Sure! Why not? I’m not doing anything else.

I'll just check my calendar and see when I have an opening.

Grenoble

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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, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” 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 a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

The primary thing that keeps people away from the work is a long list of very reasonable reasons to do something else first. We say that once the get past this one thing then we will be more qualified or more valuable or less distracted... or whatever other reason we imagine is a prerequisite to doing it. We want to complete out education, then we want to get a job for a couple years to save some money, then we want to have a bit of time to enjoy marriage before doing something so stressful, then we want to wait until our children are a bit older, then we don’t want to take our children away from their school and friends and grandparents, then we want to be there for our children’s wedding, then we want to be there for our grandchildren, then we have health issues and need to stay near our family doctor… then we die.

There are any number of completely understandable things people need to do before they make that big change to work for God. Of course it’s a deception. What we are really saying is that we have no intention of doing it, and that having it in the back of our mind is almost as good as really doing it.

I can say that because these excuses really have no practical bearing on the work. Dedication is far more important than education, and being able to live without money is far more important than having a big savings account. And in fact, the truth is that all these excuses are formulated with no true idea of what the work actually requires. They are fantasies: idle imaginings of a person who dreams of the glories of following Christ without having the faintest idea how to start. Or do it. Or finish.

The fact that a person wants to wait for a convenient time is the clearest sign that they will never do it... and shouldn’t. There never will be a convenient time, and there should not be. The work of God cannot tolerate people who do it when it is convenient. It should be difficult. It should require massive changes. It should hurt, from the very beginning. When the first man says he will follow, it is exactly this that Jesus is telling him: it will hurt; it will not be easy. The second man has a very legitimate excuse, and Jesus tells him the same thing: there is no good time to start; if you don’t do it when it is most inconvenient, then you shouldn’t even consider it. The third man is the opposite: he has nothing stopping him except the desire to just say goodbye. Jesus tells him even this disqualifies him. Why? Because it’s an unreasonable request? Didn’t even Elisha return home for a farewell dinner? Yes he did, but Elisha went home to burn his bridges, not because leaving was a sadness. This is closer to Lot’s wife than Elisha’s barbecue.

Of course the thing that is most off-putting about this is Jesus refusing to let the man go home to bury his father. A typical explanation of this is that it is not just to attend the funeral but to care for an elderly father who is not in danger of dying, but of course will at some point and the son wants to be there. That’s possibly true, but it’s conjecture. The more practical way to think of it is a man in the military who asks to be exempted from duty in order to go home. The military is fairly strict on this. They certainly will give you time off to attend a funeral, but if it is a major involvement of time the answer is either “no” or “yes, but don’t come back”. We understand it in these terms. Yes, the military’s outlook on such things is harsh, but it’s impossible to do it any other way. You simply cannot have an army where people come and go for everything that is going on in their family, so you have to make a choice: either do your job in the military, or resign and stop making the whole world adjust to your personal affairs.

Your boss would probably be more lenient, but not much. If you have things you must do that take you away from your job for an unreasonable period of time, then you must make a decision: do one or the other.

The work of God is no less important. If we understand the requirements of being in the military or having a job, then it is not unreasonable for God to demand the same thing from his workers. If you join the military, it’s not going to be convenient, it’s not going to be easy, and it’s going to require a very distinct break with many things in your life, including the closest members of your family.

Taking a job is less severe, but there are demands nevertheless, and no boss would allow people to delay, work at their convenience, come and go, and allow other interests to compromise their work. We treat the work of God with a casualness that we would never ask of our boss, and certainly never from our commanding officer.

We place quite unreasonable weight upon this Scripture in order to make it sound impossible to do. “Do you mean that not once can I go back to my family, or take a break, or even take care of my mother if she is dying of cancer?!?” We don’t want to do what Scripture says, so we invent ludicrous situations in order to give ourselves a logical excuse to not do it. There are many problems with is.

