Introduction
To see what it looks like to live by taking Jesus’ words literally (or at face value), look to St. Francis.
From St. Francis, we learn not to rely on our worldly possessions.
From St. Francis, we learn about God’s intention to redeem all creation.
From St. Francis, we learn to follow in Jesus’ footsteps.
Francis was born in Assisi in 1181 or 1182 and baptized Giovanni. His father, Pietro di Bernardone, was a prosperous cloth merchant whose business took him regularly to the fairs of France, and the boy came to be called Francesco, “the Frenchman.” By every account he was a young man of means and ambition. In 1202 he rode out with the men of Assisi against neighboring Perugia, was captured at the battle of Collestrada, and spent about a year as a prisoner of war. He came home sick, and the life he had planned no longer satisfied him.
His conversion came slowly. Late in life, Francis traced its beginning to the lepers outside the city walls. He wrote:
“When I was in sin, it seemed too bitter for me to see lepers. And the Lord himself led me among them and I showed mercy to them. And when I left them, what had seemed bitter to me was turned into sweetness of soul and body.”
Not long afterward, praying before the crucifix in the ruined chapel of San Damiano, he heard the words, “Francis, go rebuild my house, which, as you see, is all being destroyed.” Francis took that command literally, a recurring theme in his life.
Eager to obey, Francis took cloth from his father’s shop, sold it, along with his horse, at the market in Foligno, and offered the money to the priest of San Damiano to repair the chapel. Fearing Francis’s father, the priest refused. Pietro di Bernardone was enraged by what Francis had done and brought his son before the bishop of Assisi to recover what was his. Francis returned the money, stripped off his clothes, laid them at his father’s feet, and declared he would no longer call him father. Instead, he would reserve that term for his father in heaven. He then went back to San Damiano and began rebuilding the chapel with stones he begged from his neighbors.
Around 1208, at Mass in the little chapel of the Portiuncula, Francis heard the Gospel in which Jesus sends out his disciples with no gold, no bag, no second tunic, and no staff (Matt 10:9–10; cf. Luke 9:3). He again interpreted this quite literally. He received it as a command addressed to him. Soon others joined him, the first being Bernard of Quintavalle, a wealthy man from Assisi. To learn how they ought to live, Francis and his companions went to the church of San Nicolò looking for divine instruction, and they opened the Gospel book three times. The first passage they opened to was Matthew 19:21.
Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”
The second passage was Luke 9:3.
And he said to them, “Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money; and do not have two tunics.”
The third was Matthew 16:24.
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”
Francis wrote down a simple way of life, made up mostly of words from the Gospels taken quite literally, and around 1209 he took this Rule to Rome, where Pope Innocent III gave it his oral approval. Unfortunately, the text of that first Rule has not survived. Over the next decade, it grew into what we now call the Earlier Rule of 1221, and its first chapter still preserves the conviction Francis brought back from San Nicolò. The Rule begins like this:
“The rule and life of these brothers is this: to live in obedience, in chastity, and without anything of their own, and to follow the teaching and the footprints of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
The Teaching and the Footprints
The teaching and the footprints of our Lord Jesus Christ.
That last phrase really interests me this morning. It appears at the beginning of the Earlier Rule, but it recurs throughout Francis’ writing and teaching. He understood the Christian life as a lifelong act of following in the footsteps of Jesus.
The idea of following in Jesus’ footsteps is not original to Francis. It comes from 1 Peter 2:21.
For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.
This idea is at the heart of the Franciscan order, but it applies just as much to ordinary Christians. And the church desperately needs to recover this idea.
The Protestant church typically thinks of Paul as the teacher and Christ as the savior. Jesus died for our sins, and we will be forever grateful, but the Protestant church turns to Paul for its theology and for how we make sense of what Christ has accomplished. But when we talk about following in Jesus’ footsteps, we’re not talking primarily about either category: salvation or theology. We’re talking about ethics and how we live day to day.
Hebrews 12 calls Jesus “the founder and perfecter of our faith” (12:2). But the word for founder is ἀρχηγός (archēgos). It means trailblazer, the one who goes before. Christ has left footprints in this world for his people to follow. He is our example of how to live. And for whatever reason, so much of the Protestant church (and probably not just Protestant) has blocked this notion out. We want to get our theology right. We want to get our creeds right. We want to get our orthodoxy right. But actually following Jesus? Actually walking in his footprints? Actually living the way that he lived? Most of us don’t want anything to do with that.
