence on

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someone else.

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And along those lines we thought about what it means to hope, to live by hope.

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We reflected on the fact that all people, just like all people believe something, all

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people hope in something, all people are made to hope.

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Well in light of our reading for this morning, I would like to add one more thing to the

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list of what it means to be a human creature.

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We are made to trust, we are made to hope, we are made to follow.

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Following comes quite naturally actually.

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Watch any little child with their parents and they will follow right behind.

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Watch the children at the children's messages, the older kids go and their younger siblings

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follow right up to the chancel.

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Of course as kids get a little bit older they start following their peers and so they follow

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trends on TikTok and they follow patterns of speech, new words that come up and they

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follow fashion trends.

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Just a couple of weeks ago my two high school boys came downstairs, they were getting ready

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I think to go to the Jambalaya Fest and they came down wearing jorts.

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Now for those of you who don't follow the lingo, that's jeans that have been cut off

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to make shorts, usually pretty tight.

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We do it here at the seminary too, we're all followers.

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You students, you follow your favorite professors right?

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I follow Kolb, I follow Voelz, I follow Schmitt, apparently someone around here is following

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Bode.

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And of course the professors, well they follow, well, the professors actually kind of prefer

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to lead.

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But when they lead they're simply following.

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They're following Chemnitz, they're following Chrysostom, they're following Cyril, we're

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all followers all the way down.

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It's simply part of who we are.

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I'm not making a judgment on it, it's neither good nor bad, we just follow, that's who we

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are as humans.

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But jorts?

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Robert Kelly is a business professor at Carnegie Mellon University and he wrote a book a couple

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decades ago called The Power of Followership.

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Apparently he was tired of reading books about leadership.

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And he reflected on the importance and the skill and the ability to follow.

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And in this book he lists all sorts of types of followers, there are passive followers

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and active followers, there are dependent followers and there are independent followers,

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there are loyalist followers and pragmatist followers and alienated followers, there are

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yes men and sheep and apprentices and conformists, followers, all of us in our own special way

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we are followers.

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He saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth and he said to him, follow Me.

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And he rose and followed Him.

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Dramatically speaking it was an imperative, a command.

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Jesus was commanding Matthew, follow me.

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Now this doesn't mean that Matthew necessarily had to follow.

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The rich young man in Matthew chapter 19, he unfortunately did not follow, he went away

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sad.

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Which makes me think that Matthew read that command a little differently.

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He heard that command as something that was good for him.

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He heard that command in some way as gracious.

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It was almost as if the command were more like an invitation.

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Last year I got an invitation with my family to a special meal.

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This was no run of the mill invitation, it was an invitation to an event downtown St.

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Louis in one of the most impressive venues in the city catered by one of the swankiest

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caterers in town.

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The honor of your presence is requested, the invitation said.

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And I was happy to oblige.

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You've gotten an invitation like that before.

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The kind of invitation that you don't normally get, that stands out, the kind of invitation

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that makes you rearrange your schedule, cancel an appointment, restate what you're going

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to do the rest of the week.

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This kind of invitation, you do whatever it takes to accept.

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Jesus commanded, invited Matthew to follow Him.

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And He's done the same for you.

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And it's good for you.

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It's good for you because you're bound to follow someone.

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So am I.

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That's how we're wired.

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And what's more, because of our sin, we are bound to follow someone else.

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Someone other than our creator.

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That's how we're miswired.

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And that's a serious problem.

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It's a serious problem because following anyone other than the maker of life is to wind up

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dead.

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Just ask Adam and Eve.

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Now if we're going to be precise, it wasn't actually the serpent that they followed.

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The serpent was just a middle man.

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The serpent was a seducer, a prodder, an encourager that they would follow something, someone

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else and that something else was a desire.

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A desire to be like God.

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To be in charge.

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A desire to shed their creatureliness, to stop following and to take the lead.

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Have you ever thought about the people that you choose to follow?

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I'm not talking about the people that you have to follow.

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That's a different issue.

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I'm talking about the people that you choose to follow.

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Who are the people you choose to follow?

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Well I prefer to follow people who are very wise.

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Who have a lot of insights, who are faithful, who are courageous.

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I like to follow people who are right.

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And who are those people?

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Those are the people who happen to agree with me.

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And so who do I really want to follow?

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Who do you really want to follow?

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He saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth and He said to him, follow Me.

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And he rose and followed Him.

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When Matthew got up to follow Jesus, he stopped following everyone else.

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He stopped following his tax gathering superiors.

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He stopped following Rome.

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He stopped following the money.

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He stopped following himself.

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He followed Jesus.

