44 Why Jesus Told a Man Not to Bury His Father (Matthew 8:18-22)

Krisan Marotta: Welcome to Wednesday in the Word. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. Today we're going to study Matthew chapter 8, verses 18 through 22. This is the 44th talk in our series on the Gospel of Matthew. The lecture notes for today's talk are on the link below this podcast, or you can find them by going directly to wednesdayintheword.com slash Matthew44. I'm really glad you joined us today. Well, after giving us the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew turns our attention to a set of stories about various miracles that Jesus performs. And we have been talking about how the theme of authority threads its way through these miracles. Jesus not only speaks with the authority of God, as we saw in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus has the authority of God in his actions. Jesus can touch a leper and that leper will be healed because God has given him the authority to do so. Jesus can say to the centurion, your servant is healed and it is done. And we talked about how when Jesus heals someone miraculously, several things happen at once. First, we see that these miracles are an opportunity for an individual to exercise faith in Jesus. And this is what we saw with the leper and the centurion. Before the miracle, an individual has wrestled with the claims of Jesus. Perhaps he or she has seen Jesus heal or heard him teach, and this seeker recognizes that Jesus has the authority of God and has decided to trust him. So the seeker has faith that God has given Jesus the authority to perform miraculous healings and that Jesus is who he claims to be, and the person comes to Jesus in faith. And often you'll see Jesus commending them for their faith. Second, the healing is a supernatural event that demonstrates that God is with Jesus and testifies to the authority that Jesus has. Jesus claims to be the Messiah. As we saw in the Sermon on the Mount, he claimed to speak with the authority of God, to be on a mission from God, and to have been given the power to decide our fate on judgment day. He backs up that claim by demonstrating that he has power over demons, power over disease, and as we'll see today, power over nature. And he has that power because God has given it to him. Only God has the power to heal and harness nature, and Jesus demonstrates that he can heal and control nature because God has given him the authority to do so. The miracles then are a strong testimony and confirmation that Jesus is the Messiah, just as he claims. Third, miracles require a response. Everyone watching or hearing about the miracle has to decide what do I do with this information? So everyone else, including us today, has to decide do I believe? Do I believe that Jesus is the Messiah? Do I have enough evidence to trust and believe that this man is acting with the authority of God? I've heard him teach, I've seen him do things only God can do. Am I now going to believe or not? Fourth, a healing miracle is also an act of mercy for a specific person. These stories are not allegories to teach us something, they're not parables. God is being merciful to the leper, to the centurion and his servant, to Peter's mother-in-law, and so forth. These individuals are real people who are suffering, and God miraculously ends their suffering. Each individual can thank God for rescuing him or her. So these miracles are more than lessons for the watchers, they are compassionate acts of God's mercy for those who are healed. And then finally, these miracles symbolically remind us why Jesus came. These temporal physical healings point us to the ultimate reason that Jesus came. He miraculously heals of physical disease now to remind us that he came to heal us of our biggest problem of all, our slavery to sin and all our guilt. Well that brings us to Matthew chapter eight, eighteen through twenty two, where Jesus confronts two potential disciples. And at first it's hard to see how this fits into what Matthews' been talking about. Let me read this for us. Matthew eight eighteen to twenty two. Now when Jesus saw a crowd around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side, and a scribe came up and said to him, Teacher, 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. Another of the disciples said to him, Lord, let me first go and bury my father, and Jesus said to him, Follow me and leave the dead to bury their own dead. Well back in chapter five we talked about how Jesus often speaks cryptically and that he does so on purpose. These two stories are a good case in point. Jesus often says things in such a way that it's not immediately obvious what he means, and I think he does that on purpose. When he says something like the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head or leave the dead to bury their own dead, it's not immediately obvious what he's trying to say to these potential disciples. If you stop and think about it, there are a lot of possibilities. There are a lot of options about what he means, and if you read several commentaries, you'll find lots of different options about what he means. He's not being didactically straightforward, he's speaking cryptically. And I think we often see Jesus make these concise, provocative statements that we have to sit down and think about to try to understand. So to figure them out, we gather