19 FIRST THINGS FIRST(1) And it came to pass, that, as they went in the way, a certain man said unto him, Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest. And Jesus said unto him, Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head. And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God. And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee; but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house. And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God (Luke 9:57-62).
In these three incidents, Jesus was approached by men who said they wanted to follow Him. He did not send the first man away. Rather, He gave him a reason not to commit. The second and third cases were similar. The second man was willing to commit, but only after burying his father. Jesus warned this man to ignore his dead father's funeral. The third man was willing to commit, but only after returning home to say farewell.(2) He was warned not to look behind, but to march forward without delay.
They seem to be opposite cases. The first man wanted to come; Jesus discouraged him. The second wanted to bury his father first; Jesus discouraged him. The third wanted to visit his family; Jesus discouraged him. But in all three cases, Jesus was motivated by the same principle: first things first. This is the principle of priorities.
The Uprooted The first man -- a scribe, according to Matthew 8:19 -- wanted to follow Jesus. This was surely not a normal request. Scribes constantly confronted Jesus publicly, trying to undermine His authority through questioning. Perhaps this man was serious; perhaps he was an informer. But in either case, Jesus challenged him to pay a high price. Jesus had no place to call home, no permanent pillow. He was in a condition like Jacob's when he fled from Esau. "And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep" (Gen. 28:11). Jacob had become a wanderer, a man without a home. So had Jesus.
This is not a normal condition. Wandering is usually a curse. The Israelites wandered in the wilderness; this was surely a curse on the exodus generation. They wanted to rest. They wanted a place to rest. They did not receive their wish. One of the basic ideas of rest is to have a place of one's own to call home. A place of rest serves as headquarters for our dominion. We work; then we return home to rest. The Promised Land was Israel's place of rest.
Jesus' ministry required that He wander. Those who followed Him also wandered. They gave up their places of rest. Some of them gave up their predictable sources of income.(3) Their seemingly patternless wandering broke with their familiar daily pattern: work outside the home, return to home, and rest. Wandering had also broken the exodus generation's pattern of limited dominion: servitude in Egypt.
In the wilderness, the Israelites were sustained by the manna. We are not told how Jesus and His disciples were sustained. It may have been charity. Perhaps they took odd jobs. Somehow, they had money. Judas kept the bag (John 12:6). The scribe, hearing that Jesus had no place of rest, must have understood that he would have to forfeit more than a place of rest. He would also forfeit his normal pattern of dominion. He could no longer rely on a steady stream of income.
Jesus was telling the scribe that he faced uncertainty. How would he deal with this uncertainty? By relying on others? By relying on Jesus' persuasion of others? By relying on odd jobs, or money shared by the other disciples who might find odd jobs? The pattern of dominion was broken by Jesus' way of life. He refused to stay in His own region, where He was not taken seriously. "And when he was come into his own country, he taught them in their synagogue, insomuch that they were astonished, and said, Whence hath this man this wisdom, and these mighty works? Is not this the carpenter's son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then hath this man all these things? And they were offended in him. But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house. And he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief" (Matt. 13:54-58). Familiarity had bred contempt. So, He took unfamiliar pathways to do His work.
Jesus was nearing the end of His time on earth. He was at the beginning of the next stage of His ministry: covenantal representation by His church. To prepare His followers, He first broke the daily patterns of their lives. He reshaped their lives by reshaping their dominion patterns. He took away their pillows. He substituted rocks instead.
God did the same with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He took away their places of rest. He uprooted them. He called Abram out of Ur. He sent a famine; Isaac went to Abimelech, the Philistine (Gen. 26:1) He sent a famine; Jacob and his sons went to Egypt. He drove Moses out of Egypt, and then out of his home in Midian. He did it to David in his time with the Philistines (I Sam. 27:7) and during Absalom's rebellion (II Sam. 16). He did it to Israel (into Assyria) and Judah (into Babylon). He did it to the church in Jerusalem (Acts 8:1). He did it to Paul. The uprooting process is part of the next phase of the expansion of the kingdom.
Jesus' parents were uprooted when they took Him into Egypt (Matt. 2:14). His public ministry began with His uprooting out of Galilee. The familiar environment that had sustained Him was removed. His hope could not be placed in a place to rest. It had to come from above. God the Father would sustain Him. Jesus would do His work of building the kingdom without the capital asset that most men rely on: a predictable place of rest.
Missionary activity is always based on an uprooting. Irish monks in the sixth century spread across northern Europe, building monasteries.(4) In the United States, the Baptists and Methodists captured what was then the Western and Southern part of the nation by adopting circuit-riding. These men had no permanent homes. John Wesley was the model, who spent most of his adult life on horseback. While ministers in the traditional Calvinistic denominations stayed at home east of the Allegheny Mountains, earning good salaries, Baptist(5) circuit-riding preachers worked without pay,(6) and the Methodists worked for very low salaries.(7) Neither group of missionaries had a permanent place of rest. There were 750 Congregational churches in 1780, and about 500 Presbyterian congregations and 450 Baptist congregations. The Methodists were barely visible. By 1900, there were almost 50,000 Baptist congregations, almost 54,000 Methodist congregations, 15,452 Presbyterian, 5,604 Congregational (liberal), 6,264 Episcopal (liberal).(8) Episcopalians and Congregationalists were hardly visible west of Appalachia or south of the Mason-Dixon line, except in large cities.
