The Way of Jesus

I am a terrible packer. Here’s what I do. I procrastinate, and then I panic. And so, I pile on. Last Thursday morning, my flight for Atlanta leaving in two hours, I was standing over an open suitcase staring into the void, facing the paralysis of choice.

The answer is always more. What if I spill something on my white dress shirt? Put in an extra one. What if I find time to run each morning in the Atlanta heat? Three pairs of shorts. What if I finish the book I’m reading? Two more wedged into the open space just in case.

By the time I’ve got to head out the door, there are forty-two pounds of what-ifs crammed into my carry-on. And when I returned on Monday afternoon, most of it utterly untouched, taken along solely, it turns out, for security, comfort, and weightlifting. I trust I am not alone, with my six shirts for three days of travel. 

Overpacking has become a way of coping. We aim to anticipate every possible scenario. We tightly pack our lives, our schedules. We fill our kids’ calendars to overflowing. We leave little margin for spontaneity, surprise, or simply a little sleep. And then we drag our bulging bags every place we go, all the while wondering why we are so exhausted all the time, why our lives feel so utterly unmanageable, why our joy is increasingly diminished.

In the ninth chapter of Luke’s Gospel, Jesus gathers his twelve disciples, those whom he has called by name, and he commissions them—he sends them—for ministry. He gives them two gifts: power and empty hands. 

The church has often embraced the first and never been comfortable with the second. But this morning, I want to suggest that the two—power and empty hands—are inextricably linked. The power we hold turns to dust when we exploit it, because it never belonged to us in the first place. 

Over in Second Corinthians, Paul uses a striking image to make the same point. Paul says we have been given a treasure beyond human imagination, beyond any measure, but we have been given that treasure in clay jars. Why? Paul writes: so that this extraordinary power belongs to God and not to us. 

Empty hands. Earthen vessels. The Way of Jesus. That will be our compass for the year ahead. It revives the earliest description of the church in the Book of Acts, where those who follow Jesus are called People of the Way. 

We are a pilgrim people. We are a community in perpetual motion. We are followers of Jesus. We were never called to build empires or capture cultures. We were called to walk in the way of Christ. And so, we his people have always been our most faithful when we are on the move.

And yet, generation after generation, we have chosen the security of control over the risk of discipleship. We have made our peace with respectability and influence, and gradually the desire to keep them began to drive us, costing us our integrity along the way, one silence at a time. 

Now, that cultural leverage, that influence and power, has been fading for decades. And that loss may be the best thing to happen to us. After all, a church with no power to protect is finally free to follow the way.

Others are responding to that same loss by grasping harder for what is slipping through their hands. They are fusing a militant theology with a narrow-minded nationalism and calling that combination Christian. They speak of our taking dominion over every aspect of common life. They twist scripture to fuel a gospel Jesus never preached. Both our silence and their shouting reflect the same underlying panic, the fear that we will be left empty handed. 

So, from sports fields to boardrooms, from social media to every self-help seminar, we make him a mascot. We trade a sovereign Lord for a celebrity crush who never contradicts us, a guest who always shows up at our rallies. 

We enlist Jesus. We claim Jesus. We hold Jesus captive. 

But remember what actually happened to Jesus. They killed him. 

The life he lived, the gospel he preached, the people he invited to the table, collided with the powers of the world. Jesus did not gain influence and power. He alienated himself from the powers of the world. He announced a kingdom that did not belong to Caesar, that did not belong to this world. And eventually, Caesar had enough. 

The cross is both the desperate response of the powerful to a message they cannot control and the ultimate triumph of love over that very same power.

You can read the gospels from the front to back and through again, and you will never find Jesus asking us to admire him. He calls us to follow. He knows there will be a cross for each of us, not as jewelry to wear, but as a burden to bear.

He points the way. And then he gives us this absurd packing list: take nothing. No staff. No bag. No bread. No money. Not even a second shirt. No second shirt! That’s my personal packing nightmare.