everything we know about the context, the culture, the specific situation in which these words were spoken, what we know of the language, and we just try to put all the puzzle pieces together and see what picture emerges. At first reading, these two stories seem out of place. Matthew has been testifying to the authority of Jesus through various miracles, and then we seem to get this short tangent on discipleship. It's hard to see how these stories fit in until we stop and think about it. But I think as we'll see, these stories do relate to the question of Jesus' authority. Let's walk through the passage. Matthew eight eighteen. Jesus travels from town to town for the purpose of making himself known. He's teaching and healing to reveal his purpose and his plan as the Messiah, but in all the gospels we see times where Jesus is unwilling to arouse a mob. Whenever a crowd gets too large, Jesus leaves and goes someplace else. And Matthew tells us this is one of those times. Jesus sees that a large crowd is developing and he decides it's time to leave. As he's making his preparations to get in a boat and cross over to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, a scribe asks to go with him. Matthew eight, nineteen and twenty, and a scribe came up to him and said to him, Teacher, 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. So among this crowd that's developing is a scribe. The scribe sees that Jesus is getting ready to leave, and he comes up to Jesus and says, I want to come with you. Wherever it is that you're going, that's where I'm going. Now a scribe was a professional student of the law, a teacher of the law. Most all of the scribes were Pharisees, but not all Pharisees were scribes. The scribes made a profession of studying the law, transcribing it, and writing commentaries on it. The scribes were the main teachers in the synagogues. They interpreted the law and they explained it to the people, and they could be hired to write a legal document or interpret a legal point. So this scribe is asking to be a disciple of Jesus. The request, I will follow you wherever you go, is a request to sit under the teaching of Jesus, learn from him, and be his disciple. It's not immediately obvious what Jesus is trying to tell the scribe. At first glance, it looks like he's saying something like, Well, my life is really hard and inconvenient, I don't have a home, it's difficult being on the road all the time, and you don't really want to be on the road with me, you don't want to do that. However, the gospels tell us that Jesus is itinerant, but he's not homeless. Luke 8.3 tells us that many people were contributing out of their private means to support Jesus and the twelve, so he's not penniless. And Jesus travels a lot, but he finds accommodation wherever he goes, thanks in part to their culture of hospitality. Plus he has a home base in Capernaum, and presumably he has a home in Nazareth. When a town rejects him, it's notable because hospitality was such an honor and a duty in their culture. Since he's not homeless, though he is on the road a lot, and he's not in abject poverty, I suspect he means something here that is more than my life is hard and you don't want to share in that hardship. The clue we have is that he contrasts his position with that of the foxes and the birds. Foxes have holes in the ground, birds have places to roost. By contrast, Jesus has nowhere to lay his head. I think this is a metaphorical way of saying this world is not my home. He is not at home in it. Foxes and birds were made for this world. They find their fulfillment in this world. They are at home in this world. The world is for them and they are for it. By contrast, this world is not Jesus' home. His fulfillment and his destiny are not going to be realized in this world. As the Messiah, his fulfillment and his destiny are going to be realized in the age to come. The calling that God has given him goes beyond this world. It's bigger than this world. Now knowing this man was a scribe, we can speculate what the scribe might be thinking based on what we know about scribes. As a student of the Old Testament, it's quite likely the scribe was intrigued by the possibility that Jesus might in fact be the Messiah. He wants to follow Jesus and find out if that's true. And as a student of the scriptures, the scribe would know who the Messiah is. The Messiah is the promised king who will sit on David's throne again. He will restore the Jewish people to their promised land. He's going to triumph over all the nations, and in particular, he's going to kick Rome out of Palestine and rule over the nation of Israel. Okay, sure, right now this man Jesus is traveling around the countryside in Galilee, but if he really is the Messiah, eventually he's going to end up in Jerusalem to claim his rightful throne. The Messiah will be king. This man Jesus may be a poor wandering teacher right now, but if he's the promised Messiah, it's only a matter of time before he's going to go to Jerusalem, sit on his throne in glory, and all the world will come to him as he rules over Israel. Now in one sense, if this is what the scribe is thinking, then he's right. Ultimately Jesus will rule over all the nations from David's throne. One day Jesus will return, he will establish his righteousness over the nations and rule the nations from the throne of David. He will be King of kings and