Flying After Jesus

Sermon by Torin Eikler
Daniel 3 Luke 9:23-26

Have you ever been to the circus and watched trapeze artists in action? I remember the one time that I went to the circus as a child. It was a big one, and most of my memories are fuzzy with the over stimulation and adrenaline of over-sugared in the midst of 5,000 on-lookers. But I do remember watching the trapeze troupe swing back and forth and summersault through the air during the eternal moments between letting go and catching hold. And with absolute clarity, I remember the way that my stomach tensed up when one of them missed a catch and fell toward certain death only to be caught by the safety net that I hadn’t noticed before. Ever since that day, I have been fascinated by the men and women who continue the long tradition of astounding audiences by flying through the air.

As it turns out, I am not alone in this fascination. Henri Nouwen, the catholic priest and author that we mention every so often, was also a fan. In fact, he was so intrigued by trapeze artists that he befriended a troupe of trapezists called the Flying Rodleighs, and he was able to ask a question that I’ve always wondered about: how do “flyers,” as they’re called, manage to catch the hands of the other person on their swing. In his book, Servants, Misfits, and Martyrs: Saints and their Stories, James C. Howell recounts the response he received from the chief of the Flying Rodleighs.

The secret is that the flyer does nothing and the catcher does everything. When I fly to Joe, I have simply to stretch out my arms and hands and wait for him to catch me and pull me safely over the apron behind the catchbar…. The worst thing the flyer can do is to try to catch the catcher. I’m not supposed to catch Joe. It’s Joe’s task to catch me…. A flyer must fly, and a catcher must catch, and the flyer must trust, with outstretched arms, that his catcher will be there for him.”

While the trapeze artist clearly meant this to be a simple explanation of his technique, I find it to quite an elegant description of the life of faith. As people of faith we are all flyers. It is our job to swing off the platform and let go of the bar, risking a fall. And we must trust, with outstretched arms, that God will catch us as we seek to follow our guide and savior.


Enter Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, three young men from ruling families of Israel taken to the court of King Nebuchadnezzar to serve as court wise men as well as “hostages” ensuring the cooperation of the newly subjugated nation. Over the course of three or four years, they lived with the wise men of the Babylonian court along with their friend Daniel, offering advice and interpreting signs at the king’s behest. Eventually, they were appointed as governors of one province of the empire as a reward for interpreting a particularly troubling dream. A short time later, the king passed an edict commanding all his subjects to bow down and worship a golden statue on pain of death, and the three young men found themselves swinging precariously over a long, long drop into the fire.

You all know the rest of the story. The three men refused to worship anyone or anything other than their own God, holding firm even as they were thrown into a furnace so hot that their executioners were died just getting close enough to them flying. And fly they did, trusting, with arms outstretched that God would be there to catch them.

That the men survived does not stop the story from qualifying them as martyrs. Martyrs are no more or less than people who hold to their faith even if it means that they will die. But martyr stories are more than just tales that we tell for inspiration and encouragement. They are also stories that are intended to promote action and embolden faith on the part of listeners. In other words, the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, according to commentator Frederick J. Murphy, is not just a show of faith but a call to active, non-violent resistance to worldly power and symbols of colonization, and that’s something that we should know more than a little bit about.

Anabaptists have been resisting the power of colonialism, whether it be found in secular or church bureaucracies, for 500 years or more. It is what we were born to do in as much as our spiritual ancestors acted in direct defiance of both government and church when they baptized one another, hurling themselves into persecution and death to follow the path of discipleship … flying, arms outstretched, toward Jesus on the strength of their faith.

They, too, are martyrs – those who were burned, hung, or drowned as well as those who survived, and their stories invite us to the same active resistance. They call us to another way of living – a way that seeks follows the teachings and example of Jesus. Their legacy is ensconced in the way Mennonites and Brethren continue to characterize themselves: as disciples of Christ who seek continue his work together, reject violence, and strive for lives of simplicity lived in harmony with the rest of humanity and all of creation. … And, there are many of us who claim that heritage … that identity with our lives as well as our voices.

Most of us resist the violence of the world even in difficult situations, and there are some sisters and brothers who go farther. They seek not just to resist but to transform situations of injustice and oppression by applying the same discipline and self-sacrifice that armies devote to war to non-violent peace-making. Together they have formed an organization called Christian Peacemaker Teams that supports members as they confront systems of domination.

Where communities are experiencing oppression and the concrete threat of violence and death, CPTers step into the midst of the conflict and try to promote relationship and compassion in the place of brokenness and hatred by their own example. There are stories of stepping in front of loaded guns, accompanying people through dangerous territory or check-points where soldiers push them to the ground and shoot into the air above their heads, and sitting together in prayer as the military shells the neighborhood. Often, the response from both sides is anger and confusion, and many CPTers have been arrested, held in jail, deported, or banned by the powers they confront. One man, Tom Fox, was even killed after three months of being held hostage by a militant group in Iraq.


Others take “safer” paths, though those ways require sacrifice as well. Some, like our friends in Church Communities International (which some of you will know as the Bruderhof) choose to give up personal ownership and a measure of independence in order to embrace the richness of community. Others give up family life in order to dedicate themselves to Christ and the work of the Church. Still others choose the way of extreme simplicity, living in a way that neither abuses the earth nor supports inequity in the workplace.

Cliff and Arlene Kindy live in a small house on a farm in Northern Indiana. In their commitment to following Jesus, they have decided to live under the poverty level. They do this, in part, to avoid paying taxes that support the military, but they are also trying to live in solidarity with people across the country and the world who do not have the same advantages they do.

Once, when Arlene was explaining some of this to me, she told me that she had repeated chosen not to accept jobs as a teacher though that is her training and background. When I asked her why, she said that it wasn’t that the income would put them above the poverty line or that she disagreed with the celebration of violence in the curriculum. It was because there were other people as qualified as she who make much, much less than she would have, and she didn’t want to support a system with that kind of inequity. She had offered several times to teach for what she felt was a more just level of pay, but no one would hire her. So, she continued to work in her organic vegetable garden until she could find a position that would meet her criteria.


“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” It’s a verse that we have all heard so many times that I wonder if we pay attention to it anymore. I wonder if we think about what it is really asking us to do.

If you’re anything like me, you get caught up in cross imagery that is so often the focus of sermons on this text. You begin thinking about self-sacrifice, about martyrdom, and about self-denial in the spiritual, eternal sense. But, when was the last time you heard … really heard the end of the sentence: “take up their cross daily and follow me?”

What does it mean to follow Jesus … daily? I suppose there is no way around the fact that it could mean risking death for our faith, but how often does that come into any of our lives. And if we ever were called to sacrifice in the way Tom Fox did, that would be a once in a lifetime moment … not an every day practice.

Following Jesus is not just about the extreme of martyrdom which I think we admire and abhor in just about equal measure. It is also about our everyday choices: about how they grow out of love and compassion for others … or not, about how they resist the inequities and abuses in our world … or not, about how they help others to experience the Kingdom promise of wholeness and new life … or not. That doesn’t necessarily mean that there is any less self-denial, any less sacrifice involved though.

As people of faith and as Anabaptists, we are all called to make our lives speak about what is important to us just as loudly as our voices. We each have things that we need to give up, and we are each called to particular acts of compassion and love. What that denial is, what those actions are grows out of our own particular background. We may not all make the choices like Arlene’s, but each of us has passions born of our faith and experience. Whatever your passions are, where ever your faith leads you, we are all called to take up our cross daily and follow Jesus.

We are all called to let go of the bar and fly toward Christ.