Luke 9:57-62
Don’t Look Back!
One of the great tropes in ancient story-telling is the warning “don’t look back!” It appears everywhere: in the Bible, Lot and his family were warned not to look back when they were escaping the destruction of Sodom. In ancient Greece, Orpheus was warned not to look back when he was leading his wife Eurydice out of the underworld. I have even heard of a Korean folk tale where the moral of the story is “don’t look back!”
In today’s Gospel, our Lord is telling people that, if they want to follow him, they need to remember: “don’t look back!” Let us get into the moment. We are at the hinge moment of Jesus’ earthly ministry. He has done all his big works of healing and feeding, gained a big following, and has now told his disciples that, as the Christ, he must go to Jerusalem to suffer, die and rise again. It is “crunch time”; the main purpose of his incarnation, the cross, is at hand. We read that he has “set his face to go to Jerusalem”, so much does this loom in his mind and fix itself in his will and purpose.
And so, marching to Jerusalem to die, he is gathering more and more people to his company. St Luke has recorded three such interactions, and I believe he has done so because they capture in broad strokes the main themes of his responses. One declares, with commendable courage, “I will follow you wherever you go”, to which our Lord replies about the fact that while wild animals have homes, the Messiah has no home here.
Can we remember a time when we weren’t so serious about following Jesus? A time “before”? Were our thoughts not on how to make as comfy a home as possible? And yet as we continue to follow Jesus, we find that this is not our home; our home is elsewhere. We have “nowhere to lay our head”, as it were. The more time we spend following Jesus, and the closer we get to him, the less we find we are able to worry about this world and its comforts. Think also of the warning in his words: if you find yourself comfortable in this world, are you really following the Son of Man? He has no place to lay his head; if you have, are you still with him? Don’t look back to that comfy bed – set your face to Jesus.
To another, Jesus commands “follow me”. This man wants to go home to bury his father, and our Lord’s response is to “let the dead bury their own”. If the first statement was about the material comforts of this world, this one is about the friendly relationships with the culture around us. There are two cultures competing for dominance: the culture of death, as per Jesus’ words, and the Kingdom of God, which is the culture of life. When Jesus speaks those words to us, when he says “follow me”, don’t look back at the culture you have left behind. What does Jesus tell us to do instead? “As for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God”. Have no time with the culture of death, the culture of the kingdom of this world. Proclaim the kingdom of God, the culture of life. Leave the dead to bury their dead; don’t look back.
Twice now Jesus has spoken in the negative; he has said what not to do. Don’t look back. Now he confirms the movement forwards we are to have. The third person wants to go home and say goodbye to everyone. Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” Don’t look back – because we have put our hand to the plow. The field is before us; the oxen are strapped up and ready to work; we have stepped up onto the plow and grabbed the handle; and now you would look back? No – press on, press forward, keep going. You have gotten this far; don’t turn back now!
This may all seem like nothing less than an enormous discomfort. Why bother going through this at all? It is because of the glorious wonder and excitement that is the kingdom of God. The pleasures of this world – material comforts, the applause of the culture, slowing down and fading into obscurity – are nothing compared to communion with and enjoyment of the eternal and almighty God. On the face of it, following Jesus may seem tough. But it is only because we have no understanding of the incredible joy of following him. Follow him long enough and you will see that having a comfy bed or high cultural standing is not a sacrifice to make, but rather something that is entirely worthless, and you will gladly exchange it for a closer walk with Jesus!
Ultimately, all that stuff is, as the apostle says elsewhere, “garbage”. Don’t look back at it. It’s not worth your time. Look instead to Jesus, and his infinite worth, and his infinite love and joy.