A long time letting go
James Cathcart
July 04, 2025
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Luke 9: 57-62 (NIVUK)
57 As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’
58 Jesus replied, ‘Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.’
59 He said to another man, ‘Follow me.’
But he replied, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’
60 Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’
61 Still another said, ‘I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.’
62 Jesus replied, ‘No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.’
A would-be follower asks permission to burn back briefly before following Jesus. This is an echo of our Elisha reading on Sunday. In 2 Kings Elijah gave a terse shrug, and basically said: “Who am I to stop you?” But here, in Luke, the ante is raised as Jesus’s follower wants to bury his father. And yet Jesus tells him ‘Let the dead bury the dead’. It’s a shocking reply. It sounds unbelievably harsh.
Jesus was conscious of the echo of 2 Kings here (the plough that pops up in verse 62 is a deliberate echo, it was Elisha, not Jesus’s follower who was ploughing a field) and most likely his follower was too. But Jesus won’t play the part of Elijah.
Something I find helpful when reading Jesus in the Bible is to read him alongside the Jesus of today. We know the endless love and compassion of Christ that loved us to the edge of the universe and back, who knows the heights and depths of our reality. Jesus — then and now — is not cruel or callous or unfeeling. Jesus cherishes us. What he says here is bracing, unsettling, unnerving — but we know the life changing, world-changing love behind it. There is love here, perhaps even humour and warmth. It’s emphatic, but not uncaring.
Imagine a dear friend of yours coming to you and saying, “Look, you’re a longtime getting over this, it’s time for you to move on.” It might unsettle, or unnerve you but you could also recognise the care in it, the love in it, the fondness.
This would-be follower was ready to play the part of Elisha, to follow an incredible prophet. But Jesus tell him this isn’t play-acting or re-enactment. He wants him to know how important this is. This is not a prophet intern scheme, this is life and death and love and the universe and the unfolding project of his kingdom — his vision for a transformed world built on compassion. This is not something you can delay, or put off. Let go of what has been and come follow me…
How often are we a long time burying something, a long time letting go, a long time moving on? And Jesus would have us leave it all behind and follow him.
Prayer:
Dear Jesus,
You cherish us and you challenge us
you comfort us and you galvanise us;
sometimes all at the same time.
You wants us to know the stakes
to know that the Kingdom cannot be bought or sold
it’s not a birthright for us to pick up when we’re ready,
it’s not a reward for our efforts,
something we have earned through service.
It is so priceless that it can only be a gift
a gift we should grab with both hands.
Amen.
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