I have a very bad habit that my wife has been trying to break me of for years. When someone in the publishing business asks me to write something, I can never say “No”, even when my schedule will not permit me to fulfill the commitment. I take on responsibilities irresponsibly.
I have heard people tell me that they cannot believe the gospel of Christ, that all your sins can be forgiven just by believing that he died for you and rose again. “That’s too simple”, they say. “That’s far too easy to be true!” But the fact of the matter is that, while it really is true that finding forgiveness in Christ is almost too easy to be true, being his disciple—which is what all who find that forgiveness will want to be—is anything but easy.
While Jesus was engaged in his public ministry, he attracted lots of people who were fascinated by what he had to say. But most of them wanted an easy association with him: one that would not cost them anything. They were comfortable in their present circumstances and were extremely reluctant to give up any of what they had. As I think all of us reading Luke this winter have seen, Jesus’ ethic was not an easy one at all: it was very demanding. So when he was approached by onlookers who offered to follow him as his disciples, he told them just how much it would cost them. And in most cases this discouraged them.
In today’s passage, Jesus is approached three times by different individuals, and gives a slightly different reply to each. Mark does not record this incident, but Matthew does. In Matthew’s telling there are only two individuals, and he identifies them—not by name, but by occupation or social status. The first is a scribe, and the second is “another of Jesus’ disciples”. While Matthew’s details are undoubtedly historical, Luke sees no value for his purposes in confusing his readers (many of them Gentiles, to whom “scribe” meant something entirely different than in its Palestinian Jewish setting) with these details. He simply records three persons who either came to Jesus and asked to become disciples or responded to Jesus' invitation to follow him.
The first man doesn’t actually ask anything, but makes a promise: “I will follow you wherever you go”. Since Jesus’ ministry at this point was an itinerant one, the obvious surface meaning of this promise is that the man who made it is prepared to leave his home and join Jesus’ traveling band. That was a praiseworthy decision on his part. But he might not have understood the conditions in which the Twelve traveled with Jesus. Jesus’ reply, like the stories he liked to tell, was very colorful and vivid:
“Foxes have holes; birds have nests; but I have nowhere to lay my head”.Life with Jesus would not be a comfortable one. The travel conditions were rough, and the opposition to Jesus which was starting to grow would eventually lead to his arrest and his disciples having to go into hiding. Now, it is not wrong to want to be comfortable. But if you wish to serve God with all your heart, you cannot have both comfort and Jesus. Jesus once said: “No one can serve two bosses: you cannot serve both God and Money”.
To a second man Jesus actually issued an invitation to follow him. But he replied “Let me first go and bury my father.” When you read Jesus’ rejection of his offer, you may think him exceedingly cruel “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. As for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Does Jesus have no feelings at all for this grieving man whose father has died or is dying?
But you must understand that the invited man was not saying that his father had just died and needed burial or was now on his death bed and would die very soon. Had this been the case, the man would not have been in Jesus’ audience, but by his father’s bedside. No, he was using a standard Jewish saying which meant that he needed to stay in his father’s household serving him until his father died. Then he would be free to do his own thing. He wanted to be sure to collect his share of his father’s estate first, and then follow Jesus.
This was respectable behavior, but not what was required for joining Jesus’ traveling party. By the time that man’s father eventually died, Jesus would have been long crucified and raised from the dead and ascended to heaven. Far too late. The lesson here is that there is often a window of opportunity to serve Jesus in certain ways. And when that opportunity opens, a true disciple has to be willing to make great personal sacrifices in order to fulfill it. If you feel God calling you to serve him in some important task, put all else aside and say “Lord, I’ll do it.”
A third man offered to follow Jesus, but only after he first said goodbye to those at his home. To him Jesus said:
“No farmer who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit of the kingdom of God”.The imagery is of a man who tries to plow a straight furrow while always looking back over his shoulder. Anyone who has ever tried that knows it is a sure recipe for an unacceptably crooked furrow, overlapping the adjacent ones. A disciple who is always wondering if he made the right decision to leave his comfort zone and follow Jesus will never have his mind on the task or his heart on the Lord he professes to serve. If you have found joy in believing in Jesus, and you want to serve him, then forget about the so-called “sacrifices” that this kind of living may make necessary. Or "what might have been" in your life, if you had not chosen this path of discipleship.
Some of you may think as you read this, “Does God have to make it so difficult for those who want to serve him?” But in reality, God is doing us a favor. For these tests are here to help us to discover if we really do want to serve Jesus. In the end Judas discovered that he really did not believe in Jesus as the Savior-Messiah. For him money and comfort were more important. So he betrayed his Master for 30 shekels of temple silver. It is only by counting the costs of service that we know if we really have hearts for God, or only for ourselves.
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