Lord of Lords, he will vanquish all his enemies, including sin and death, and he will reign in righteousness and justice over all of creation. But that's not what's going to happen next in this story. Jesus is headed to Jerusalem, but he's not going there in triumph. He's going there to be rejected and executed. I think Jesus is saying more than make sure you consider that as my disciple you too may have to suffer a bit. Having no home is a graphic picture of total rejection. He's saying, Do you realize that you're offering to follow a rejected leader? Yes, I Jesus am the Messiah, and soon I will be going to Jerusalem, but I'm not going to Jerusalem to be crowned with power and glory. I'm going to suffer and die for my people. I think his rather cryptic answer means something like this If you want to follow me because you think you're following a future king, think again. You may think that you're joining a movement where I will take my rightful place as king, and you're going to be right there with me basking in the glory. But I don't have a place in this world. The foxes and the birds have their place in this world, but not me. Ultimately this world is going to reject me and execute me. You need to be prepared for that event. I have no place in this world to offer you. I have no palace in this world to offer you a job in. The world despises me and rejects me. If you truly follow me, then the world is going to despise and reject you too. You might think I'm the guy who has got it all, but right now in this world I don't have anything. You can be my disciple, but if you're looking for a teacher who will teach you how to thrive and prosper in this world, then I'm not your teacher. If you're looking for someone to teach you how to find fulfillment in this world, then I'm not your teacher. If you're looking for a teacher who's going to show you how to find glory and power in this world, I'm not your teacher. This world is going to hate and reject me. If you follow me, the world is going to hate you and reject you too. But if you want to find life in the kingdom of God, if you want to know how to be reconciled to God the Father and be forgiven for your sins and be made holy in the age to come, then I'm your teacher. If your heart is set on the kingdom of God and not the riches of this world, then follow me. In part he's raising the question, what do you want me to do for you? If you're intrigued by my authority as Messiah, and you want a place in the kingdom of God, welcome. But if you think my authority means I will be king over an earthly kingdom in this world right now, and you're looking for a position of power in that earthly kingdom, then you're following the wrong teacher. Then we find another potential disciple, Matthew 8, 21 and 22. Another of the disciples said to him, Lord, let me first go and bury my father. And Jesus said to him, Follow me and leave the dead to bury their own dead. Now it may seem obvious what this disciple is asking, but actually scholars have proposed quite a few possibilities. One possibility is that this man's father has just died, and this man wants to go and make the funeral arrangements and then meet up with Jesus, say in a couple of days or maybe a week. And in this view, he's saying something like, Let me get through the funeral and I'll meet you next week. Scholars who take the request this way sometimes take Jesus' response as hyperbole. He responds with this outrageous, exaggerated claim to highlight the extent of the commitment you must make if you want to follow Jesus. And he's saying your priorities need to be following me, they take precedence over everything else. Well, that option doesn't seem to be very likely to me, because if that's the request, it's hard to imagine that Jesus would have a problem with it. It seems to be fairly reasonable to say, give me a couple of days, I have to get through a funeral. So it's a little hard to make sense of his answer. And also, as many scholars have pointed out, they consider this interpretation unlikely because if this man's father had just died, this man would not be on the road with Jesus. He would be sitting at his father's bedside holding visual and making funeral arrangements. He wouldn't even be around to ask Jesus this question. So a second possibility revolves around Jewish burial practices. And some say that this is a request to wait until after what's called the second burial. As I understand it, when someone died in those days, the body was put into a tomb until it decayed, and that's the first burial. Then after a year or more, the tomb was opened and the bones were collected and put into a stone box that was called an ossuary. And this was the second burial. So some scholars think this man is saying, let me hang around here for another year or so until I've fulfilled all the culturally required burial practices. My father has died, but I have to wait until after I've collected his bones, and then I'll join you in a year or so. In that scenario, scholars say, well, Jesus was saying, if you were asking for just a few days, that would be fine, but you're letting your commitment to a particular cultural practice be an excuse for not following me. Your father is already there among the dead. If your family wants to put your father's bones in a box, then let them deal with it. You need to follow me. Well, I like this option better. I think it