No Reservations (Luke 9:57-62)
At the start of this journey, Jesus encounters three want-to-be disciples. Each face a challenge to their idea of what being a follower of Jesus entails.
The first says that He will fallow Jesus wherever He may go. The implication is a destination, and aim, a home. Jesus responds by saying that He has no home. He does, of course, however not in this world. Jesus’s followers must face the fact that they never will belong to this world, it’s comforts, expectations, and aims. We follow a different Kingdom. A better one, but one that brings suffering, discomfort, and rejection in this world. Disciples are not just students of a “better” way.
The second was asked to follow but insisted on his own time and manner. The request to bury one’s father is, at first, reasonable sounding and good. However, do not think that the father had just died and he was needing burial at the moment. The man would hardly be wandering about in public where he could receive the invitation if that were the case. The man wanted to wait until his father (along with the relationship, expectations, and obligations) was gone. Jesus does not want people to completely abandon their relationships, but following Jesus comes first and foremost.
The final potential disciple asks to say farewell to his household. Jesus says something about how a person does not set out to plow a field by looking backward. It seems at first that this request is similar to the second man’s concern for family obligations. However, Jesus’s response addresses another aspect of following Jesus. In Jesus’s kingdom, we play the role we were created for. We set forth on a journey with Him and do not look back or live in the past. Once again, this is not a call to abandon family and relationships, but we can’t stay back with those unwilling to go. We are on mission as disciples of Jesus.
The first says that He will fallow Jesus wherever He may go. The implication is a destination, and aim, a home. Jesus responds by saying that He has no home. He does, of course, however not in this world. Jesus’s followers must face the fact that they never will belong to this world, it’s comforts, expectations, and aims. We follow a different Kingdom. A better one, but one that brings suffering, discomfort, and rejection in this world. Disciples are not just students of a “better” way.
The second was asked to follow but insisted on his own time and manner. The request to bury one’s father is, at first, reasonable sounding and good. However, do not think that the father had just died and he was needing burial at the moment. The man would hardly be wandering about in public where he could receive the invitation if that were the case. The man wanted to wait until his father (along with the relationship, expectations, and obligations) was gone. Jesus does not want people to completely abandon their relationships, but following Jesus comes first and foremost.
The final potential disciple asks to say farewell to his household. Jesus says something about how a person does not set out to plow a field by looking backward. It seems at first that this request is similar to the second man’s concern for family obligations. However, Jesus’s response addresses another aspect of following Jesus. In Jesus’s kingdom, we play the role we were created for. We set forth on a journey with Him and do not look back or live in the past. Once again, this is not a call to abandon family and relationships, but we can’t stay back with those unwilling to go. We are on mission as disciples of Jesus.
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