"Follow Me"

Rev. Essie Koenig-Reinke

Matthew 4:12-23 Click here to watch the Sermon "Follow Me"

This week, hundreds of clergy dropped whatever they were doing and traveled to Minnesota, to faithfully call an end to ICE’s violence and cruelty in Minneapolis. On Friday morning in freezing temperatures, they went out by the hundreds, tracking ICE and noting their activities, participating in sing-ins in state and federal buildings and more than 100 local clergy were arrested while peacefully protesting at the airport in Minneapolis. This comes on the heels of the abduction of 5 year old Liam Ramos who was wearing his bunny hat on his way home from preschool and the murder of Renee Good, a presbyterian, who was in her neighborhood, checking on her neighbors while ICE was at a nearby school. And this was all a day before ICE killed yet another civilian, Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse at the VA who was murdered checking on a woman ICE had pepper sprayed.The violence is not limited to only these two white Minneapolis citizens,  In 2025 ICE killed 35 individuals and in 2026, seven more names have been added to that list. Many of them are immigrants and people of color. All of them are beloved. Whether you want to Abolish ICE or whether you believe in what they are trying to accomplish. We all know that this level of violence, this kind of cruelty is not Gospel. This is not how God envisions our world or calls us to treat one another. 

This is not the way of Christ, and it is past time that we name this. 

One of the most quoted Jesus sayings comes from our text today: Follow me. It’s the moment shortly after Jesus returns from the wilderness, and after walking around calling for repentance, he finds himself on the shoreline with a bunch of fishermen and call them to follow him, and he will teach them to fish for people, and to experience life in a way they could never imagine, and they choose to follow this man on the lakeshore and leave their old life behind for one they could not envision. It was bold, it was reckless, it was desperate. Most people do not walk away from a steady job and comfortable life to become a nomad dependent on the generosity of strangers. People who make choices to leave their homes do so because they have to, they need something to change. Jesus simply gives them the chance they need, and these young men pack their bags, leaving behind their nets, their loyalty to the empire, their participation in the traditional way of life, and their loved ones  to live in a new way. Jesus called and they answered, not because it was easy but because it was necessary. Because much like what we see on our streets today, the powers at be, criminalized the poor and immigrant, they oppressed the widow, and used children as pawns, and they did it in the name of religion. Sadducees and Pharisees were not only religious leaders they were also indoctrinated into the Empire’s plans, turning on their own people, even reporting them to the Empire which would lead varying degrees of capital punishment depending on the offense. The world these fishermen lived in was not one that cared if they lived or died, and they knew that. And Jesus knew that, so he offered them something different, like the living water for the woman at the well, the mud he spread on the blind man’s eyes, like the tears he wept over his friend Lazurus’ death. Jesus was anti-Empire, and pro-justice, pro-peace, pro-equality, and he led the way, preaching, teaching, healing and even turning over a few tables until the Empire would take his life. 

Friends, here is the hard truth of this text. As the gospel tells us You cannot serve two masters. You cannot love money and God. You cannot support violence and seek peace. You cannot believe in justice and  consciously choose to oppress others. You cannot believe in the love of God, and treat others with hate and vitriol. You cannot be an ICE agent and a pastor. You cannot serve two masters. To be a person of faith, to be a disciple means you choose the ways of Jesus, and leave the nets of the empire on the shoreline and you keep your heart set on the dawning of a new day, God’s new day, when justice will roll down like water and righteousness like an ever flowing stream. 

Most of you know by now that I sing with the New Mexico Women’s Chorus, and at our last retreat, we gathered in our chapel, and while we were in there one of the members raised her hand and asked, “Why aren’t any of the churches doing anything to help? Why aren’t pastors speaking out?” First I thought she meant nationally, and so I named dropped colleagues and friends I know who are doing this work across the country, but then she spoke up again and she said, “why aren’t you all here in New Mexico doing anything.” Y’all, i know better than to take this personally, and yet I took her comment so personally. I fumbled over ways we help our community and how we have shown up and clearly she was unimpressed. I knew I wasn’t going to satisfy her with any answer and so I fumbled my way through. Over the last couple months, I’ve pondered what she said, her words haven’t left me. In fact, her words hurt me in ways few words have. It wasn’t until this Friday that things began to click. On Friday I joined around 70 people of faith at First Congregational Church for an event held in solidarity with those in Minneapolis. We stood on the street corner with our signs and we sang and prayed and we chanted. Many of us showed up in signs and with collars and vestments. It was a powerful moment, and one that left me feeling hopeful, even as it began to rain. 

As we sang and chanted, my friend's words came back to me. It was then that I realized she wasn’t interested in how many people we fed, or organizations we support, or mission projects we have. As someone who openly struggles with sitting in a church because of her experience, what she wanted from me is what Jesus offered the disciples, what Jesus offers us - a new  narrative. A chance to leave the nets of the empire behind and make our way into a new and abundant life. Much like the Empire co-opted sacred stories of the Torah to justify their actions, Christian Nationalists have taken our scriptures and turned them into hate speech. To take the name of the Lord in vain is a sin. And that is what is happening in front of our very eyes each and every day. Christian Nationalists  are using our most sacred scriptures to justify hate, bigotry, violence, abduction, murder and oppression. People are in desperate need of a new narrative. People who don’t even consider themselves people of faith are crying out for it. In the introduction to his book: “Everything Good About God is True” Rev. Bruce Reyes Chow writes that it is past time for Christians to start speaking out. He writes, “We can no longer abdicate the Christian story to hate, violence, and oppression. Those of us who occupy this more loving, just, and extended version of the Christian story must do a better job of claiming, articulating, and speaking the hell up.” And so friends,

here we are on that shoreline with the choice in front of us. May we be so bold to leave our nets on the shore and follow. May it be so. Amen.