Let the dead bury their dead

The difficult saying of Jesus we are looking at today I will read it upfront but then we will practice the 3 rules of proper Biblical interpretation which are: context, context, context. So let’s read this text found in Luke 9:59-60 “59 And He said to another, “Follow Me.” But he said, “Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father.” 60 But He said to him, “Allow the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God.”

At face value it might seem that Jesus is being overtly harsh to this man. But what I love about this text is, it gives us a very clear example of how we will read it with our own impressions. We read this and we read it within our culture. We read it within our practices. So as we read this we are thinking of a man who has a father who is on his death bed and will pass very soon and be buried. Or perhaps he has recieved news of his fathers passing and he must attend the funeral. That is what we read into the text. But before we can interpret this text appropriately we need the 3 rules of proper Biblical Interpretation: context, context, context. These two verses of controversy are placed between two other conversations which give us the context of the dialogue. So let’s step back and read the surrounding verses. I want to first read the exchange Jesus has before the verses in question today. In its full context Jesus interacts with 3 men. The controversial passage we are looking at today falls in the middle, with the second man. What we are going to do is actually look at the first and third interaction, before we look at the second. The first man, Luke 9:57-58 “57 As they were going along the road, someone said to Him, “I will follow You wherever You go.” 58 And Jesus said to him, “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” In these 3 interactions we are going to examine today we see two different types of people. The first is seen here with this man. He is the idealist. There is an experience this man thinks he will have. He believes that following Jesus will result in the Ideal playing out. Here is my question, what has this man witnessed which has led him to believe that, by following Jesus, his life is going to be the ideal, or exciting, heroic?

The ideal is something we see come up every 2 years, especially every 4 when we have presidential elections. Campaigns present the ideal. Did you know that there are people who still believe that what is said in the campaign, is what they are really going to do? Let’s not talk politics, i want you to hear what I have to say today. As a father, I am subjected to watching terrible children’s movies . Some of yall know the struggle. Now, some are not so bad. Evelyn loves music and dancing and so the movie Trolls is fun for her to watch, fun for me as well because I watch her watch the movie. But in this movie we have the main character embarking on a journey to rescue her friends before they are eaten. When asked what her plan was she says, “To rescue our friends and get home safely.” That is not a plan, that’s the ideal. I have seen this sense of the ideal at Bible college. The ideal which is seen by many young ministers is, being a mega church pastor or to work in a mega church. To work in a church that is state of the art. Fresh and vibrant. You see that in the eyes of so many men going into the ministry. But what actually happens? Almost all will end up at a small church. Can I open up to you about something? I learned real quick my demeanor and personality is not good for a large church. You have no know me to get my sarcasm. I am dry in my humor, and if you don’t know me, you think I might be serious. Throw in my dark sense of humor, look I would not last long. I need relationship in the very least you know, I am not that serious, i just VERY sarcastic.

The Idealist see’s Jesus and glimpses of adventure and excitement flood their mind. They are going to change the world! This reminds me of Acts 19 when Jewish exorcists were trying to caste out evil spirits attempting to use the name of Jesus to caste them out. One exorcist in particular attempted this and the spirit said, “...I recognize Jesus, and I know of Paul, but who are you?” The idealist see’s their name in lights but the truth is, demons do not even know your name. That’s how little of a threat you are to them. You see, the Kingdom of God is not for the idealist. This man did not want Jesus for the Kingdom of God, he wanted Jesus for the experience. This is unique, exciting, maybe even heroic. The idealist needs to be reminded of the harshness of Kingdom work. This is why Jesus says, The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” Jesus pulls the Idealist into reality. This is not easy. There will be suffering. There will be hardship. This man needed a dose of reality. The Gospel is carried on the backs of men and women who give their blood, sweat, and tears not for their name to be remembered, but for the name of Jesus Christ to be heard. If you have the chance listen to pastors talk, be a fly on the wall. Don’t interrupt, don’t judge, just listen. You will hear countless stories of hardship. You will hear frustrating stories of congregants who have a vendetta against them. Leadership who want to see their church slowly die. Yet its told with laughter. That’s odd. Here is something I will fill you in on, being a pastor is very lonely. In all my years of ministry I have had two friends. Other men I could be honest about my struggles, my sin, my shortcomings. But for years I have done ministry without a single friend to confide in. Do you know why? People really don’t want to know that their pastor struggles. I have had congregants tell me throughout ministry, you are too open. You have heard about some of my struggles from the pulpit, having struggled for years with addiction to pornography. But for many people, that’s the past. That’s fine. But what about this last week? What about yesterday? People say, they want to know, but they really don’t want to know about my sanctification. So, many pastors, just keep it in. You listen to pastors talk to one another and it will seem like such a lonely existence. It will seem like 85% of their job is muck and mire. They laugh about the heartbreak. You laugh, so you don’t cry. It is 85% of bleh, but then you have people who will come along and trust you. I mean trust you. Who will open up to you and share their life with you. You have people who you baptize and then see their growth in the LORD. You see kids come to the LORD and then watch them grow. You cling to those. Kingdom work is not for the idealist, whether that is as a pastor, 3/3rds leader, children ministry volunteer, and just being a Christian. Jesus tells the idealist, it will not be what you think it will be.

