Jump Start # 1132

Luke 9:61 “Another also said, ‘I will follow You, Lord; but first permit me to say good-bye to those at home.”

  Our verse today is found in a section where three different people wanted to follow Jesus.

The first man, spoke out to Jesus as He was passing along the road. He said, “I will follow You wherever you go.” Jesus responded by reminding him that ‘the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” We are not told what happened to that man. Indications are, he didn’t follow.

The second man, was asked by Jesus. Jesus said, “Follow Me.” Jesus invited him. Jesus wanted him. Jesus was including him. He replied by saying, “Let me first bury my father.” Odd reply. Typically, Jews buried the day of death. So why is this man out in the crowd where Jesus is passing by? His need to bury his father didn’t stop him from seeing Jesus. The Lord told him to let the dead bury the dead. He wanted him to go and preach the kingdom. We are not told what happened to that man. Indications are, he didn’t follow. The expression, ‘let the dead bury the dead,’ seems cold and heartless. Some have viewed this as ‘let the spiritual dead bury the physical dead.’ Let others in the family who are not interested in Jesus do that. Nothing more could be done for the father. Still other scholars point to a Jewish custom of removing the bones on the anniversary of the death and putting them in an ossuary or bone box. The father had been dead for a year. Let the dead bury the dead refers to that. He didn’t follow.

The third man, like the first man, volunteered to follow Jesus. He brought it up. His statement came with a condition, Jesus I will follow you, but first permit me to say good-bye to those at home. Jesus said, “no one putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” I’m a city boy, not a farmer. But I understand what Jesus is saying. The principle works the same in mowing a yard. If you are looking backwards while trying to move forward, your lines will be crooked and you’ll have a mess. It’s especially bad when planting a field. Indications are, he didn’t follow.

Excuses and priority problems kept these men from following Jesus. Two of the three are bold enough to tell Jesus, “First.” Permit me first. I have something more important than you. I have something to do that trumps what you want. These men wanted to follow Jesus, but they wanted it in their terms. Follow Jesus in the sunshine, not the darkness. Follow Jesus, when crowds love Him, not when He is hunted down and being sought to be killed. Follow Jesus when I have nothing better to do. Two of these men were bold enough to tell Jesus, “FIRST.” First I will do what I want, then I will follow you. Me first, then you, Jesus. That never works. That is instant failure with God. That’s a dumb idea that is guaranteed to blow up.

Excuses. Have you noticed how good we are at coming up with excuses? We blame our parents, our background, our terrible schools, our pitiful churches, our abusive teachers, our coaches who played favoritism, our birth order, our zodiac, our neighborhoods and everything and everyone but self. We can’t help it. Our marriages fail and it’s not our fault. We can’t pay our bills and it’s not our fault. We hide behind excuses to cover for wrong. Instead of apologizing, we excuse. Instead of stepping up in responsibility, we excuse. Some excuses are legit. Some may be polite lies for getting around what we don’t feel like doing. Excuses. They often started when we were young and we blamed our siblings to dodge getting in trouble. Then in school, we found excuses as a handy way of not doing assignments and getting out of classes. At work, excuses became a regular way of staying home and not going in. Excuses. For some of us, they have been around us for a long, long time. We’ve mastered when to pull them out. We’ve avoided traffic tickets, getting written up at work, having to sleep on the couch by using those wonderful excuses. We’ve learned to talk a good story, make grand promises, followed by a ready-made excuse that allows us to once again duck responsibility. Our excuses have allowed us to skip weddings we didn’t want to go to, keep the boss on hold, and paint an image that we are a lot better than we really are. You ought to hear the excuses on the golf course. Amazing. One bad shot after another is followed by this and that excuse. The poor guy just doesn’t want to admit that he is a lousy golfer.

A life of excuses will sooner or later trickle into the spiritual realm. Our lack of attendance is justified with an excuse. We find excuses why we can’t teach, serve as a deacon or be one of the shepherds. Excuses cause us to miss important times together like meetings. We find excuses to be wonderful comfort from guilt. There is an excuse why we don’t read the Bible and why we are not engaged more spiritually. These excuses only hurt us. We suffer. We do not grow as we ought to. We do not become as we should. In the end, we do not know the Lord, we do not  have a strong faith, we can not withstand the storms of life. The valleys of death that we must pass through terrifies us and we wonder deep down if we will really go to Heaven.

The funny thing about excuses is that while we can be so good at using them, we don’t tolerate them in others. They work for us, but we don’t want them to work for others. The excuses of others often seem shallow and silly to us. One guy told me that he couldn’t attend services because the lights were too bright. I told him to wear sun glasses. That didn’t work. Another said all the perfume made him sick. I told him to sit on the front row. That didn’t work. Another had to stay home because his wife had a bad headache. I wondered if he stayed home from work on Monday because she had a headache. Yet, somehow, our excuses, do not seem so bad. They do, especially to others. I expect they seem even worse to Jesus, who died on the cross for us. And there we are, limping through life with weak faith and instead of stepping up, we master excuses. Paul told the Corinthians to “act like men.” ESPN using the expression, “Com’ on man.”

Three different people following Jesus. One was asked, the other two volunteered. It looks like none of them actually took a step with Jesus. Excuses. The one they hurt the most was self.

Notice how many excuses you hear today. It starts with, “I didn’t get my coffee this morning.” It’s easy to judge and point fingers at others. It would be better if we looked within and started being honest with self. Some times things happen. You can’t help it. Many times, we simply fumbled and instead of admitting that we pull out the excuse. Work on stopping that. Work on honesty. First, with self, with God and with others. Help your child not to slide into the easy habit of using excuses. God wants us to be honest with our sins and grow in faith with Him. Excuses will prevent that.

Follow Jesus…He wants you to do that as well. Can you? Will you? Do you find yourself reaching for an excuse? Watch it. Don’t go there. Wouldn’t it be great if we had a national holiday, “No Excuse Day.” It’d be death for most politicians. How about a “No excuse policy” at work? Do you think that would fly? How about no excuses for a day at home? How about simply, “I’ll not use any excuses today.” May be painful, but truthful, honesty and openness can lead to great things.

Give it a try.

Roger