When Jesus invites his disciples to take up their cross and follow him, he clearly states that the path he wants them to walk is the path he himself walked before them. We can, as it were, see the footprints that he left on this world during his journey to the cross, and we are called to follow in those same steps.
That’s what it means to live the Christian life: following Jesus’ footprints.
Read the Gospels
So how do we follow in Jesus’ footsteps? How do we walk the way of the cross, following behind our archēgos? I’m going to reduce this down to two simple steps, but as you’ll see, they’re maybe not as simple as you might think.
First, you have to read the Gospels. There’s no replacement for this step, and please notice that I said the Gospels, not the Bible. I mean that distinction intentionally, and I don’t want anyone to miss it. If you want to follow in Jesus’ footsteps, you have to know what Jesus did and taught.
Just yesterday I saw a clip of someone very famous, someone you’d probably all know, who was flabbergasted by the idea that the incarnate Son of God’s words had more moral and theological authority than the words of Genesis, Exodus, or Leviticus.
If we can’t get this right, why are we even calling ourselves Christians and not Biblians? When we read our Bibles, the question of moral and theological authority is answered by concentric circles that grow larger as they move outward from the center, with Jesus’ words and deeds at the center. There is no substitute for opening our Bibles, hearing his words, and reading those stories so we can see his footprints (how he lived and loved) and walk that path behind him, which leads me to step number two.
If we want to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, we should be asking ourselves a simple question:
What Would Jesus Do?
What would Jesus do? Do you know where that question comes from? In 1896, Charles Sheldon wrote a novel titled In His Steps: “What Would Jesus Do?”, and he took the title from 1 Peter 2:21, the same verse behind Francis’s “in the footsteps of our Lord Jesus Christ.” In 1989, Janie Tinklenberg, a youth leader in Holland, MI, put the letters on woven bracelets, and by the late 1990s “WWJD” had become a mass-market phenomenon.
At the turn of the millennium, I was starting my undergraduate degree at The Master’s College. Master’s is a conservative Christian school where getting everything right (interpreting the Bible accurately and ensuring we were orthodox and theologically correct in matters that extended well beyond the creed) mattered deeply. At Master’s, it was in vogue to mock WWJD. The bracelets aren’t nearly as popular anymore because different parts of the church, particularly the Reformed parts like Master’s, began to mock and judge them incessantly. As a mass-marketing phenomenon, some of that criticism was certainly warranted, but I am fundamentally perplexed that anyone ever had a problem with this question.
Some theologians and authors have argued strenuously that asking ourselves “What would Jesus do?” stops us from seeing Jesus as Savior and reduces him to a moral teacher or instructor. But he is our archēgos. He is the trailblazer. He has walked the path before us, and he calls us, as his disciples, to follow him.
In Sheldon’s novel, the church commits to asking “What would Jesus do?” before making any decision over the course of a calendar year. Don’t worry. I’m not asking you to make that kind of commitment today. Instead, I am reminding you that the moment you were baptized and confirmed, you already made that commitment!
When you were baptized, you said, “My life is hidden with Christ in God. My life is defined by who I am in Jesus.” If that’s the case, then why isn’t “What would Jesus do, right here, right now?” always the right question to ask?
That’s what it means to be a disciple of Christ: to find our identity in Jesus Christ and to try to walk the path that he has walked before us.
Somehow we seem to have lost the plot entirely. Thanks be to God for people like St. Francis whom God calls to remind the church of its most basic vocation.
Conclusion
To be a Christian is to take up our cross and follow Jesus, or, put another way, to follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ our Lord. And while his literal footprints may have been lost to the sands of time, they aren’t entirely lost. The Gospels help us see his footprints.
If you want to know what Jesus would do, you won’t find the answer by watching Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, or whatever else is popular now. No one on cable news or in politics cares at all about what Jesus would do. I’m sure they say they do, and they will ask you to vote for them because of that claim. But they don’t. If you want to know “What would Jesus do?”, then turn off your television, stop looking to Capitol Hill for a savior, open Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, and start reading.
