I’m reading through Luke’s gospel at the moment and the other day I reached chapter 9 verses 57-62. My ESV entitles these verses “The Cost of Following Jesus”. I think my ESV may have missed something though. I’m not sure these verses are only, or even primarily, about cost, they’re about home. They’re about belonging.
The verses begin with someone saying to Jesus, “I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus then starts talking about foxes and birds. Not an obvious response to the man’s declaration, so why this reference to the local wildlife? He’s contrasting them with himself – they have a home in this world, their holes and nests, Jesus does not. They belong here, he doesn’t.
Jesus then asks someone else to follow him. Jesus, no doubt knowingly, has made this request of a man whose father has just died. Given the circumstances therefore the man’s response seems perfectly reasonable, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” Jesus replies, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Why on earth would Jesus say that to this man? Does Jesus really expect us not to bury our dead parents and instead follow him? One answer to this question is no, Jesus doesn’t really expect us to neglect a parent’s burial, what he’s doing is using hyperbole (exaggeration) to make a point. Following Jesus is more important than anything else.
There is another way of explaining this reply of Jesus though. This second encounter has to be read in the light of the first one. This is a passage about where you belong. In the first encounter this world is described as a place where Jesus has no home, in the second we discover that it’s a world characterised by death. Jesus actually says to this man “Leave the dead to bury their own dead.” How can a dead person bury another dead person? The point Jesus is making is not so much to do with the cost of leaving this world behind, but rather that this world is a place of death, even those who are physically living are in a real sense dead – do you want to belong to a world characterised by death? Is that what you want to call home? Jesus then tells the man that he should “proclaim the kingdom of God.” The inference is that though this world of death is not Jesus’ home, there is a different place Jesus calls home, and it is characterised by life – it’s the kingdom of God. Be a part of that kingdom.
Finally we come to the third encounter and, as in the first encounter, we have a man approaching Jesus and saying that he will follow him. Notice though the condition he places on following Jesus, “let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Again Jesus’ reply is often explained in terms of counting the cost of following him. Fair enough, there is cost involved, but is that what Jesus is primarily talking about when he says, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” The problem for this third man is that he thinks he can follow Jesus while calling this world (a world of death remember) home. If this world is home, you’re dead, and if you’re dead you’re not fit for the kingdom of God.
I think that an unhelpful way to apply this last verse in particular would be to say that if you fail or struggle in any way in carrying out the work of God’s Kingdom, if you don’t plow in a perfectly straight line, then you’re not fit for the kingdom and God won’t accept you into it. No, what Jesus is saying in these verses is that where you consider your home to be matters. It matters a lot. If it’s this world then you’re dead, and if you’re dead you’re not fit for God’s Kingdom. But if you’ve been given life, a gift of God’s grace, then God’s Kingdom is your home, and you should consider it to be such.
If you’re a Christian look forward to where you belong, don’t look back longingly at a world of death as if it were your home.
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