But First...

As they were going along the road, someone said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." To another he said, "Follow me." But he said, "Lord, let me first go and bury my father." And Jesus said to him, "Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God." Yet another said, "I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home." Jesus said to him, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God."

People often read these words of Jesus and say to themselves something like this: "I thought Jesus was supposed to be loving. How could he be so harsh? Why would he not even allow a man to say goodbye to his family, or bury his dad? Does he really expect me to drop everything in my life, the family and the work he gave me to wander aimlessly with him?"

Perhaps that is what he is calling you to. Some are called to the life Jesus lived. Paul dedicated his life to traveling around

the country proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus and teaching those who believed his ways. But not all are called to this life.

On the contrary, perhaps in the harshness of Jesus's response, he is calling them to stay.

One says, "I will follow you wherever you go." But Jesus says to him, "Oh, I'm not going anywhere in particular." This man wanted to go somewhere. He wanted to go with Jesus and go do great things for God. Jesus told him that's not what he was doing. Jesus doesn't go to places but to people. If the man wanted to follow Jesus, he didn't have to follow him to any place other than where he already was. Perhaps Jesus was telling him that if he wanted to follow, he should stay.

To another Jesus says, "Follow me." And the man in response says, "Okay. But I've got some responsibilities at home first. Let me just tie those up and then I'll come." In contrast to the first man, Jesus calls this man to follow, but then tells the man to GO and proclaim the kingdom. How can Jesus say to the same man both to come and to go? Perhaps when he says to "leave the dead to bury their own dead," which is a preposterous statement, by the way, if you're going to take it literally, what he actually means is "you proclaim the kingdom of God EVEN IF it means leaving your family responsibilities undone.

This is not a call to a specific action (leave your father) but a priority. It is a call to put nothing above the proclamation of Christ, even your family. Perhaps you do need to take care of your family, but don't use that as an excuse to not follow Jesus. Proclaim his kingdom even there. That IS following Jesus.

To a third man, who wants to come with Jesus, he says, "If you gotta look back, it's not worth you coming." Maybe you read this with this picture: A man starts plowing a field. His family is calling to him, but he refuses to look at them. His eyes remain fixed on the earth, digging trenches, planting seed, trying to force himself to forget the people he once loved for the sake of the work.

Not only is this depressing, it is heartless, cruel, and I would argue that if a person tries to numb themselves to the feeling of love for their families, they risk numbing themselves to love for anyone at all. Clearly, this is not what Jesus is saying. Perhaps instead of calling this man to stop loving his family so that he can focus on proclaiming God's kingdom, he is actually acknowledging the man's love for his family and telling him not to desert it. Perhaps he is not saying, "come and don't look back" but "stay and don't look back." But at the same time, don't let that stop you from proclaiming the Kingdom.

There is no "but first."

Perhaps instead of reading this passage as "go somewhere, forget your previous life, then proclaim the Kingdom," we should really read this simply as "proclaim the Kingdom." Jesus is redefining for these three, and for most of us, what it means to follow him. And sometimes that's even harder to actually do.