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Now Matthew's call, his self-reported call here in chapter 9 leaves all sorts of unanswered

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questions if you ask me.

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I've been thinking about these questions all week.

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He leaves us curious about a lot of things.

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But there are two things that Matthew is very clear about.

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Two questions that he answers about what it means to follow him, to follow Jesus.

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What it means for Matthew to follow Jesus and what it means for us to follow Jesus.

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And I want to reflect on those two questions with you with the rest of the time we have

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here this morning.

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And the first question is this.

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Where do we follow Jesus?

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Where does Jesus lead us?

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Now there's no secret here.

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Matthew tells us in the next chapter, in Matthew chapter 10 verse 38, Jesus says this, whoever

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does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.

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And then in Matthew 16, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up

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his cross and follow me.

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Jesus was going to die.

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He told them that three times explicitly.

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Matthew 16, Matthew 17, Matthew 20.

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I'm going to Jerusalem.

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They're going to reject me.

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I'm going to suffer.

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I'm going to die on a cross.

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Follow me, Matthew.

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That image from Shawshank Redemption, did you go to the, I want to ask you to raise

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your hand if you went to the symposium or not.

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I trust that you all did.

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But have you seen Shawshank Redemption?

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You seen that?

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A lot of you have.

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That image that one of the presenters put on the screen of Andy Dufresne crawling through

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that pipe.

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That foul, unimaginable, operable sewer line with the worst stuff you can possibly imagine.

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Talk about fortitude.

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Talk about resolve.

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Talk about endurance.

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It made me think of Jesus.

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It made me think of the indignity he suffered.

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The disgrace, the degradation, the shame, the filth, the humiliation.

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He endured it.

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For the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross.

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And he scorned it's shame.

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He laughed at it.

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He ridiculed it.

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He looked down on it.

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He dismissed the shame.

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And then he called Matthew to follow Him.

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To suffer with Him.

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To deny himself.

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To pick up his cross.

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And to die.

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No wonder that rich young man went away sad.

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Who would follow?

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Who would follow that?

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Who would follow him into such disgrace and debasement?

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Well apparently you.

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You will.

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You are.

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He said to him, follow Me, and he arose and followed Him.

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God has said it to you too.

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Follow me.

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And by God's grace, you actually got up and followed Him.

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Now I'm not talking about coming to the seminary.

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I'm talking about your baptism.

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I'm talking about when Jesus says to you graciously, follow Me.

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And miracle of miracles you did and you have and incredibly you still are.

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Now in case you're keeping track, the fact that you're following Jesus is not the good

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news.

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It's good for you.

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Make no mistake.

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But our following is not the object of our faith.

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No the good news, the promise I have for you this morning is that the one who has called

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you to follow him is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love.

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He has endured patiently the faithless following of His people for generations.

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He has endured suffering at their own hands, suffering all the way to the cross.

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He has endured your faithfulness up until now and He remains faithful to His promises.

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You may not have to crawl through 500 yards of unimaginable foulness.

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It might be more.

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But even if it's less, even if it's just a few feet, it's awful all the same.

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But the promise for you this morning is that there is an end to your suffering.

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There is an end to your endurance.

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There was an end to Jesus' suffering three days later, risen from the dead, victorious

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over all that would hold him down.

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The promise is he has shared his resurrection life with you.

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His forgiveness with you.

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His new life, his eternal life with you.

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Now it's your life.

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Where do you follow Jesus?

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You follow him through suffering into life.

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That's the first question, which leads to the second question and don't worry, it's

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going to be a shorter answer.

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The second question is this, how do we follow Jesus?

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How ought we to follow him?

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There's many ways to answer that question.

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We could pick up on the theme of our symposium and talk about following him with hope.

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We could pick up on your studies here and talk about we follow him by reading his word,

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the scriptures.

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We could think about the difference between subjective and objective theology and think

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about that we follow Him with a humble disposition and a willingness and a capacity to learn.

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We could simply think and rejoice on his forgiveness and talk about following Him with a clear

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conscience.

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But that's not how I want to answer it today.

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This morning I want to pick up on the only other time in Matthew's gospel that he wrote

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his own name.

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Do you know what, he only wrote his name twice in 28 chapters.

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The first time he wrote it was in chapter 9.

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The second time he wrote it was in chapter 10 when he listed the disciples.

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There right after his call, Matthew decided to list the people that were called with him.

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To list the people whose names had also been called by Jesus.

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And so Matthew names all 12 of them and then he names himself among them.

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How do we follow Jesus?

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Not perfectly.

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But not alone.

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We follow him together.

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As sisters and brothers, we follow Jesus.

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Amen.

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We rise to sing.