has more merit, but there's a third possibility that persuades me. In this third option, the father's not dead yet. Middle Eastern scholars say that the expression let me bury my father is a traditional idiom that refers to the duty of a son to remain at home and care for his parents until they are respectfully laid to rest. They say you can still hear this expression today. For example, in a discussion of immigration, one might ask the would-be immigrant, aren't you going to bury your father first? Meaning, aren't you going to stay until after you've fulfilled the traditional duty of caring for your parents until their death? Well, if that's the meaning, then this potential disciple intends to defer his decision to follow Jesus way off into the distant future when his father dies an old man. He's essentially saying, Well, you know, I'd love to follow you, Jesus, but I have a duty to my community and my family. They put certain demands on me that I must fulfill. I would gladly follow you, Lord, but of course the authority of my community and my family is higher than yours. Surely you don't expect me to violate the expectations of caring for my parents as my family and my community expects. Well, Jesus is saying that's exactly what I expect. My authority has to carry more weight with you than your family and your community. I think Jesus is saying your commitment to me has to take priority over all your other commitments. If you don't follow me, you're choosing to stay among those who are spiritually dead. Let those who have chosen this world over me care for themselves, but you need to decide to follow me. Don't use the cares and responsibilities of this world as an excuse to avoid following me now. As we talked about in the Sermon on the Mount, only people who are spiritually dead are more concerned about their affairs in this world than their affairs in the eternal kingdom of heaven. They have chosen this world over the kingdom of heaven and they've made it their priority because they don't see what's truly important. They don't see the gift of the gospel that is right in front of them. But if you're spiritually alive, then you have the eyes to see and the ears to hear that there is more than this world. One day you will stand before your Creator and face His judgment. Now is the time to settle your fate on that day. Now is the time to decide to trust and follow Jesus. Let the spiritually dead care for themselves. It's more important that you see. And embrace the truth now and so find eternal life in the kingdom of heaven. That's the option that I lean toward, but you can see that all three of these options reach the same bottom line. They all reach the point and the conclusion that Jesus is claiming a higher authority than anything in this world. His basic admonition is don't let anything in this world stop you from following me. And both these stories remind us that we tend to be short-sighted. The scribe is thinking about standing next to a future king and finding rewards in this life. The man who wants to serve his earthly father is thinking, I've got all the time in the world to think about who Jesus is. Right now I want to have a career and a family and a farm and whatnot, and his earthly cares are more important. One is saying, I will follow you, Jesus, if it pays off now. The other is saying, Well, now's paying off. Why follow Jesus? I'll just deal with that later. And Jesus tells both of them, there is nothing better than the salvation he has come to bring. There is nothing in this world more important than deciding to follow Jesus and thereby find eternal life, and that his authority surpasses that of father, family, and culture. I don't think we should conclude from the second story that Jesus is saying there's something wrong with building a career or raising a family or saving for retirement. Those are good things, but they are not more important than settling your place in the kingdom of God. If you're going to put off considering the gospel and learning from Jesus until all the cares of this world are sorted out, then you don't really understand how absolutely valuable the kingdom of God is. How could you trade today for eternity? You can only do that. You can only trade the eternal for the temporal if you're spiritually dead. The opportunity to decide is now, and one day it will be too late. Nothing in this world is more important than answering the question, where will I spend eternity? That question is too important to delay or ignore. Now Luke in his gospel gives us a third story, which Matthew omits. I just want to comment on it briefly. This is Luke nine, sixty one and sixty two. And another also said, I will follow you, Lord, but first permit me to say goodbye to those at home. But Jesus said to him, No one after putting his hand to the plough and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God. And you can see how this fits the same theme. This phrase translated say goodbye has the idea of take leave of. This word occurs only five times in the New Testament, here and four other places, and in each of the other cases it's translated take leave. And scholars argue that this word carries more than the idea of saying goodbye. It also carries the idea of getting permission to leave. The person who is leaving requests permission to leave from those who are staying behind. This request for permission is often a