57As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” 58And 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.”59To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” 60And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”61Yet another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” 62Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
The last two verses really hit me. As we move forward in this journey of launching a movement there is the constant struggle to compare and contrast with others. There is also the struggle to look at what you left behind and wonder if you really should have made this decision. Jesus says, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God." And those words haunt me.
Jesus sales pitch to these would be disciples is not what you would want out of the greeter at your worship building. "You can come on in, but if you do you'll probably be homeless." What an awful sales pitch!
I wonder about this as I look around and see how we, the Church, have moved so far from the radical minimum standards of Jesus. We attract people to our worship services through gimmicks and games. We use car shows and carnival rides. We tell people how great their lives will be with Jesus in them.
You know what? Jesus says our lives will be hard as his disciples. They won't get easier, they'll get tougher. They'll get tougher because we have been invited to something larger than ourselves. We have a mission and a purpose. This mission must become our focus.
Jesus sales pitch in a nutshell: you'll most likely be homeless, your family responsibilities need to come second to your commitment to me, and your friendships are secondary to me too. What matters most is our primary relationship with Jesus as his disciple. This is tough to swallow.
Yet, we have a mission: make disciples of all nations. This mission requires all of who we are and then some. It requires us to walk in faith and faith is a looking ahead to the next step, the next moment.
Jesus sales pitch is terrible. But it is honest.
And it haunts me...
Interesting, Dan... I recently realized the poignancy of Luke 9:62 in my coming here to New Brunswick, committed to stay. I marvel even today that I haven't pined away to go back to Detroit or southern Ontario. I miss people but there is no MUST in having to come back. Even when I was in Detroit very briefly in May 2013, while passing the exit I used to take to go home to Royal Oak I mused - I USED to take that exit quite often... but I don't have to now. It's all just a chapter in my adventure in following the Lord's call. I have also spoken, in the ministry of reconciliation, about building bridges and tearing down walls... but I also spoke about the bridges that had to be torn down and dismantled... that there was no need to return on the path I've come... just move forward. Thank you for sharing your post!
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