No regrets?

As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” He said to another man, “Follow me.” But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.” Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.” Luke 9:57-62

Every minister is familiar with the person whose enthusiasm outweighs their realism. At first you just can’t hold them back, but very quickly it all fizzles out into nothing, like a spectacular firework.

To be fair, we can’t be sure that’s what happened to the three people Luke describes in this passage, but it’s hard not to wonder…

The first one approaches Jesus and simply declares “I will follow you wherever you go”.

Wonderful! But Jesus feels a need to bring him down to earth with a bump: “Foxes have holes, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head”. As if to say, Are you ready for a vagabond life? For homelessness? Are you prepared to give up any prospect of the kind of settled, reasonably comfortable life which most people take for granted as normal?

The second man doesn’t in fact offer to follow Jesus at all: no, in his case it’s Jesus himself who takes the initiative: “He said to another man, ‘Follow me’”.

The man’s reply suggests that he would be ready to do so, but he adds the request “First let me go and bury my father”. Seems reasonable enough? Yet Jesus gives a reply so demanding as to border on the outrageous: “Let the dead bury their own dead…”

Did Jesus see something in this man that he sensed wasn’t quite true? He certainly set him a severe test.

The third man also makes what seems a reasonable request: “Let me go back and say goodbye to my family”. (Isn’t that exactly what Levi seems to have done when he threw a big party to celebrate his call (Luke 5:27-29)?)

It’s not entirely easy to know what Jesus means by his reply: “No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God”.

Does he mean, “OK, that’s fine – but make no mistake, once you’ve said your farewells, there must be no hankering after the old life!”? Or does he mean, “No! This mission is too urgent even for that!”

We can only speculate. And we can only guess what decision these three men did in fact make: Luke doesn’t tell us.

But what we do know is the point Jesus was making in his harsh-seeming words to them: Following me is a serious business. I have no use for the half-hearted. With me it’s all or nothing at all. And that is a message for everyone – including you or me – who decides to become a follower of Jesus.

Are we up for that?

Imagine a different, alternative future for Jesus’ apostles…

It’s forty years on, and Peter, James and John are now old men. They’re together one afternoon enjoying a drink and gazing out at the Sea of Galilee where they have spent their lives.

Peter says: “Do you remember that day all those years ago when we were right here, ready to get into the boat, and Jesus came along and asked us to follow him?” “Yes!” says James, “I remember it well. We agreed, didn’t we, that if ever anybody was worth following, it was him. But of course it was out of the question. We had a living to earn! bread to put on the table!” “True”, says John, and then pauses… “But I must admit there are times I wish we had decided to go with him. Oh, I know we haven’t had a bad life here in Galilee; but it’s hard not to wonder what might have been…”

How many of us, when we reach the end of our days, will wonder what might have been? – perhaps with deep regret.

Well, we can’t rewrite our history. But we can, and do, write our own future - precisely by the dozens of decisions, some big and some small, which we make day by day. And the thing it’s so easy to overlook is this: even though it can be hard, and demand big sacrifices, the way of Christ is the best way, the way of fulfilment, indeed, of ultimate joy.

Let me put it in truly no-nonsense terms: for all the pain of taking up our cross to follow Jesus, it’s in our own best interests to do so.

Why not read again about those three would-be disciples? Why not use their stories to prompt reflection on your own still-unfinished story?

And just in case it seems simply too demanding, why not reflect also on another crazy-seeming thing Jesus said: “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30)?

Lord Jesus, you call us to take up our cross to follow you. But you tell us too that your yoke is easy, and your burden light. Help me daily, by my obedience, accept the challenge of the first and to prove the truth of the second. Amen.