Ask yourself: how much time do you spend reading the Bible and praying each day versus scrolling through your phone, probably with the news blaring in the background? How much time do you spend letting the television or your phone tell you what’s important, what path you should be walking in this world, instead of doing what Hebrews says: setting your eyes on Jesus, the trailblazer of our faith?
I have all kinds of problems with Francis’ overly literalistic reading of the Gospels, and please, when you’re trying to understand what God wants or what you’re supposed to do, don’t ever start opening your Bible and pointing to random verses as Francis did. Scripture doesn’t work like that.
But Francis was spot on in calling his Franciscan brothers in particular and the whole church more generally to walk in the footprints of Jesus, because following in the teachings and footprints of our Lord Jesus Christ (drowning out all the other noise around us and ignoring all the other paths the talking heads on television and our phones want us to follow) is what it means to be his disciple.
Amen.
Study Guide
Intro Prayer
Heavenly Father, we gather today as your people, seeking not only to know about your Son but to follow him truly. As we open your Word and discuss what it means to walk in Jesus’ footprints, we ask that your Holy Spirit soften our hearts and open our eyes. Remove any pride or distraction that would keep us from hearing what you want to say to us today. May this time together draw us closer to Christ and to one another. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Ice Breaker
If you could walk in the footsteps of any historical figure for a single day and see the world through their eyes, who would you choose and why?
Questions
St. Francis took Jesus’ words quite literally. In what ways do you think that kind of radical obedience is admirable, and where might it require some wisdom or discernment?
Why might a Christian distinguish between reading the Gospels specifically and reading the Bible more broadly? Do you agree that Jesus’ words and actions carry a unique kind of authority for the Christian life?
Francis heard the command to “rebuild my house” and obeyed it literally before understanding its deeper meaning. Have you ever felt called to do something that only made sense later? What was that experience like?
Much of the church has focused on getting theology and doctrine right while neglecting the call to actually follow Jesus in daily life. Do you think that is a fair observation? Where have you seen this tension in your own faith journey?
The question “What would Jesus do?” was once widely popular and then widely mocked. Why do you think that question became a target of criticism, and do you still think it’s a valuable question for Christians to ask?
Hebrews 12:2 describes Jesus as the archēgos, the trailblazer or pioneer of our faith. How does thinking of Jesus as the one who went before you, rather than only as the one who died for you, change how you approach your daily decisions?
Compare honestly the time you spend reading Scripture and praying with the time you spend consuming news and social media. How does your own daily rhythm reflect your priorities, and what might need to change?
Francis’s rule of life called his brothers to live in obedience, chastity, and without possessions, following the teaching and footprints of Jesus. What would a modern, personal rule of life look like for you if it were genuinely shaped by Jesus’s example in the Gospels?
Life Application
This week, commit to spending at least fifteen minutes each day reading one of the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. As you read, keep a simple journal or note on your phone and write down one thing Jesus said or did, then ask yourself honestly: “What would it look like for me to follow in this footprint in my own life this week?” Let the Gospels, rather than the news or social media, set the agenda for how you think and act.
Key Takeaways
Following Jesus means more than believing correct doctrine. It means actively walking in the footprints he left in this world, imitating his way of life as our archēgos, our trailblazer and pioneer.
The Gospels are irreplaceable for the Christian life because they alone show us concretely how Jesus lived, loved, and taught. Nothing can replace reading them regularly and attentively.
The question “What would Jesus do?” does not reduce Jesus to a mere moral teacher. It faithfully expresses what baptism and confirmation already commit us to: finding our identity in Christ and walking his path.
The church is called to drown out the noise of politics, media, and culture and to fix its eyes on Jesus. No cable news channel or political figure can tell us what path to walk. Only the Gospels can do that.
St. Francis reminds the whole church of its most basic vocation: to take up the cross and follow Jesus, walking in his teachings and footprints as a lifelong act of discipleship.
Ending Prayer
Heavenly Father, your Son, Jesus Christ, is the trailblazer of our faith, who has walked the path before us and calls us to follow. Forgive us for the times we have been content to admire him from a distance rather than take up our cross and walk behind him. As we leave this time together, give us the courage to open the Gospels, sit with his words, and ask honestly what it means to follow in his footsteps in our homes, workplaces, and communities. May the example of St. Francis inspire us not to a reckless literalism, but to a wholehearted devotion to your Son. Drown out every other voice that competes for our allegiance, and fix our eyes on Jesus alone. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.