Secondary Loyalties

Let's rejoin Jesus on the road to Jerusalem as He turns to another man and gives the clarion call, "Follow Me." We wonder at the man's glib response, "Lord, let me first go and bury my father." Since the man has been traveling with Jesus for several days and since people were usually buried before sunset of the day of their death, it seems improbable that the man's father had died that morning. Had the man joined Jesus' band with the intention of leaving momentarily to go home for the burial? That's unlikely.

Rather, the man was using a proverbial saying about the tradition of caring for an aged person until death. The saying is still used today in the Middle East. What the man meant was, "I want to follow You, Master, but I have an aged father. I must take care of him until he dies. Then I will follow You as Your disciple." While his father was alive, he would not leave him to follow Jesus.

Now we can understand why Jesus answered the man the way he did: "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the Kingdom of God." The obvious meaning of the proverb "Let the dead bury the dead" is that the spiritually dead should bury the physically dead. Jesus has met the man on his level: a proverb for a proverbial saying. He sees the man's easy dexterity with glib excuses. If he is that concerned with care for his father, why is he not at home now?

What does this exchange mean to us? For one thing, it certainly exposes our quickly worded excuses, whatever they are. On a deeper level, however, I can't help but ask if Jesus would call us to neglect our family responsibilities. Most of us have obligations to family and friends. Are we to walk away from these duties to serve Christ?

The Real Issue

It's what we put first that is the real issue. Jesus confronts us with the absolute necessity of making our commitment to Him and then sharing His love with others as our first priority. Then we can seek His will for our responsibilities to the people of our lives. Whenever anyone becomes more important to us than Jesus, we have made that person a little god. And when his or her plans for us, opinions of us, or reservations about how we live our faith dominate our thinking, we lose our freedom to follow Christ.

So often, people in our lives try to control us by affirming or criticizing our behavior. And because our feelings of insecurity create in us such a desperate need for their approval, we are tempted to let their opinions determine the shape of our commitment to Christ.

When that is allowed to happen, both we and the people around us suffer. We use them as excuses for not following Christ and His priorities unreservedly. Then we have very little to give them. But when we put Him first, He fills us with His love and power. Then we are equipped to care more profoundly and to serve more unselfishly than when we put people before Christ.

A woman who had fought her husband's commitment to Christ later said, "I lost a husband I could control and manipulate and gained a free man who loves and cares for me in a way beyond my fondest dreams. When I saw what Christ did with my husband when he put Him first, I wanted to find the same joy. Finally that led me to Christ. I shudder to think what might have happened if my husband had given in to my badgering. Think what I would have missed!"