Hill Climbing for Beginners
Sermon for Trinity II – 29 June 2025 – All Saints Kesgrave
Text: The man from whom the demons had gone out begged to go with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, 39 “Return home and tell how much God has done for you.” So the man went away and told all over town how much Jesus had done for him. (Luke 8v38-39)
God give you peace my Sisters and Brothers.
[Sing]
Follow Me, follow Me,
Leave your home and family,
Leave your fishing nets and boats upon the shore.
Leave the seed that you have sown,
Leave the crops that you have grown,
Leave the people you have known and follow Me.
Sounds easy when you sing it doesn’t it. If we look on the bright side it could all be just a jolly adventure. A walk in the woods and, at its end, aim for that moment when;
…all the world goes home to tea and toast.
I hurry past a cakeshop’s tempting scones
Bound for the red brick twilight of St. John’s.
…as one of our Poet Laureates said about Felixstowe.[1]
A bit like Bilbo at the beginning of the first movie of the Hobbit trilogy. Surely this is just a romp in the countryside around the Shire with a bunch of dwarves and a weird wizard.
[Show Film Clip]
But, as Bilbo will discover when he has to climb the Lonely Mountain and beard the dragon Smaug in his den, following, going on an Unexpected Journey, rarely ends with ‘going home to tea and toast.’
Following Jesus can be the same.
The disciples, now called apostles, are following someone who has ‘resolutely set out for Jerusalem’.
Things have changed.
Before this moment it is all miracles, feasts and the feeding of a multitude.
Now the climb begins.
Just as Bilbo Baggins found, having recovered the fabulous jewel the Arkenstone, that his company of pilgrims have become his enemy, so too with Jesus and the disciples turned apostles. They discover that they are not so much, ‘Marching to Zion. Beautiful, beautiful Zion,’ as climbing the hill of Calvary and entering a dark place over which Jesus weeps;
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. (Luke 13v34)
It is not surprising then, at the end of this chapter:
When the disciples must act like apostles.
When they must be the ones who give the multitude food to eat.
When Jesus lays down the gauntlet to follow in a different, not so comfy ‘tea and toast’ way, that we meet some reasons why people, and perhaps we, are hesitant about following The One we have promised to follow.
There are at least four reasons listed at the end of Luke Chapter 9.
- The Samaritans chase Jesus away precisely because he is going to Jerusalem. A people living in fear, caught in the sandwich between the prejudice of the ‘proper’ Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem and the threat of Rome, will not entertain let alone follow Jesus because they are frightened of the consequences of making more enemies.
They will not follow Jesus because they are frightened.
But Jesus is the one who comes to his frightened followers on the day of Resurrection and says, ‘Peace be with you.’ (John 20v19).
- Some would follow Jesus but they are frightened of leaving and losing their homes.
But Jesus, on the night before He is crucified, comforts his frightened followers. He reminds them that his Father’s house has room enough for everyone and promises all of us that there is a heavenly home waiting for us (John 14v2).
- Others would follow Jesus but their lives are overshadowed by the fear and grief of the death of those close to them.
But Jesus holds out the hope of the life after life and freedom for those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death (Hebrews 2v15).
- And finally some are frightened to follow because they live in fear of losing their family.
But Jesus promises his followers that, ‘everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.’ (Matthew 19v29).
To follow Jesus, and we know we must for ‘No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.’ (Luke 9v62) is not a sinecure.
We will be climbing a hill not of our own choosing.
We will be asked to lay down all sort of things that we thought were good or essential.
We will stumble.
We will fall.
Like the disciples turned apostles, we will betray or deny Him.
We may even run away naked (Mark 14v51).
But still He calls us to follow as He ‘resolutely sets out for Jerusalem’.
How are we to cope with this stumbling pilgrimage?
This scrabble amongst the scree of the journey of life.
A long time ago, a 17-year-old boy sat in the 6th Form Common Room at the Royal Hospital School and listened to the music of the Water into Wine Band – a group of Christian undergraduates from Oxford.
This song, about climbing a hill, transformed his life.
Sitting in the darkness of my mind,
I look but I can’t find
a single thing on which I can depend.
If only I could find a friend who feels the pain I bear,
and then together we could dare,
to climb the hill I cannot see
in darkness of eternity.
Looking in the breaking of your light,
I feel no darkness of the night,
And soon the dew is gone
And in your sunshine I am warm.
I take a step and try to be a moment near reality.
But I am weak and you are strong
and you are near me, all day long.
Not waiting for you, climbing up the hill,
I fall and stumble. still
your hand upon my shoulder is so strong
And every boulder sings a song of love
and high above your laughter calls me on and on
And ever since the morning there has been no right or wrong
but love.
Yep!
Looking in the breaking of your light,
I feel no darkness of the night,
And soon the dew is gone
And in your sunshine I am warm.
My life has not been the same since I first heard those words sung.
The road ahead is rough not smooth.
But that is not what we are promised.
There lie many trials, tribulations and fears ahead of us.
As Julian of Norwich recorded the words of Jesus in her Shewings, ‘He said not “Thou shalt not be tempested, thou shalt not be travailed, thou shalt not be dis-eased”; but he said, “Thou shalt not be overcome.”’[2]
‘He said not “Thou shalt not be tempested,”; but he said, “Thou shalt not be overcome.”’
[Sing quietly]
Follow Me, follow Me,
Leave your home and family,
Leave your fishing nets and boats upon the shore.
Leave the seed that you have sown,
Leave the crops that you have grown,
Leave the people you have known and follow Me.
[This blog ‘Hill Climbing for Beginners’ is copyright © Andrew Dotchin 2025 and may be reproduced free of charge on condition that the source is acknowledged.]
oooOOOooo
The Cost of Following Jesus
As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem. When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, ‘Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?’ But Jesus turned and rebuked them. Then he and his disciples went to another village.
As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’ Jesus replied, ‘Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.’ He said to another man, ‘Follow me.’ But he 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 goodbye to my family.’ Jesus replied, ‘No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.’
(Luke 9:51-62)
[1] https://allpoetry.com/Felixstowe,-Or-The-Last-Of-Her-Order
[2] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/6593-he-said-not-thou-shalt-not-be-tempested-thou-shalt
Suffolk Vicar 