“Leaving Home”
SCRIPTURE
“Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” —Luke 14:26-27
DEVOTIONAL
In the congregational read, “Following Jesus: Finding Our Way Home in an Age of Anxiety,” Henri Nouwen describes Christ’s invitation for us to follow as disciples. He argues that we often get caught up in “movements” and that the trends we tend to follow are ultimately centered on the “self.” Through these movements and trends, we are searching for an inner healing, to help us tend to our wounds, even to help fill the voids that haunt us. Unlike these movements and trends, however, following Christ is different. He writes,
Yet when Jesus says, “Follow me” …. We enter into a different way of following because it is a call away from “me” and toward God. It is a call to let God enter into the center of our being. It is a willingness to let go of “me,” or “I,” and to gradually say, “You, Lord, are the One.”
It is not a way of searching for the self, but a way of emptying, of leaving the self to create space for a whole new way of being that is of God. Jesus’ life was an increasing giving up of himself so that God could be totally at the center. This is what crucifixion is all about. When Jesus says, “Follow me,” he is saying, “Leave that place of the self. Leave mother, father, brother, sister, home, familiar possessions. Leave your ‘me’ world – my mother, my brother, my sister, my possession, my world – and follow me.” Jesus says, “Leave it. Leave it so that God can enter into the center.”1
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- What are the challenges to “leaving” the self? Is it even possible?
- What part of you doesn’t want to give up being the center of your attention?
- If Christ were at the center, how could you imagine that your life would be different?
“The more one forgets himself—by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love—the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself.”
― Viktor Frankl
PRAYER
Lord, grant me the strength to let go of myself, my ego, my desire to be center, so that you might enter into my life in such a way that, rather than being in the spotlight, I might put you in the center to shine your light in this dark and fearful world. In the name of the one who entered our lives so that we might get out of the way. Amen
1 Nouwen, Henri. Following Jesus: Finding Our Way Home in an Age of Anxiety. (New York: Image, 2024), 29-30.
The daily devotionals for the season of Lent are written by Rev. Dr. Kirk Hall, Associate Pastor of Formation at First Presbyterian Church from 2010-2013. He is currently a founding partner at The Metis Project, LLC. and lives with his wife and two girls in Salisbury, Connecticut.