Of Birds, Foxes and Dead Men

Matthew 8:18-22
Cascades Fellowship CRC, JX MI
March 5, 2006

The Navy SEALs are a dedicated group – serious, intense, nigh on to

obsessive type people; and the Navy likes it that way. In fact, the training for a

Navy Seal is set up to ensure that a candidate has just those qualities. If you

think of Navy SEALs as muscle-bound, violence-prone men whose dull minds

make them perfect candidates to become unquestioning bullet-catchers –

automatons who simply follow orders and live for danger – you should think

again.

When a candidate enters training there is one condition placed on him – he

must not give up. He has already been physically, intellectually, and emotionally

qualified through a rigorous screening process. Once he enters the actual

training program the trainers promise that there is only one way to fail – to ring

out. In the middle of the campus is a bell, if candidate reaches the breaking point

– if he is no longer able to endure the physical, intellectual and emotional

demands of the training he can walk to the middle of the campus and ring the

bell. No shame, no judgment; you just ring the bell and go home.

In recent years movies and documentaries have been made about the

SEALs which have excited the imaginations of many young men. A ground swell

of recruits has resulted – young men who only see the high adventure. They join

the Navy thinking to become part of these elite class of sailor. However, the
Navy SEALs want only those who are truly dedicated, so they make the training

difficult enough to weed out only the best possible candidates.

As we have been studying through the Gospel of Matthew, I am beginning

to think that being a disciple is something like wanting to be a Navy SEAL. Last

week, Pastor Bob preached on a passage that includes some very haunting

words.

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of
heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22
Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your
name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ 23
Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you
evildoers!’i

What runs through your mind when you read words like that coming from

the mouth of our Lord? Do you dismiss them or comfort yourself by thinking he

couldn’t possibly mean you? Or do his words spur you to consider carefully your

commitment to Christ – to wonder what it really means to be his disciple?

Because of passages like this in the Gospel of Matthew, I have been

thinking a lot about what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. Apparently,

some who consider themselves disciples – followers of Jesus – will find out on

that great and awesome day of the Lord’s return that Jesus did not consider

them his disciples. And the question that keeps entering my mind is “Where did

they go wrong?” How is it that they missed the narrow way and stumbled on to

the broad road that leads to destruction?

 I cannot say that I can answer these questions definitively – as I said, our

journey through the Gospel of Matthew has spurred these questions so I am still

wrestling with them. But I think our passage this morning gives us some insight

into these questions. I think that one answer for these would-be disciples who

cry out ‘Lord, Lord” and yet are not known is that they failed to count the cost.

In our passage this morning, Jesus deals with two would-be disciples.

Before we get too far let me give a few details about what is happening as we

come into this passage. Jesus has finished the Sermon on the Mount detailing

what it means to be part of the Kingdom of God. He then reminds his listeners

that there are two ways to live life – according to what he taught in the Sermon

on the Mount or whatever way the world is teaching at the moment; the narrow

way or the broad way.

The people realize that he is not just another rabbi. His teaching has

authority and the people are fascinated – amazed, really. Then, the miracles

begin. Jesus heals a man with leprosy; he heals the centurion’s servant with just

a word – he doesn’t even lay eyes on him. He heals Peter’s mother-in-law; he

casts out demons. He does all of this to reveal his authority, to authenticate his

right to speak with such authority, but the crowds see only the miracles – they

see a means to an end. They start flocking to him, gathering around, wanting

Jesus for their own agenda. So Jesus commands the disciples to get a boat

ready to go to the other side.

 Then, a scribe steps out from among the crowd and tells Jesus, “Teacher, I

will follow you wherever you go.” Now, what you have to realize here is that this

guy is not some rube who got excited about something Jesus said and so makes

an impulse decision. He is a teacher in his own right – an expert in the Law. He

knows extraordinary teaching when he hears it.

In Jesus’ time, you gained status as a rabbi by the number of students who

chose to follow you. In an article on the website followtherabbi.com Ray

Vanderlaan explains how rabbis gained disciples.

Like other rabbis of his day, Jesus had disciples called talmidim, devout

followers who were probably in their mid-teens.

Gifted students approached a rabbi and asked, “May I follow you?” in

effect, saying, “Do I have what it takes to be like you?” The rabbi either accepted

the student as a talmid or sent him away to pursue a trade.”ii

When this scribe came to Jesus asking to become his disciple, he knows

what he is doing. In fact, by coming out of the crowd with such a bold request he

is in many ways validating what Jesus is teaching. So you would think that Jesus

would enthusiastically receive this guy into the fold. I mean, how exciting would it

be if some influential Christian, like Rick Warren or Max Lucado walked in here

one day and said, “Chris, I love your teaching. I want to come and hang out here

at Cascades Fellowship and learn from you.” I am pretty sure that I would pick

my jaw up off the ground with as much grace as I could muster and welcome

either Rick or Max into the fold.

 But Jesus is a different breed. Now think about that for a moment. Most of

us would be tempted to think, “Hey! Here is a teacher of the Law! This guy has

the juice in the community; he could be quite an asset to our cause.” But Jesus

doesn’t think this way. Instead he gives the scribe this peculiar answer.

“Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man

has no place to lay his head.” Is that a yes or a no? Whatever it is, it is not a

ringing endorsement. In fact, when I read this passage, I get the sense that

Jesus is trying to talk the scribe out his commitment. Why? Does the scribe

have some character flaw that Jesus sees but that is hidden from the eyes of

everyone else? I guess that is possible, but it goes deeper than that.

