June 30, 2025

Matthew 8:18-22

In today’s reading, a scribe tells Jesus he will follow him wherever he goes. Jesus warns him that even though wild creatures all have their nests, Jesus has nowhere to rest his head and nowhere on earth that is home to him. Another disciple says he wants to follow him, but “let me go first and bury my father.”  But Jesus answers him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead.”

This message is often seen as extreme, unkind, and hard to understand. But the first story explains the second one. In the first, Jesus reminds the scribe that following Jesus means being homeless; it means giving up attachment to making oneself comfortable in the ordinary earthly sense. Our orientation is to the spiritual, not the worldly. It is a groundless, rootless experience. It is not cozy.

In the second story, this message is taken further. Jesus tells the disciple to follow him without taking a detour to return home to bury his father. This means that when we follow the spiritual path, it is a total commitment and there’s no going back. It means we can’t bargain with it, saying we’ll pursue the spiritual path when it’s convenient for us. Of course this is a stark example, but the point is we can’t tuck our spiritual path into the leftover spaces of our lives.

The spiritual path is the guide star, and it is not subject to compromise with earthly priorities.  In reality, we all know that we can be a spiritual practitioner and still bury our dead, so please don’t take this literally.  This was just a teaching that disciple needed to hear at that moment.

Follow the guide star, and then all else falls into place. And then there is peace.  Peace that one has done all one can.  That is all.

Yesterday at church: Sometimes when I see Jesus above, I see him with angels on either side, in rows, rather formal.  Yesterday in church, it seemed like when I would turn my attention toward Jesus, I saw angels who had been relaxing on either side of him, listening to the service, quickly flit back into formal position when I looked their way.  Like, “Quick, she’s looking!” It was funny. I swear angels have a playful sense of humor, and they move very fast.