In place of all those heavy bags we’ve packed to their breaking point, Jesus offers us a different gift. He makes us dependent. Stay in whatever house welcomes you. Eat whatever food they set before you. 

Jesus sends his disciples out utterly unable to pretend they need no one. Their empty hands are a witness to the necessity of grace. If we are to follow the Way of Jesus, we will need to empty our hands as well. 

After some soul searching, here’s the truth about me. I keep filling my suitcase because deep down I am convinced that I can carry it all, or at least that I am obligated to try. So, listen to the good news of the gospel that is our only hope. You are not that powerful. Put the bags down. Listen to him. Those who want to save their life will lose it, and only those who lose their life for my sake will save it.

Here is the uncomfortable question posed to each of us. What is the thing you would rather lose Jesus than release your grip on?

Maybe it is the resumé of your children, the deep-seated fear that if they aren’t exceptional, you have failed. You prioritize their elite future over their Christ-like formation.

Perhaps it is your insulated comfort, the buffers and boundaries you’ve built to protect yourself from the world’s chaos, forgetting that Jesus meets us in the places we would rather avoid.

Maybe it is your political tribalism, that hostile language and performative posts that assure yourself that you are on the right side, all the while avoiding the radical changes Jesus demands.

Or maybe it is your illusion of self-sufficiency, the comforting myth that all your hard work and bank account make you invulnerable, because admitting dependence removes your hands from the steering wheel.

What is it that you are carrying that Jesus is begging you to lay down, to set aside, to let go?

Or perhaps more to the point: when was the last time Jesus told you something you did not want to hear?

He tells the disciples to leave security behind, to be totally dependent on the hospitality of others. Friends, I cannot speak those words in this city this week and not think of those who live in fear of being detained as they wait with their children for the school bus, or work the jobs we all depend on, or navigate any other normal routine of daily life. Jesus sends us as strangers. Welcome was his way. Now his name is used to justify exclusion. They know better. For shame.

Last weekend, a dear friend told me that he’s stopped claiming the label Christian. In a time when it has been coopted and twisted beyond recognition, he hates all the baggage that comes with the term these days, all the assumptions about what the word might mean. He prefers to call himself a follower of Jesus. I understood exactly what he meant. John told me this standing on the front porch of his cabin in north Georgia, a sacred place where I received the gift of his hospitality. I didn’t even need to bring a bag, or a second tunic. What I needed most could not be packed.

On the last day of August, the Kentucky farmer, poet, novelist, and prophet Wendell Berry died at age ninety-two. A decade ago, a reporter (Bill Moyers) asked Berry if he considered himself a Christian, and here’s how he responded: “I consider myself a person who takes the gospels very seriously. And I read in them and am sometimes shamed by them and sometimes utterly baffled by them. But there is a good bit about the gospel that I do get. I believe I understand it accurately, and I’m sticking to that. And I’m hanging on for the parts that I don’t understand. And I’m willing to endure the shame of falling short as the price of admission.”

I love that. Following Jesus means giving up your need to keep him contained or, perhaps better, restrained. It means allowing Jesus to contradict us, to baffle us, to transform us. Berry understood the gospel is not something we handle, it is something that handles us. 

Friends at Second, we do not need more people who broadcast their beliefs or try to bend the gospel’s meaning to fit a way of life that ensures their power or privilege. What we need, and need desperately, are people who follow the way of Jesus.

So leave it at the curb. Your cultivated image. Your need to be right. The life you always imagined. The identity you’re scared to lose. The lie that you can carry it all yourself. Put it all down. Not when you feel secure, not after the kids have grown up, or when the market is up, or when you finally have the free time. 

Do it now. Leave the luggage. Your hands will not be empty; they will be free. Free to open doors and welcome strangers. Free to receive the gift of grace.

He is already ahead of you. He is calling you—this year, this day—to come and follow. And when you do, you will learn, he is the Way. Amen.