I want you to do something for a few moments. Please close your eyes and keep them closed. Imagine that 2000 years have melted away. You are there with Peter and Andrew, James and John on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. You’ve had a hard days’ work fishing. You’re tired and you’re looking forward to going home for dinner soon. Then you see Jesus coming down the hill to the beach. You have known him for years. He’s a good friend and you’re glad to see him. You have always admired him for his principles and convictions. He’s a man of deep faith but he’s also a real human being. He’s easy to be with. He likes a good joke and a dinner party as much as you do, but somehow he always seemed a bit different. Not in a bad way, but still, different. Today he seems very different. He looks at you in a way that’s hard to describe. He speaks to you and says, “Come, follow me, I want you to be my disciple.” He even makes a little joke about it. “Stop fishing for fish and be a fisher for men and women.” That makes you smile a little. Jesus always did have a sense of humor.

But today, now, at this moment, you can see how serious he is. He wants you to leave everything behind and follow him. Even though you are just an ordinary human being he wants you. Somehow you sense that if you accept his invitation, your life will never be the same again. You’ll have to leave your home, your family, your work behind and who knows when you will be able to come back to them. You also suspect that if you do decide to follow him there may be risk, even danger. Still he says to you, “Follow me.” Seeing him, hearing his voice what are you going to say? You may open your eyes now.

With the benefit of two thousand years of Christian history we know what happened to those fishermen. Three and, perhaps, four of them met terrible deaths. Moments like this are never easy. I love the first line of James Russell Lowell’s great hymn: “Once to every man, once to every woman, comes the moment to decide.” But if we are afraid to decide “… the choice goes by forever ‘Twixt that darkness and that light.” We may think that a decision to follow Christ today doesn’t involve much risk, if any, and no real danger. Our half-hearted Christian faith takes no courage. But sometimes it does.

In the nineteenth century, a Frenchman named Blondin was the greatest tight-rope walker in the world. To demonstrate both his skill and his bravery he had a cable strung across the Niagara Gorge. Thousands of people came to see him go over and then back. But as the thrill of the novelty faded, Blondin pushed a wheelbarrow full of bricks back and forth on the tight-rope. Again, people were fascinated at first and then lost interest. Finally, Blondin said he was ready to have a man get in the wheelbarrow and he would push him across the gorge. Blondin asked the crowd if they thought he could perform this feat. Naturally, they all yelled “Yes!” One man seemed particularly enthusiastic. Blondin walked up to him and said, “Then get in the wheelbarrow.” And do you know something? He did! Blondin pushed him safely over and back. Sometimes in life we have to have confidence, not in our own ability, but in the ability of someone else.

Today I hear many people lamenting: “Where are the great leaders of the past? We need great leaders today in every part of our country.” Of course we do. Great leaders are always needed. We need great leaders in our government, in business, in the church, in every part of society. I have a shelf-full of books trying to describe what it means to be a great leader. The books give great advice, but all of them lack one crucial thing. Great leaders can only be great if they have great followers. By themselves, great leaders cannot accomplish much of anything without great followers. Just like love and marriage, you can’t have one without the other.

Let’s be honest: most of us don’t see ourselves becoming a great leader. As a matter of fact, we don’t even want to be a leader. We’re glad to leave the responsibility of leadership to others. But even though we may not want to be a leader we are all challenged to be great followers.

What does it mean to be a great follower? Let’s think back to that moment of imagination at the beginning of the message. What if you found the courage to say “Yes!” to Jesus’ invitation to be his follower? Is that all there is to it? Of course not. That’s just the first step. To be a great follower requires more than the decision to be one. There is something else that is of crucial importance.

When I was the Senior Minister of the Congregational Church of San Mateo one of our finest members became a dear friend: Howard Blitz. Howard had seen a lot of life and he was a very wise man. Once when we were having dinner together I asked him what he believed was the most important quality in human life. Love? Courage? Honesty? No, said Howard, the most important quality in life is loyalty. Without loyalty nothing else matters or will last. I believe Howard was right. My dictionary says that to be loyal means to be steadfast in commitment to a person, to a cause, to a country.

Personally, I don’t believe loyalty is valued as much as it used to be. Loyalty means the willingness to “hang in there” when the going gets tough in our job, in our marriage, in our country. Sadly, that kind of commitment seems to be lacking in so many people today. How does it go? “As long as I can get what I want from this relationship, I’ll stay with it. If things become too demanding, I’m out of here.” Friends, when we are not loyal to our marriages, our families, our church, our community, our nation, then the fabric of our life begins to unravel. Marriages break up, families split apart, churches struggle to survive, communities stop caring about one another, and nations fall into bitter partisanship. Loyalty is the human glue that holds us together as a society. When we lack loyalty William Butler Yeats was right in his poem (“The Second Coming”), “The best lack all conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity.” For any society to endure it needs great followers who will challenge leaders to have that same commitment.

Now let’s bring it all down to today. After this worship, we will meet together to choose our leaders for another year. For Pilgrim not simply to survive but to thrive in the challenging climate we face our church will, indeed, require great church leaders. While neither I nor any of your elected officials think of ourselves as “great” leaders, I can promise you one thing: We will do the very best we can to move Pilgrim forward. We love this church deeply and we will take our leadership with great seriousness. But regardless of how great we may or may not be as leaders, you can make us better leaders by being a great follower. We cannot do this without your loyalty and support. By your commitment and dedicated followership working together in 2014 will mark the beginning of a wonderful new century in the life of Pilgrim Church. God has great things in store for us. What an exciting time we will have together! Are you with us?