What Jesus is trying to get the scribe to do is count the cost of his decision

– to really think about the commitment he is making. “But Pastor Chris, you just

said the scribe knew what he was doing." I know, I know and that still holds true.

But just because he knew what he was doing does not mean he knew what he

was getting into.

You see, Jesus knew what his would-be disciple did not. That following

him was not going to lead him to greater respect in the religious community –

there would be no status associated with following the rabbi Jesus. No, following

Jesus would ultimately lead to insult, persecution and ridicule. Jesus would later

say to his disciples, “All men will hate you because of me.”

What Jesus is telling the scribe when he speaks of foxes and birds is that

to follow him the scribe must abandon the life he knows – and even more
importantly, the life he hopes will come from following Jesus. Because to follow

Jesus is to become an alien in this world – a stranger; to be in the world but not

of it.

The scribe comes to Jesus to sit at the feet of a great preacher, to learn

from him, but Jesus offers him something more. He offers him real life, but in

order to get it the scribe must first be willing to give up the life that he has.

On the heels of this first would-be disciple, a second one steps up. He is

an ordinary guy, apparently. Matthew refers to him as just “another disciple.” He

wants to follow Jesus but first he has, what appears on the surface, a reasonable

request. “First, let me go and bury my father.”

Again, Jesus’ response to the would-be disciple seems a little out of

whack, harsh even. He says, “Follow me. Let the dead bury their own dead.”

Ouch, that just hurts – at least in today’s vernacular. Let me ask you, if one

Sunday you called me before the service to let me know that your wouldn’t be

here because a close relative from out of town has died and you want to go to

the funeral service, how would you respond if I said, “Your place is in the church.

Let the dead bury the dead”? Seriously, would you even bother to come back the

church after that? If you didn’t, I wouldn’t blame you.

But what we are dealing with here is an idiom in the Hebrew culture. Let

me paraphrase the would-be disciple according to the idiom he was using.

“Jesus, I want to follow you but I want to wait until my father passes away.” You

see, his father wasn’t actually dead. In fact, if his father had died, the guy would
be no where around because the Law required that the dead be buried on the

same day that they died. What this would-be disciple was really asking for was a

deferment. He wanted Jesus to wait upon him – he wants the Lord who will die

for him upon the cross to wait until it is more convenient for him to become a

disciple.

Again, as harsh as it sounds, Jesus’ answer reveals that the would-be

disciple doesn’t really know what it is he’s asking. He hasn’t a clue about what

he is giving up by not following Jesus immediately.

Whether its not knowing what he is getting into or it is not knowing what he

is giving up, both would-be disciples make the same mistake, they fail to count

the cost of what it means to be a disciple.

I began earlier by talking about the Navy SEALs and how they thin the

ranks of the wannabes by making the training process so rigorous that only the

most committed, the most dedicated make it through. By his responses, by

calling the wannabe disciples out and opening their eyes to what it really takes to

be his disciple, Jesus is declaring to all those who would follow after him – “Only

the most dedicated, only the most committed can come after me.”

In his classic work, The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes

that when Jesus Christ calls a person, he calls him to come and die. He says

that anything else equates to cheap grace. Cheap grace, he says, “is the

preaching of forgiveness without repentance… cheap grace is grace without

discipleship. Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again,
the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such

grace is costly because it calls us to follow and it is grace because it calls us to

follow Jesus Christ.”iii

What Bonhoeffer is pointing out here reminds me of a joke I read this week

as I was preparing. A pig and a chicken wanted to do something nice for their

farmer one day. The chicken made the suggestion that maybe they could have a

bacon and egg breakfast for him the next morning. The pig said, "Sure! For you

that’s only a small contribution, but for me that’s total commitment."iv

You see, as unflattering as it sounds, the real question is which one of the

animals would you be? Are you the chicken – the one who one who only makes

a small contribution? The one who likes a comfortable Christianity with few

demands? Or are you the pig – ready to make a full commitment, to come and

die at the feet of Christ daily so that you can be raised up in his image, having in

your heart shaped like his heart and your mind formed like his mind? What

Jesus calls for is the total commitment – commitment so strong that you’re willing

to forsake your life to gain his, that you place all other allegiances in subjection to

this one great allegiance.

Crawford Loritts, in a book titled A Passionate Commitment, says that

there is a scandal in the church today. That most Christian lives are aimless,

really – more an assent to body of teaching than a Living and Loving God. He

says the reason for this is because we have failed to make a decision. The

decision, once and for all, to dedicate all that we have and are Jesus Christ.v
 Let us examine ourselves, to be sure that we are not part of the scandal in

the church. Are you sold out for Jesus? Not Jesus in the right measure or in the

right place. Not Jesus on Sunday and maybe a Wednesday, but dedicated to

Jesus 24/7. Our Lord requires no less of us and quite frankly, he’s earned the

right to expect it from us. After all, he committed himself completely and utterly

for us on the cross.

i
The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.) . Zondervan:
Grand Rapids
ii
Ray VanderLaan http://www.followtherabbi.com/Brix?pageID=2074
iii
Dietrich BonHoeffer The Cost of Discipleship p.47
iv
http://www.sermoncentral.com/sermon.asp?SermonID=87654&ContributorID=10509
v
Crawford Lorits A Passionate Commitment p.44