Follow me

Luke 9:57-62

As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Yet another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

This morning I am particularly convicted by this text.  In light of the fact that I have been reading about various saints lately, this is coming home to me with extra weight.

In this passage we see three men coming to Jesus, two offering to follow him and one being called to follow him.  Each of them genuinely wants to follow Christ, but they also have some additional request or expectation.  To us, these requests seem pretty reasonable.  They are expectations to have the basic necessities of life met and to fulfill duties and maintain relationships with family.  Jesus elevates following him above all of these.

I am often challenged with the desire to follow God and the simultaneous desire to fulfill certain physical needs or desires.  At my age, I am feeling the pressure of having completed none of the three big markers that some sociologists call the marks of entering adulthood.  So while I want to follow Christ, I also want him to provide me a career, a house, and a wife.  What I expect is that I can follow Christ and, while being separate from the world, still fulfill the basics of what the world requires of me.  I want to be a Christian and follow God with my whole heart, but I want people outside to be satisfied that I am a responsible adult.

In this passage Jesus is calling us to a reordering of priorities.  He calls us to follow.  It isn’t difficult to be willing to follow Jesus and get in on the inheritance if we also get to hang on to the benefits of citizenship in this world.  But he asks us to surrender our worldly citizenship and accept heavenly citizenship.

I spend a lot of time looking at the things I do not have.  Things like a house, or extra money, or free time.  God hasn’t provided these things as abundantly as I would like.  But then again, the Son of Man had no place to lay his head.  He spent his ministry sleeping in other people’s houses and eating other people’s food.  He said at one point, after healing on the day of rest, “The Father was working up to now, and I am working.”  He didn’t get a day off.  He didn’t make any money.  His money came from donations to his ministry, and it had to be good for at least thirteen people.  Jesus’ earthly ministry was done under difficult circumstances.  But I often find myself expecting ease.

It is easy to cast these expectations in a light of idolatry, but I don’t know that it’s the most accurate.  Many of us, even within the church, are brought up to expect these cultural landmarks and are taught how to achieve them.  We are taught how to be “faithful stewards of our money”, which oftentimes is little more than how to properly plan for retirement and has very little to do with using our money to help the poor or those in need.  We take these expectations in at a young age and grow up simply believing that they are essential.  They may become idols.  It is more helpful, I think, to view them as burdens.

The concept of burdens has been difficult for me to understand at times.  I get caught up in the phrase “my cross to bear” and I think that all of these burdens are my cross.  But the proper position of these burdens isn’t on my cross, it is at Jesus’ feet.  These burdens of societal norms are something that we can and must surrender to the Lord.  In so doing we will find that following him is an easy burden and a light yoke, despite the fact that we may not ever achieve some of those landmarks.  Is it better for us to have everything in this life and a tepid relationship with God, or to lack all in this life and have a vibrant and passionate relationship with God?  If I may walk closely with him and know him deeply, do I need anything more?

This isn’t to say that those things we desire, the house, the family, the career, are bad things.  Indeed, they are often very good things.  But they are not the important thing.  I often weary myself in prayer lamenting my lack of these table dressings and completely forget about the Holy Spirit, wisdom, virtue, salvation for those who do not know Christ, the union of the Church, the healing of the sick, the poor, the oppressed, and everything I would be better off praying for.  I spend time getting very close to my own heart and neglect to get close to the heart of God.  I want to follow Jesus, but the burdens I carry are too heavy; I focus on dragging my burden along the road, my eyes on the ground, simply taking one trudging step after another.  And Jesus says, I think with a bit of a laugh and a twinkle in his eye, “Just put them down.”  He isn’t saying “Put them down and I’ll take care of making sure you get them all.”  He’s saying “Put them down and follow me.”

So I don’t have a career, but I have a vocation and direction in life that is building up a heavenly nest egg.  I don’t own a home, but I am guaranteed a place to live when the sojourn is over, and a princely share of the inheritance.  I don’t have a wife or children, but I am the bride of Christ and surrounded by his children.  I can lay the burdens down and I don’t need Christ to carry them for me, because he’s giving me something better.  It isn’t that earthly blessings aren’t good.  They are good, that’s why they’re called blessings.  It’s just that they aren’t very important.

Lord, have mercy on me.  Help me to drop my burdens and follow you into the life that you lived.  Amen.