Let’s skip the second man for a moment and move on to the third interaction Jesus has. It is clear that the context of the difficult saying today is smack dab in the middle of Jesus interacting with people who are entertaining the idea of following Him as a disciple.

The first man offers commitment with- no conditions. Though he is in error as to what to expect, he will follow with no conditions. The second and third man, have conditions. Let’s read the third interaction, Luke 9:61-62 “61 Another also said, “I will follow You, Lord; but first permit me to say good-bye to those at home.” 62 But Jesus said to him, “No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” We just talked about the idealist. What we find in the second and third man is the pragmatist or the realist. We saw that with the idealist, they need to be shown of the hardness of the Kingdom. But the realist, needs to be shown the greatness of the Kingdom. They need to be reminded of the weight, the commitment, the importance of the Kingdom. The request being made by the man does not seem to be much but there are deeper questions which need to be addressed. First, where is home? What direction? What distance? If Jesus is going this way and your home is two days journey the other, you are not going to follow Jesus, you are not even going to find Him, He is gone. What does this tell us? The work is now, there is a harvest out there, follow Jesus now. But the man does not see this, he does not see the weight, the importance of the Kingdom. There is always something holding them back, keeping them tethered.

Aldous Huxley who was a Hedonistic atheist said this “I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning; and consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics. He is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do. For myself, as no doubt for most of my friends, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation from a certain system of morality (or as I will add, a lack thereof).” What Huxley is saying is, there is no purely intellectual objection. Some will say “I might believe in Jesus but I have some intellectual problems with the Bible.” Huxley, rightly says, no you don’t. Your objections are not purely intellectual, the objection you have starts with, you don’t want it to be true. It is not about the historicity of the Bible. The trustworthiness of it’s transcription. No, what is preventing you from believing is, you want to do what you want, and Jesus would get in the way of that. This is what we have now (in Huxley’s case he wanted to pursue hedonism), therefore we don’t want Jesus to be who He says He is, because He is a threat to our not having what we want. Why? Because if Jesus is who He claims to be, you must completely submit to Him.

This is where this man finds himself, it is not that going and seeing his family one last time is that important, its that he really doesn't want to go. This is why Jesus says, “No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” We need get into what Jesus says here. First, when plowing, the focus is what is going on in front of you. To look back would cause the plowing lines to move and shift, which causes problems all the way down the panting and harvest process. This is also similar when riding a bike. Have you ever tried to ride and look backwards. You’re going to veer that way. Paul wrote in Philippians 3:13 “13 Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead,” The mind of the one who is following Christ cannot be divided. Their mind cannot be separated from the work at hand. When we keep looking back to what we have left, we are revealing what our heart truly yearns for. When we say, “I want to follow Jesus” but our eyes look back to what we have left, we prove to ourselves we don’t really want to follow Jesus. This is not the only place which Jesus makes the call to follow Him bold, earlier in the same chapter of Luke Jesus says in verses 23-24 “23 And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. 24 “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.” Jesus is saying the same thing here, to walk toward the Kingdom, is to walk away from the things that tether us to the world. If your desire is to live in Kentucky, you can sell all you have, pack everything up, travel to the KY-TN border. But until you leave TN. Until you take that step into this new place, everything that has happened leading up to this point means nothing. Until you take that step. There are some of us who have done an awful lot to follow Jesus. We have committed years, investing in the local church, volunteering, helping, but you’re still on that border. You have not taken that step out of your kingdom and into His. When we look back it reveals our true yearning. Lots wife did the same. There was something back in Sodom she wanted more, and she looked back. Jesus says, those who will keep themselves tethered to their past, to their own kingdom, they are not fit for the kingdom of God. Ouch!

This brings us to the controversial verses of Jesus that we read at the beginning. We look now at second man. Having covered the first and the third we have more context in order to understand this interaction more.