polite formality with no real expectation that any true permission is needed, but sometimes permission is needed. In a polite gesture, a guest might say to his host, By your leave, I'll be off, or with your permission, I'll take my leave. And those who remain respond something like, God go with you, or may you go in peace. The point is this potential disciple is asking to go home and get permission first from his parents. Most likely he expects his father will refuse to let him wander off after this traveling rabbi on some questionable enterprise, and so he has a ready-made excuse not to follow Jesus. He can cry his crocodile tears and say, Oh, well, you know, my father just won't let me. In the ancient Middle Eastern world, the authority of the Father was supreme. In that culture, this disciple is saying, I would follow you, Lord, but of course the authority of my father trumps your authority, and I simply must have his permission first. So here again we see Jesus claiming to have a higher authority than the authority of an earthly father. Now his answer is a bit cryptic. We have no other place where we see putting hand to the plough as a metaphor, so it's difficult to be dogmatic and say, oh, I know exactly and precisely what it means. Here's my best guess. One scholar explained how a farmer guided the plough with his left hand while using his right hand to goad the oxen. At the same time, he had to keep his eyes fixed on the path between the oxen. If he turned his attention elsewhere, if he turned to look over his shoulder, that would twist his body and the furrow would become crooked. So ploughing required this concentrated attention and a very forward focused attention. I think Jesus is saying, like the plowman, you can't look back at the road not taken. Loyalty to Jesus is more important than loyalty to the cultural norms of your society. Because Jesus has been given authority by God, there is no earthly authority higher than his. Cultural demands are no excuse for failure to follow Jesus. Even your father's authority, if it conflicts with the call to follow Jesus, is a distraction that you ought to avoid. You need to break with what's behind you and keep your eyes fixed on the goal ahead. Now remember, no one who has truly decided to follow Jesus regrets that decision. If you're the kind of person who says, Well, I really want to follow Jesus, but you know, the world just has it so much better. The grass over there really is greener. I mean, I'd take sin over holiness any day. If I could, I really would like to live my life just like the world does. Well, if that's your attitude, you're not really a disciple of Jesus, because part of saving faith is recognizing your own sinfulness and longing to be made holy. And we talked about that a lot in the Beatitudes. Part of becoming a disciple is grieving over sin, and if you're looking back at the world and its sinful behavior with longing, then you're not a person who mourns over sin and longs for holiness. I think James explains this same concept well in his letter. This is James chapter one verses five through eight. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord. He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. I think this idea James is describing as the double-minded man, the doubter, is the same kind of man Jesus is describing with the plowman who looks back over his shoulder. In the context of James, doubt is wavering between two options and not committing to one or the other. Sometimes this word is used in context where it means to judge or discern between two options. In the process of judging, I'm impartially considering both sides. To doubt is to continue to consider both sides, to continue to consider all the options when there is really good reason to pick one. It's continuing to sit on the fence and not take a side. To doubt when it comes to faith is to waver in whether I believe in God or not. It's to look back over your shoulder and say, what about that road that I didn't take? James gives a vivid analogy to explain this idea of doubting. The one who doubts is like waves driven and tossed by the wind. The wave goes whichever direction the wind blows it, up and down and over and back and forth. Unlike a tree that stands firmly planted in the ground when the wind blows, the wave gets tossed every which way. When you doubt, you're tossed every which way by any wind that blows, and you never land anywhere. James also describes the doubter as being double-minded, which I think is a way of saying being hypocritical. What we say we believe is not really what we believe. I may give lip service to it, but when I have to act on it, I hedge my bets and act the other way around. So James is saying this person is one who is playing both sides of the table. The person who says, okay, God, you help me, but you know, just in case you don't come through, I've got plan B in my back pocket. That person is not going to receive anything. If you trust God, if you submit your life to Him, if you have real saving faith, God gives generously without reproach. But if you're trying to play both sides of the table, say trusting God and the world, then you will receive nothing because you either trust God or you don't. You can't trust him halfway, you can't trust him only on Sundays, or only when it's easy, or only when you like the answer he's giving you. Now, honest doubt, which