That hymn is one of my very favorites. I love the sweetness of that melody and the quiet, pastoral scene it portrays: "They cast their nets in Galilee, just off the hills of brown; such happy, simple fisher-folk, before the Lord came down."

We’ve been talking for the last two weeks about discipleship. I read lots of things about different strategies churches use to make disciples, to recruit and train and motivate, so I think it’s been interesting over the last few weeks to see Jesus doing a little recruiting and training and motivating. But I have to tell you, he doesn’t do it like anybody I’ve ever seen, certainly not like anybody who works in a church.

I once ended up talking to a general at a party. I think I made him uncomfortable. So he decided that since we were both in management positions, he’d talk to me about management. That would have been okay, except that he started to tell me how I should manage the church. I listened politely for a while, then I said, "Excuse me, General, but you don’t know anything about how to manage a church. You have (literally) a whole army of people who work for you and aren’t allowed to quit. And if they don’t follow your orders, they go to jail. I work mostly with volunteers whose time is limited. And I don’t issue orders; I make suggestions, then I negotiate. If they don’t want to do what I want them to do, they often just don’t do it. Believe me, management strategies that work in the military do not translate into the Church."

Now, I told you that because when we see Jesus recruiting and training and motivating, he seems more like a military man than a Church leader. I mean, after all, these people he’s talking to are volunteers; they can just go home whenever they want. But listen to how he talks to them. First, he summons, them and tells them (not asks them, but tells them) that he’s sending them on a mission. And my, what a great selling job he does, what a skillful motivator: "You can’t take a change of clothes or any money. You’ll have to move around a lot, and some places will reject you." I’m trying to imagine the look on their faces (the look on your faces!).

Then, Jesus really turns on the charm: "I’m sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves. You will be whipped and dragged before powerful people, but don’t you worry about your defense — it’ll come to you. And by the way, people are going to hate you because of me, and families will be split apart, and they will even betray one another unto death."

When we heard that last week, I told you that Jesus was sending them and us into the hardest, most resistant, most painful places for the gospel to go. For us that’s poverty, addiction, violence, children being beaten or neglected or sexually abused. Lovely.

This week the Prince of Peace winds up this little inspirational speech by saying, "Don’t you think I’ve come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but the sword. For I’ve come to set family members against one another, and if you can’t take it, if you love your family more than you love me, and if you aren’t willing to take up your own symbol of shame and death and follow me, well, then, you’re just not worthy of me."

Nice speech, Jesus. Way to go. Maybe a general can get away with talking to army recruits like that, but in the church a speech like that would stampede the herd. Can you imagine if we had a class for newcomers (or old-timers, for that matter) and I told them that I had assigned a mission without their consent and then I harangued them with these horror stories and wound up by saying, "Do it or you’re not worthy of being here." What would the church look like?

So, I think we’ve come to a point where it’s fair to ask the kind of question children usually ask, the kind of questions you’re not "supposed" to ask in church: "Since we can just go home if we want to, why would anybody choose to follow Jesus?" Into the wolves, into deprivation, into conflict, maybe into death, certainly into the dark and painful side of human existence. Why not just go home and live the most comfortable and painless life you can?

Well, lots of folks would answer that by saying, "Because we’re afraid of going to hell." But I don’t think that’s the answer. That’s more of the General’s answer: "Do what I tell you or you’re in big trouble." That’s the answer of fear and coercion, but I don’t think it’s Jesus’ answer. I think Jesus’ answer is wrapped up in this odd, enigmatic, line he says after he’s given this motivational speech that would scare the tattoos off a sailor. He says, "Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it."

That’s an odd line: "Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it." To unpack it, we have to recognize that Jesus is playing with three meanings of the word "life." The first is the regular meaning — physical life, not being dead, having a heartbeat and brain waves.

The second meaning is life in ourselves and for ourselves, "life" as devoting ourselves to ourselves: "I’m going to make a life for myself," meaning really "for yourself," to serve yourself. "This is my life." It serves me. This is the view of life, which we all have within us, which is all about me, me, me. This is going home to live the most comfortable, painless life we can.

That meaning of "life" is contrasted with the third meaning — "life in Christ." This is a poetic meaning of "life." It is not about physical life, or life serving self; it is more of an illumination; it is the force of real living that animates our selves as God made us, that liberates us from petty cares. This is life that comes from knowing that you are in a loving relationship with God through Christ, and that your life is part of something so much bigger, so much more significant, and so much more wonderful than your own little being, your own little cares, your own little life.

So, now if we unpack Jesus’ words, he is saying, "Those who find their life in Christ will lose the life they live to serve themselves, and those who lose their life (either physical life or the life lived to serve self) for my sake will find life in Christ." That’s a lot, so let me repeat it: "Those who find their life in Christ will lose the life they live to serve themselves, and those who lose their life (either physical life or the life lived to serve self) for my sake will find life in Christ."

So, Jesus’ gives a speech to his followers that would make any sane man run, and his promise boils down to this: "Follow me, even into the horrors, maybe even to death, and you will have life in Christ. You will know that you are in a loving relationship with God through me, and you will have new life as part of God’s life."

I think that one way to understand this is that what Jesus is telling them is, "If you follow me, you will know the peace of God." "Peace," now that’s another word Jesus uses in different ways. He’s told them that he comes not to bring peace but a sword, that following him will place them in the middle of terrible conflict. But the peace of God doesn’t mean the absence of conflict; it means that as we are tossed about by the cares of life, we have an anchor, and our anchor is the serenity that comes from knowing that each of our lives is part of something so much bigger, so much more significant, and so much more wonderful than our own little being, our own little cares, our own little life.

It’s a sweet melody, and it’s a sweet song about those simple, contented fisher-folk who cast their nets in Galilee. It kind of lulls you in, like its going to be a musical Hallmark card full of nothing but sweetness. But it is not about sweetness. It is the story of how these volunteers, these Apostles who could have gone home any time, responded to Christ’s promise of a life filled with the peace of God, all in exchange for the comfort of a life filled with self.

Our sweet song tells of only two of the Apostles: "Young John who trimmed the flapping sail, homeless, in Patmos died. Peter, who hauled the teeming net, head down was crucified." Tradition has it that all of the others died for the faith. The exception, of course, was Judas Iscariot, but his replacement, Matthias, was stoned and beheaded. The others were crucified, killed by the sword, whipped to death, hanged, thrown from the temple, killed with arrows, stabbed with a lance.

The Prince of Peace did not want to bring the sword, but he knew it would come. And he was certainly right. Why would they have gone? Why did they follow? Why didn’t they just go home?

Because it was worth it. Because they knew where true life is to be found.

And so our song ends, as it should, with these words, "The peace of God, it is no peace, but strife closed in the sod. Yet let us pray for but one thing — the marvelous peace of God."

If you want the peace of God, the life in Christ, God offers it. But you can’t reach out for it if your hand is tightly clutching you own life. You can’t hold them both. This morning, decide. Decide for today. Decide for tomorrow.

Which life will you live?