Peter, James and John: Following Him

 Peter: Isn't it funny the way He called us?  "Follow me", He said, and the emphasis was on me! Like He was going to take us somewhere, somewhere we couldn't go on our own.

 John: Yes, but He had no doubt or question as to where He was going nor how to get there. Wherever it was, He would get us there.

James: Still, it's not really a journey, a trip, a going from one spot to another. He means it as a metaphor, right?

John: No! He definitely means it literally, as a real journey, but a life journey, a real journey through life from this world to the next.

Peter: So why didn't He make that clear from the beginning and say: Listen men, I want you all to join my group and spend your lives with me, here in the present and next in the hereafter? That's really what we're doing, living with him and moving around with him in the hope of getting to heaven, no?

John. No, it's more than joining his group and living together in order to get to heaven. What makes us a group, his group, is the following, the getting behind him, the imitating of him, the absorbing of his thoughts, his feelings, his ways,etc. A group united by following Him is what He wants us to be, not just a bunch of people on the way to heaven.

James: Is following the imitating, the learning from, catching from him what kind of persons we should be?

Peter: Maybe another way to put it is this: it's obeying him, doing what he says, not just putting it into our heads, but carrying it out, living it. That's the following He means.

John: Yes, it is both of those things. The imitating and the obeying shapes us into his followers. The following means keeping our eyes on Him, letting his words into us, letting the way He is and what He does shape us inside, change our thinking and feeling so we live more and more by his thinking and feeling, and make it our own, till we feel about one another the what He feels about us. This is the "group" aspect of following Him: his affection for us, not just individually or personally, but as a whole, as brothers.  He wants us to be more than individual persons who follow Him. He wants his feelings for us to shape us into a brotherhood. And that can only happen if we follow Him together.

 James. Why didn't He explain it to us like that in the beginning? Why did He invite us to follow him without  going into the details of what is involved? It's not fair. He should have spelled things out more.

John Why?  If He had explained everything more fully, would you have said yes?

Peter: I wouldn't have! Being with Him isn't so bad.  I like that part. But being with all of you all the time is what is hard to take.

James: I hope you don't think it is any easier for the rest of us to put up with you?! You're harder than anyone to put up with.

Peter: Why do you say that? At least I'm honest enough to say what I think! I don't keep my mouth shut and hide what I'm thinking like the rest of you.

James: Oh sure, you speak up, but you're just trying  to show us up! You want everyone to be impressed with how smart you are, but half the time what you say is really stupid!

John:  Cut it out! You two are getting off the track, arguing about how difficult it is for us to live with one another. That is the whole point of following Him: learning to live with one another because we follow Him.

Peter:What do you mean?

John: You were asking why He didn't explain in more detail  exactly what it mean for us to live in his company, to be with him day in and day out, right?

Peter: Yes.

John: Well, there is no way to explain that beforehand because it's a lived experience. It has to be lived and experienced before it can be understood and explained. Following Him means: learning how to love one another because we love Him,staying together and putting up with one another out of love for him, actually learning to see one another the way He sees us, letting our love for Him become the source of our love for one another. Because we all share the call to follow, we have to be brothers.

 James: You lost me. Why the emphasis on brotherhood?

Peter:  Me too. What has getting along with one another got to do with  following him? I can follow him even though I don't like everybody in the group.

 John: No, you can't. We can only be as close to Him as we are to one another, and as close to one another as we are to Him. Otherwise we're phony, pretending. He wants to be the bond between us. It is not a matter of acting nice and courteously with one another because He tells us we better get along, and so we do it. It is a matter of the love we have for Him overflowing into the love we have for one another. It's the same love because we share the same call. Our call is a companionship, a sharing, a brotherhood, in the same destiny.

James: Now I'm more confused than I was. What has destiny to do with it?

 Peter: That's right! And besides,  what about you and Him? You have a special relationship with Him, right? And so do I, right? And so does everyone else in the group. We are all individuals, aren't we? Our being called together doesn't do away with the fact that we are all different persons.

John: No, of course it doesn't. The call is personal, but it is also communal, a call for us separate persons to be brothers, and it's the following that makes us brothers, that shapes us in brotherhood. Following him together means that we learn to love one another so that the personal differences become the points of unity, not cause for distance and separation. Does that make sense to you two?

Peter: Let me think about it more.

James: Me too.

John: Look at it this way: Because He calls you and me, I want for you what He wants for you, and you want for me what He wants for me. He wants the same thing for all of us: union with Him, life with him, friendship with him, brotherhood. That's our destiny. It's the future, but it's the present too. We start living our destiny now, and the living of it is what makes it our destiny.The only way we achieve our destiny is by being brothers, and the only way we can be brothers is by following him. Right now we are only starting out, so we can't understand what we are supposed to be,  or the brotherhood He wants us to have, we have to grow into it step by step

James. Let me think about it.

Peter: Me too. Right now it is just words.