is confusion or fear is okay, but doubt that is hostility or indifference or refusing to commit to God, that's the problem. I think most all Christians go through some period of time where God doesn't seem to make sense or they can't figure out what following him looks like or who he is. I don't think that's the kind of person James is talking about here. Nor do I think that's what Jesus means by the plowman who looks backward. Those struggles are the struggles of a faith that is growing and working itself out, and of a heart that is open and expectant and eager to know God. The doubter, on the other hand, is the fool. The double-minded man acts like a Christian on the outside when it suits him, but then he acts like the world when it suits him. The double-minded man wants to keep all his options open. He doesn't want to choose. He wants to look like a believer on Sunday and look like the rest of the world the rest of the time. If we come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah and we accept that he speaks and acts with the authority from God, then we must act on it and realize there is no higher authority. Lurking behind these stories about the potential disciples is the question, what are we looking to Jesus to do for us? What are we hoping he'll save us from? Do we want to follow him because we think he'll make this world pay off for us, like the scribe? Or do we want to follow him only after we've settled our career and made our fortunes in this world because after all we really like this world best? Well, as we talked about in the Beatitudes, the issue is in our spirits do we believe ourselves to be poor? Do we understand this fundamental truth that all the glories of this world are counterfeit idols and true life is to be found in the kingdom of God? Do we know that however much wealth or fame or fortune or power or glory or success we might amass today, nothing in this world can make us truly rich. We can't find the kind of life that will satisfy the deepest longings of our hearts in this present existence because we are sinful, the world is fallen, and we need a savior. If we truly want to follow Jesus and be his disciple, because he can save us from our sins, then we have not fooled ourselves into thinking that anyone or anything in this life can make us truly rich or has a higher authority. The ones who follow Jesus are not looking to the things of this world to give them their comfort now because they know that true riches are to be found in the kingdom of God. This is the kind of thing I'm getting at with the four convictions of saving faith. If you listen to the Beatitudes, you heard me describe saving faith as having four main convictions, and they apply here. What do I want Jesus to do for me? Why do I want to follow him? Why do I want to be his disciple? Well, true disciples of Jesus have saving faith, and saving faith is characterized by these four convictions. First, saving faith involves a genuine desire for holiness in and of itself. What do I want to be saved from? Those who have saving faith want to be saved from their sin. They hate sin, they grieve over their sin, they mourn over it, and they long to be made holy and worthy. Two, saving faith includes a genuine understanding that left to myself, I am not capable of making myself holy. I am trapped as a slave to my sin and I need a redeemer. There is nothing I can do to free myself or earn my way out of it. Three, saving faith includes a genuine understanding that God owes me nothing and I am totally unworthy of any gift from God. I can't earn his favor. No amount of law keeping is going to justify me. There's no divine spark within me that requires God to save me. His salvation is an act of mercy and grace. And then fourth, saving faith is a firm, ongoing, and growing trust that God will in fact forgive me and make me holy in the age to come because of what Jesus Christ did on the cross. So saving faith comes when I recognize the authority of Jesus. Jesus says that he has come to rescue us from sin and death, and I recognize that I need that. Jesus says that he has come to grant us life, the kind that truly satisfies and never fades away. I deeply want that. Jesus says I don't have to earn his favor. He is willingly dying in my place as an act of grace. I gratefully and humbly accept that. I trust that Jesus is who he says he is, that Jesus speaks and acts with the authority of God because he is the Messiah, and that God, as he promised, will save me from sin because of the blood of Jesus Christ. If we long for the world instead of being saved from our sins, then we lack faith and we are not disciples of Jesus. Thank you for listening to Wednesday in the Word, the podcast that explains not only what a passage means, but also shows you how to figure it out. You can find all previous episodes in this series on my website, wednesdayintheword.com. There is no charge, no spam, and no ads. If you've been blessed by this podcast, please subscribe, leave a positive rating or review wherever you listen, but most importantly, tell a friend what you learned and where you learned it. Thank you to Reggie Coates for the use of his beautiful song Tenacious. You can hear all of his music and find his CDs on heartfeltmusic.org. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Krisan Marotta, and I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the Word.