Luke 9:59-60 “59 And He said to another, “Follow Me.” But he said, “Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father.” 60 But He said to him, “Allow the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God.” So we know these are an assortment of exchanges between Jesus and other people. Its a montage of people who professed their desire to follow Jesus and yet they all have a problem. The first thinks it will be a glorious adventure, while the second and third find themselves still attached to the things of this world. The second man seems to have a very reasonable request, “Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father.” Here in lies the problem, yes, the Jewish custom of burial weighed heavy on the sons, especially the oldest. There was such a burden placed on the son to bury his father in this culture. Nothing commanded by God, but very heavy man made burdens. To not look after your father upon his death would be seen as a complete abandonment of your father. The problem, when a person died they were put into a tomb that day! The Jewish burial process was not a quick one. The person was wrapped and placed in a tomb to decompose. Following that their bones were placed in a box and then that box was buried. It is said that it would take about 30 days for the body to decompose. Here is what we know. The mans father was not dead because if it were the case that his father were near death he would have been with him. He would have been by his side or face being a social pariah, even losing his inheritance. If his fathers burial is so important and his father was near death he most certainly would not be there with Jesus. We know his father is not dead and not near death. We know that at minimum the burial process would take 30 days upon the father’s death. This man was not asking to be given a day or two. This would have been months even years.

St. Augustine who was not always a follower of Christ. Before his conversion he went to listen to a preacher with his fiance who he lived with. Side note: this is not to be the conduct of a Christian, don’t play house, get married and if you’re afraid to marry them then why are you even dating them? I digress. He goes and listens to this sermon and he is cut to the chore but in this conviction he is faced with this serious dilemma which we find happening with the last two men, this one in particular. In this moment he records one of his most famous prayers, “Lord, make me good, but not yet.” Many of our prayers sound like this don’t they? Lord make me good, but not yet. Though, in a few weeks, you will hear more from Augustine and his great insight into the Triune nature of God, before that day ever came when his life was fully committed to Jesus Christ He prayed this prayer.

Jesus, I will follow you, but not yet. Lord I feel like, if I follow you now, I am missing out on something. I find this so funny because, what do you think you are missing? I have spoken to men and women who have lived this life you might be thinking of. They have lived the live of hedonism, seeking only after what gives them pleasure. They were sexually promiscuous, they took mind altering drugs, they did what they want when they wanted, and now in Christ they ALL will tell you, to come to Jesus now, you are missing out on something. You’re missing out on a lot of heartbreak. Your missing out on a lot of self-imposed suffering. Oh you’re missing out on something, and its not at all what you think it is. God make me good, but not yet. Why, not yet? Here is the irony, the thing which is keeping you tethered, the thing that you are afraid of leaving, the thing you think you are missing out on is not a tether at all its a chain keeping you captive. Its a leash controlling you. We are reliving the exodus in our very souls. We look back on these things, we look back on Egypt and think, but when I was back there things were different. You’re right. Because back in Egypt, back then, you were a slave. You would rather have comfort and be a slave, than have discomfort and be free. We see this play out in real time with our country. We have a generation who would rather surrender their rights, and be enslaved by the government, than keep their rights and face discomfort and be free. That might be what we see playing out, but this is a spiritual problem as old as time. This is the problem mankind has been facing since the Garden!

Jesus engages 3 separate men, 3 separate cases, all the same result. None of them were fir for the kingdom of God. One saw Jesus as a means of satisfying some self-aggrandizing purpose, when in all actuality the Kingdom of God has no room for those who want their name exalted. Who want people to know their name. To buy their books. The Kingdom of God holds one name, and it is a name above all names, and it is a name which salvation is found alone! It is the name to which every knee will bow and tongue confess, and it is not your name. Those who cannot be untethered to their past are unfit for the Kingdom of God. There is not walking right up to the line and then “Oops” you find yourself in the Kingdom of God. God has drawn you. God has shown you. God has done everything to get you to this line which divides your kingdom from His. To step over is to make yourself a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven. That one step, out of your kingdom and into His. For some if feels like that one step, is a step which is too much. God, make me good, but not yet. You would rather trust that tomorrow will come and maybe then you can take that step. Tomorrow is not promised. In Luke 12 Jesus warns us of this, using a wealthy man as an illustration. He has so much in his possession that he tears down his barns to build larger one’s. He makes his kingdom greater. He makes his kingdom more comfortable for himself. he can eat, drink, and be merry for years to come based on the possessions he has stored. Jesus says verse 20, “But God said to him, “You fool! This very night our soul is demanded of you; and as for all that you have prepared, who will own it now?” You are not promised tomorrow. You stand at the border and I urge you, abandon your kingdom. It is going to fall any way. Break that tether, and step into His kingdom where there is not moth or rust to destroy. Find in Christ the true freedom you yearn for. There is nothing for you in what lies behind, but there is everything found in Christ.