Jesus was telling the scribe that to follow Him, he would have to become one of the uprooted. He did not tell him he could not join the disciples, but He warned him of the high price.
Let the Dead Bury the Dead The second inquirer was already a disciple, but not one of the permanent wanderers. He was ready to join the wanderers, almost. But first he had to go and bury his father. Jesus dismissed the ritual as trivial. "Let the dead bury the dead." This statement was an epitaph on the grave of Old Covenant Israel.
Filial piety is basic to almost every civilization. It was the heart of classical religion.(9) It was also important in Israel. Isaac and Ishmael came together to bury Abraham (Gen. 25:9). Jacob and Esau buried Isaac (Gen. 35:29). Yet Jesus told his disciple to break with tradition and immediately join the band of wanderers. In a sense, Jesus' inner circle wandered in circles. They were no longer part of the normal pattern of family life in Israel.
The would-be wanderer had to assess the importance of becoming one of the inner circle, of being present at the creation of a new world order. Was it worth defying convention? To defy this convention would be to move outside of polite society. He would become an outcast. If he did not bury his father, his son might not bury him. This, in fact, was quite likely. Jesus later warned them: "Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division: For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law" (Luke 12:51-53).
But it was more than this. The man would have to participate in the burial of Israel. It was not just that his father was dead; it was that his nation was dying. The old order was dying. The new Israel of God was being born.(10) This new Israel would not attend the burial of the old Israel. In fact, the new Israel was warned to flee from the old Israel when the signs of the imminent burial appeared (Luke 21:20-22). When Rome's legions arrived, the church was to have departed, which church tradition said it did, fleeing to the non-Judaic town of Pella.
Don't Look Back The third man wanted to return home to say farewell to his family. This surely is an acceptable practice in any culture. But Jesus did not tolerate any delay. "And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God" (v. 62).
The classic example of looking back is Lot's wife. She looked back to Sodom and was turned into a pillar of salt (Gen. 19:26). The text does not say why she looked back. Her motivation may have been curiosity.
This passage uses a metaphor: plowing. The plowman has begun to plow the field. He is not to look back. The allusion does not have anything to do with determining if the furrow is straight. It has to do with looking back at the place of rest. In this case, the man wanted to go home. Jesus warned him that any delay would make him ineligible for kingdom service.
The man who begins his kingdom labor may be dissuaded by family in the early stages. There are many reasons why a man's relatives might discourage him. They may have other plans for him in the family inheritance. They may regard Christ's message as controversial. They have influence over him. They may be successful in their efforts to bring him back to normal. Jesus warned him that nothing should lure him back, not even a glance to the rear.
Conclusion Jesus warned these men to put first things first: to set their top priority. Joining the wanderers would mean giving up home, bed, and pillow. Jesus had done this; His followers would, too. Was the scribe ready to pay this price? Joining the wanderers would also mean giving up traditions. Burying one's father was a very old tradition in Israel. That tradition was about to go. The new Israel would soon be at war with the old Israel. The household would be divided. The would-be wanderer was told it was time to choose: covenantal life or covenantal death. Jesus told him to choose life. The third man was told much the same: do not put family concerns above kingdom concerns.
He was telling them that the New Covenant would supersede the Old. To join Him would be to take a new covenant oath. They could no longer live halfway between the Old World Order and the New World Order. For a brief time, it might have looked as though that was possible, but it was not. The dead would have to bury the dead. The living would have to wander. Within one generation, they would have to flee. "And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let them which are in Judaea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto. For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled" (Luke 21:20-22).
Footnotes:
1. This is modified from Chapter 19 of Gary North, Priorities and Dominion: An Economic Commentary on Matthew, electronic edition (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 2000).
2. Matthew did not mention the third man (Matt. 8:19-22).
3. The exceptions were the sons of fishermen who owned their boats. Peter went back to fishing after Jesus died and before Peter believed in the resurrection. "Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing. They say unto him, We also go with thee. They went forth, and entered into a ship immediately; and that night they caught nothing" (John 21:3).
4. Thomas Cahill, How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of the Roman Empire to the Rise of Medieval Europe (New York: Talese-Doubleday, 1995). This is a popularly written book, not a scholarly history.
5. In the early phase of the Second Great Awakening (1800-40), Baptists in the South were Calvinistic. Christine Leigh Heyrman, Southern Cross: The Beginnings of the Bible Belt (New York: Knopf, 1997), p. 153. American Baptists' confession of faith was the Philadelphia Confession (1707), which was basically the Second London Confession (1689), a modification of the Westminster Confession of Faith (1647). See William L. Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith (rev. ed.; Nashville, Tennessee: Judson Press, 1969).
6. They were supposed to have secular employment. This included permanent ministers. Ibid., p. 104.
7. About $80 a year in the early 1800's, raised to $100 after the death of Bishop Francis Asbury in 1816: ibid., p. 115.
8. Edwin Scott Gaustad, Historical Atlas of Religion in America (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), p. 44, Figure 33.
9. Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges, The Ancient City: A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome (Garden City, New York: Doubleday Anchor, [1864] 1955)
10. The church is called the Israel of God. "And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God" (Gal. 6:16). This has always been a problem text for dispensationalists.
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