Let the Dead Bury Their Own Dead

What horrible words for Jesus to say to potential disciples! How could he get away with such swagger, such hubris? Why would anyone follow him after telling them that their father, who had just died, was not worth burying? And was that a judgment of the father, and of the family who would bury him? Is God unconcerned with them?

Jesus' focus is almost cold and calculating. If we did not have such scenes as the death of Lazarus or the burial procession, at which events Jesus was deeply moved, one might get a picture of an uncaring, almost arbitrary and capricious God. There is plenty in Scripture to show that this is not the case. So why then the dismissal of something so near to our hearts as a funeral for a father?

While not cold and calculating, Jesus' focus is definitely as sharp as a razor. The dead are not the target audience in a funeral, but those who grieve. And while Jesus is on the earth, with little time, those grieving the father will suffer his fate unless Jesus' mission moves on. Jesus is not about to become Israel's chaplain (not to slander my own profession too much here). His mission is of ultimate priority and anyone wishing to follow him must count the cost and leave all else behind - no matter how dear.

I experienced some of the reason for this today at the funeral of an avowed Pagan. A good man to all around him, by all accounts, he took his own life with no seeming rhyme or reason. And the funeral was officiated by his "clergy," a celtic-pagan-druid priestess (I don't know what her real title is) who was very kind and eloquent, though clearly in rebellion and deception. The occasion was one for which there was little reason to hope for the kind of eternity one reads about in Jesus' words - the desired kind, anyhow.

And the father of the deceased continued to haunt me with his questions - statements, really - about his son and his hopes that he is before God, in peace. What do you say to someone who is practically begging for reassurances, when your theology in such a case offers none? Indeed, Jesus would have offered none, so the reader must not question my perspective on this, but rather that of the Lord himself. Whether you declare him Lord, or just a great teacher, prophet, or whatever, this paradox gives us all pause.

The bottom line is this... "God is not willing that any should perish, but that ALL should come to repentance." God does care, but draws the line at the moment of decision, the point at which our last breath slips from our bodies Heavenward with our spirits. If we are dead in our sins at that moment (and I am not judging the young man whose funeral I attended today - that is God's purview), God's judgment is already rendered. There are no do-overs, no purgatories, no appeals. If repentance does not come before the last conscious thoughts in this realm darken, we face a certain, horrible judgment in the next.

Let the dead bury their own dead. Our mission is not the literally dead, but those to whom God leads us. Jesus was saying that those burying the father, and the traditions that would delay the most important of missions on which Jesus was embarking, all must wait, perhaps even perish, while God's priorities played out. Are we willing to set aside the urgent issues in our lives in favor of God's will? Would we say, "No" to those in grief, knowing that the Master is bidding us come and die with him, elsewhere?

It was not a hard choice for me today, as I saw a clear dividing line. I could assist in Military Honors for a deceased soldier, however he died. I could not participate in an ecumenical service with a Pagan. It had nothing to do with whether I liked the people, including the clergy, or whether the people needed consolation - even a father asking, "Why?" and hoping, as any father would, that his son was in Heaven. My mission is the eternal, unfading Gospel of Jesus Christ, which message bears an urgency from which no ceremony, no individual need, must distract.

Today, the dying were burying their dead. I prayed for them. But I could not deter my feet from the path to which I have been called Heavenward in Christ Jesus.