The Cost of Following Jesus
18 When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake. 19 Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.”
20 Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
21 Another disciple said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”
22 But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”
Jesus calls us to have an alliance with him, a compromise.
Jesus saw the crowd at his right, left and decided to cross the lake. I suppose, He is not interested in superficial relationships.
A teacher of the law made a great declaration when Jesus was taking the boat:
- "I will follow you wherever you go".
I suppose he expected that Jesus took him on the boat with his disciples as he was leaving the crowd.
Some suppose that the scribe was looking for some vibe as the crowd was around Jesus and he would be closer to Jesus, so the crowd would be around him too. Who knows? Perhaps He saw many miracles. Whatever the reason, he was indeed enchanted by Jesus.
However, Jesus replied:
- "The Son of Man has no home".
As he was a scribe, he should know Daniel 7:
13 “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man,[a] coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence.14 He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.
So Jesus sounded as:
- "Are you willing to abandon the comfort of your home for the One who is the king over all nations?".
The scribe should sleep in no place previously known. He should follow Jesus in the unknown which would require some faith that Jesus is indeed the Son of Man.
The scribe might be like a teenager that is enchanted by a girl but he is very unstable: she is all to him and suddenly she is nothing to him.
In order to sustain a normal human marriage, there is a lot of adjustments from both sides; there is a lot of dying. A normal marriage leads to some transformation which is painful. A follower of Jesus will always be requested to abandon his way of thinking, his way of seeing the world, and his own wisdom. As the follower is dying to himself, Jesus will be living and modifying his life more and more.
Another disciple (not in the 12) asked him, according to many commentaries,
- "Let me stay with dad as he is old in order to bury him after his death that may happen some years ahead".
In that region, "bury the father" may mean "wait for the father's death and bury him".
I think that this disciple, by opposite, should enter in the boat along others disciples, but he asked to break his journey with Jesus at that point. Jesus told him, according to commentaries:
- "Let the spiritual dead people bury the physical dead people."
as saying that lost people (dead people, people of this world) could handle the burying activity while him, should focus on a more noble mission. Thus, Jesus said:
- "following me is a greater vocation than the obligation to your own family".
Perhaps, as the man would come back to his parents, he would never follow Jesus.
This disciple was being disciplined. He might not be mature enough to leave Jesus and be exposed to his parents thoughts. Imagine that in a marriage, the wife asks for the husband to stay with his old father till he dies. It certainly should destroy the marriage.
Jesus calls me to have a deep relationship with him, an alliance that lasts to the eternity. He calls me to surrender my life to Him, that He will lead me in the unknown, to a new life full of hardships but also full of life. Following Jesus means to put Him in first place, even above the most deer ones.
For me, marriage had a great impact on my life. A solitary person lives for himself while a married person lives for his family. I, as a father, had to do a lot of things I didn't like. I went many times to hospitals due to my daughter but at the end, I am happier. In some way, I had to put my interests bellow my family.
An alliance with Jesus is very similar to a marriage where we find more joy, a more abundant life; but this is accomplished by continually saying: "Jesus, you are the Lord; your will come first."
An addendum:
What is a greater vocation than the obligation to my own family? The local church that works as a club? I suppose not. The Bible stress to honor the parents in the Old and New testaments. Some pastors take care of the crowd in a church and abandons their families. What a tragedy!
However, Jesus is really greater than my parents, my spouse and children. In fact, I have a great obligation to lead them all to Jesus. My family is my main church.
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