Following Jesus in Times of Transition
The Rev. Dr. Karin J. Ekholm, June 29, 2025
Jesus has concluded his ministry in his home region of Galilee, embarked with his disciples on his final journey to Jerusalem, and as they are walking along the road, they encounter a series of three would-be followers. The first and third approach Jesus and volunteer to follow him. The second, in contrast, is called by Jesus, and although this person recognizes him as Lord, he accepts the invitation with a caveat: he has important things to do before they go.
We know nothing about the would-be followers, not their hometown, age, social status, profession, or what became of them. The effect of St. Luke’s succinct narration is that the focus falls on Jesus’ reply. In every case, he answers with evocative sayings that pose something of a puzzle:
"Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head"
"Let the dead bury their own dead”
"No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God"
These responses have the ring of proverbs, and they belong to a special category of sayings in classical rhetoric, known as ‘chreiae’ (pronounced KRE-ya). These were pithy precepts attributed to a particular person and spoken in response to an observation or question. Their intent was to illustrate a lesson or principle in an impactful and memorable way. In our story, Jesus’ words are indeed striking, both because they seem rather harsh and because his use of figurative language leaves the listener with something to figure out.
The first would-be follower spontaneously offers unconditional allegiance, only to be met by Jesus’ sobering reply that drives home the gravity of discipleship. It is in our nature to long for home—or for a home. Yet Jesus warns that following him entails a transient life. The Son of Man lives as a wanderer who has no home. Even animals are better off.
In his book On the Road with Saint Augustine, James K. A. Smith considers what it means to be ever in transit, particularly for us in the 21st century. We crave a place where we belong, where we can rest, where we are home, and this fundamental desire makes us vulnerable to the lie, “You belong here”, told to us by everyone from Disney to Las Vegas. In the process of following Christ, we come to recognize with St. Augustine, that God has made us for himself, and our hearts are restless until they rests in him.
Smith suggests that Christianity entails what he calls a “refugee spirituality”. This means that we remain “unsettled yet hopeful, tenuous but searching, eager to find the hometown we’ve never been to.” He joins the call of theologians reflecting on people driven from their homes by circumstances beyond their control, and in asking how we might we learn from them about God and ourselves. Jesus’ response to the would-be follower suggests that we might find an image of the Christian life in those who sleep under bridges, in camps, and in small boats crossing the sea.
But who in their right mind would sign up for perpetual homelessness? The first encounter suggests that if we understood what it means to follow, nobody would join on their own initiative. We’re mistaken if we think that we’re the ones who decide to step forward, as if it were a journey we map out for ourselves. Following always occurs in response to Jesus reaching out and calling us to participate in his ongoing work. Followers are born not by expressions of ardent desire or decisions made in the abstract, but rather in the course of concrete action.
We find another volunteer in the third would-be follower, the difference is that he approaches Jesus with an explicit condition. He will join as soon as he bids farewell to loved ones. On first reading, this seems perfectly reasonable, and yet, Jesus’ response indicates that he’s missed the point. By insisting on his own terms, he undermine what it means to be a follower. By positing conditions, he finds himself in tension with his purported leader and himself: his desires are conflicted.
Jesus draws on an agricultural metaphor to offer an image of this struggle: it is impossible to participate in the ushering in the Kingdom as long as one’s gaze is fixed elsewhere. As we discover in riding bikes or driving, we drift when we take our eyes from the road ahead. If someone is plowing a field and looks back, they naturally turn. This admonition is directed not against historical understanding, but rather exhorts the listener to surrender whatever parts of their past keep them from following the Way.
Finally, we come to what seems the harshest of the three encounters: Jesus’ extends an invitation, and while the would-be follower recognizes him as Lord, he asks to bury his father before they depart. Why might Jesus possibly object? What does he even mean by the words, "Let the dead bury their own dead"?
In first-century Judaism, the deceased were generally buried the same day they died, which suggests the problem is not one of time. There is a larger teaching at stake. In Hebrew Scripture, a proper burial for one’s father was a strong obligation that fell under the commandment to honor one’s father and mother. Even temple priests, who were required to maintain ritual purity by avoiding contact with the dead, were compelled to bury their fathers. Heard in this context, we recognize that in this response Jesus is making a claim about himself vis-à-vis the Law. As we find throughout the Gospels, when the Mosaic law acts as a barrier between Jesus and a person, and it must be broken.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor and theologian reflects on this passage in a book on what it means to follow Christ. Some years earlier, after completing his doctoral thesis, he had come to the States where he taught at Union Seminary and met African Americans pastors preaching the Gospel of social justice. Soon he returned to Germany, where he played a key role in the Confessing Church that opposed the Nazi rise to power. While he received offers that would have allowed him to leave Germany, he believed it was his duty to stay to offer resistance and participate in the restoration of the church after the war. In the mid-1930s, soon after a colleague was arrested and their seminary was closed by the Gestapo that Bonhoeffer published his book titled The Cost of Discipleship.
Here he reflects on this passage in St. Luke, and more broadly, on what it must have meant for first-century Jews to encounter Jesus. “Until that day,” Bonhoeffer observes, “everything had been different. They could remain in obscurity, pursuing their work as the quiet in the land, observing the law and waiting for the coming of the Messiah. But now he has come, and his call goes forth. Faith can no longer mean sitting still and waiting—they must rise and follow him” (p.62).
In our own lives, we are facing significant transitions. The challenge posed by change is that we often do not know what questions to ask and how to proceed. Like the would-be followers, we might be enamored by Jesus’ work and teaching, but have no sense of what it would look like to participate in proclaiming the Kingdom.
These encounters with would-be followers occur at a crucial pivot in St. Luke’s narrative, as Jesus embarks on a new stage of his mission, as he turns from Galilee and sets his face to go to Jerusalem. From this Third Sunday of Pentecost until the end of October, we are on the road with Jesus and his followers, where he speaks to them in parables of the Kingdom of God. By placing the three encounters with would-be disciples at the outset of the travel narrative, we begin to see that living the Way consists not in private feelings or beliefs so much as participating in the work Christ through his Church. Growing in faith requires us to step out, to leave the comfort of home and illusions of control, and to recognize that God has made us for himself, and our hearts are restless until they rests in him.