As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” He said to another man, “Follow me.” But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.” Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”

–Parallel verse:
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭6‬:‭33‬
But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

I remember back, about two years into my insurance career, I thought I was pretty good at analyzing workers compensation insurance and was a little overconfident. Then I made some mistakes and realized that the learning curve was a little steeper, and there was a tougher road ahead of me than I thought. Another time, I ran across a Chief Financial Officer of a company who asked me for a disaster recovery/business continuity plan. I looked up a “cookie cutter”, three-page plan, and gave it to him. He told me he was expecting something a little more robust.

I think, in the same way, Jesus is talking to overconfident followers here. These are people who want to follow, but may not fully understand what will be required of them. Just like I did not fully understand what I didn’t know in insurance early in my career, Jesus points out three areas that they might consider before following. To the one who says I will follow you anywhere, he basically says, “I am homeless.” And he wants him to think about if he really can live a life traveling with a homeless teacher. To the one who says he will follow him but he must go back and bury his father, he says, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the good news and the kingdom of God.” The point is not that he wasn’t interested in him burying his father. But it was that there is a spiritual urgency to preaching the Good news about Jesus. People are spiritually dead all over the place and they need the life he gives.

And to the one who says he must go back and say goodbye to his family, he says, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service.” He, in essence, is saying that the ministry of serving God will take priority over your past life and/or family business. You cannot be fully committed to God and maintain your past way of doing things, seek approval from others for your decision to follow him, or put family opinions or priorities above those things Jesus calls you to. Families can place requirements on us that are ungodly. This is not to be confused with not caring for your children or wife, which is a primary responsibility of a father and husband. Some try to prioritize comfort and protection over service and preaching the truth in love.

In these three examples, he is calling out the “Quick-to-Commit” and the “Yeah, But” Followers.

I found in my risk management and insurance career that if I really wanted to excel at exceeding the expectations of my clients, I had to commit to pursue knowledge and act in their best interests. I went on to take course work in disaster recovery and business continuity in order to be prepared the next time a client asked me about this and be able to offer a more complete solution. I also studied workers compensation laws more.
Jesus is challenging his followers to decide if they want to move beyond a superficial knowledge of him and service to him, into an intimate knowledge and a sold-out level of service to him. And we are also faced with this same question: Will we remain in our comfort zones in life and allow life’s worries or priorities to get in the way of our commitment to follow Jesus? Or will we decide to follow with 100% commitment?

Lord, thank you for helping drive home the point that I need to be sold-out, 100% committed to following you. I must seek you first. There is no other way to truly serve and follow you. You require complete surrender of my will. Give me a heart to follow you more faithfully still today, and to improve in my knowledge of you and your ways!