The call for discipleship
We see the cost of discipleship in this passage. Someone tells Jesus, “I will
follow you wherever you go.” Instead of saying “Come,” Jesus tells the
individual that “the Human One (or Son of Man) has no place to lay his head.”
Then Jesus tells another individual, “Follow me.” But the man gives the excuse
of burying his father. Jesus does not accept the excuse. And yet a third
individual says, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those
in my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plough and
looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
The image of the hand on the plough is an extremely powerful one and an
extremely helpful one. To plough effectively and keep the furrow straight
means fixing our sight on a point in the distance, a goal, and moving forward
towards that goal. As Christians we are moving forward towards the goal of the
fullness of the coming kingdom. Our focus is ahead, we see our goal as we look
through Jesus, through the cross, through the resurrection and ascension to our
destination with the Father in the Son and through the Spirit.
We learn a lot from these three would-be-disciples. They are willing to follow
but they have excuses first. Jesus really emphasized the priority of being a
disciple of Christ. When we bring it closer to us today, all our excuses for not
accepting the invitation to discipleship are related to these. The three men
started in the right direction, but they kept looking back. Jesus is looking for
people who don’t look back. No wonder, Jesus says that those who look back
are not fit to be my disciples. Bonhoeffer reminds us in his book,
“The Cost of Discipleship” – Bonhoeffer famous quote –
“When Jesus calls someone, he bids him to come and die.”
We are reminded that once we come to Christ, our future is looming large
and our past is decreasing and fading away.
Grace & Peace, Rev Maile