First: life is not mathematical. Reality does not consist of precise 1+1=2 situations. It is dishonest to demand that you must know exactly what will happen if you do this or that. Jesus is not saying that every person must do everything exactly alike. Look at his capital-D Disciples, and the other disciples, the people who followed, and the people he encountered along the way. Not once did he treat any two people alike. For us to require that he find ways that hundreds of millions of people could squeeze exactly into these three examples is absurd. Some will do it to a less extent than others, some will do it for less time than others, some will do it when they are young and others when they are older... exactly how any certain person does it, and when, and where, and for how long is not the point. The point is to do it, to whatever extent you can, for however long you can. Many responses are possible. The only response that is categorically not allowed is to not even try.

Second is that it is always difficult to break out of what you know. If you learn a foreign language the first thing you must get over is the desire to have it follow your rules. Constantly asking “why?” gets you nowhere. “Why” doesn’t matter. If you want to learn the language you must just learn it and not insist that it follows your rules. That’s why it’s called a foreign language. The same is true if you move to another country. Constantly comparing this new culture against what you know and asking why they don’t do things differently—or insisting that it is wrong because it doesn’t work the way you are accustomed—will guarantee you will never fit in, and probably will offend people too. When you look at Scripture, and especially the serious demands of Christ, asking why and insisting that it can’t be right because that’s not the way you think, guarantees you will never do it.

Third, insisting that all your questions are answered before you will try it is dishonest. If you do it you would know; it you don’t do it you will never know, no matter how many people you talk with. If your job forces you to move to a different city and your family insists that you either answer every hypothetical situation or they won’t go, then you won’t go because it’s impossible. Insisting that someone answer all your questions is not the point because (1) it’s impossible and (2) it wouldn’t matter anyway. The point is you don’t want to go. Demanding answers to your endless list of questions is just your way of making it look like you have a good reason to not do it.

Life, if anything, is uncertain. Insisting that anyone answer every question or you won’t do it is silliness. Certainly if it were a stranger wanting you to do something risky you would have a right to insist on better information, but this is no stranger: this is your Savior. If you don’t trust him, then just get rid of the label, because being a Christian is nothing if you don’t trust him to give you the facts.

Jesus’ credibility is not the issue here. What’s at stake is yours. Put it in terms that are more familiar. You have gone in for a job interview, everything is going great, your new boss says you are hired and is looking forward to seeing you on Monday, and then you say, “Well, there’s just one small complication: I have a family thing on Monday that we have had planned for a long time. I’d like to start on Tuesday instead.” Now, if your new boss says “just forget it then” would you get angry and say, “Do you mean to tell me that anyone who takes this job can’t take even one day off?!” Obviously that’s not the point. People who have already proven themselves to be responsible and hardworking have the right to take vacations. People who haven’t even started yet have no such rights, and asking for special consideration before you even start is a far different thing from asking for a day off after you have already worked a year.

Or imagine you are talking to a recruiting officer about joining the military, or you are wanting to be a police officer or a fire fighter, or you want to join the Peace Corps, or the Red Cross, or you are a journalist and are being considered to cover a civil war in a distant country. What happens when it comes up in the discussion that there will be difficulties? If you are told you will be sleeping outside at times, or you might be in remote areas without good food or water, or it could be dangerous or even life-threatening, what do you say? Do you shrug and say “okay” or are you aghast that someone would expect you to do something so risky and difficult?

Jesus is only giving us the facts. Before we start this, because we find ourselves in a situation where we could fail and put the work at risk, he insists that we make a clear decision to either do it or not start, because it’s important and he can’t use people who will want to go home when it gets tough.

The message is simple but clear: if you want to do this, then understand that there will be deprivations, there will be many times that you will not be able to leave to attend to your loved ones, and it will require your undivided dedication. If you can’t do that, then don’t even start.

It’s an issue of sincerity. Asking for a day off before you even start tells your boss what you think of the job. Asking for a day off after you have worked a year also tells your boss what you think of the job, but the message is different. Telling your boss you’re not going to do it because you will never be able to take a vacation or take care of your family proves you are unsuited for the job.

Jesus is not making an unreasonable demand. What is unreasonable is for us to expect him to take us only if there is no risk, and only if it requires minimal effort, and only if we have nothing more important to do. How insulting!

The work of God is not something you do casually or in your spare time. You don’t get to call yourself a follower of Christ and also make the rules on how you will do it or insist that it be painless, effortless, and risk-free. You don’t get to say you give your life to Christ and then live it however you like. You can do one or the other, but not both. Make your choice.