Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

THE MISSION OF JESUS
§13.2
evident in some of Jesus' calls to discipleship, particularly the collection in Luke
9.57-62/Matt. 8.19-22.
Matt. 8.19-22
19 A scribe then approached and
said, 'Teacher. I will follow vou wherever vou
go'. 20 And Jesus savs to him. 'Foxes have
holes, and birds of the air have nests: but the Son
of Man has nowhere to lav his head'.
21 Another of his disciples said to him,
'Lord, first let me go and burv mv father'. 22
But Jesus said to him, 'Follow me, and let the
dead burv their own dead'.
Luke 9.57-62
57 As they were going along the road, someone
said to him. 'I will follow vou wherever vou
so'. 58 And Jesus said to him, 'Foxes have
holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son
of Man has nowhere to lav his head'.
59 To another he said, 'Follow me'. But he said.
TLordl, first let me 20 and burv mv father'. 60
But Jesus said to him. 'Let the
dead burv their own dead; but as for vou, go and
proclaim the kingdom of God'. 61 Another said,
'I will follow you, Lord; but let me first take leave
of those at my home'. 62 Jesus said to him, 'No
one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back
is fit for the kingdom of God'.
One disciple (or potential disciple) is recalled as requesting, 'Let me first
go and bury my father'. But Jesus told him, 'Leave the dead to bury their own
dead' (Matt. 8.21-22/Luke 9.59-60). 69 The offensiveness of Jesus' reply has been
much emphasized in recent years. To bury his father was one of the most elementary
duties of a son; in Jewish custom (m. Ber. 3.1) it came before other fundamental
religious duties like reciting the Shema. 70 Jeremias draws attention to the
implicit urgency: 'In Palestine, burial took place on the day of death, but it was
followed by six days of mourning on which the bereaved family received expressions
of sympathy. Jesus cannot allow so long a delay'. 71 Bailey however suggests
that an idiomatic usage has been misunderstood: 'the phrase "to bury one's
father" is a traditional idiom that refers specifically to the duty of the son to remain
at home and care for his parents until they are laid to rest respectfully': the
delay might be considerable! 72
A similar urgency is evident in the third saying included by Luke (9.61-
62): the would-be disciple is not even allowed to take leave of his family — in
69. The variation in detail between Matthew and Luke is what we might expect in oral
retellings; contrast H. Fleddermann, 'The Demands of Discipleship Matt 8,19-22 par. Luke
9,57-60', in F. Van Segbroeck et al., eds., The Four Gospels 1992: Festschrift Frans Neirynck
(Leuven: Leuven University, 1992) 541-61, who is unwilling to distinguish performance/retelling/editing
from composition. For Matt. 8.20/Luke 9.58 see below, §16.4b(4).
70. See particularly Hengel, Charismatic Leader 8-15; Sanders, Jesus and Judaism 252-
55. The offensiveness of the saying is a mark of its authenticity for both the Jesus Seminar
(Funk, Five Gospels 161) and Lüdemann (Jesus 326).
71. Jeremias, Proclamation 132.
72. See further K. E. Bailey, Through Peasant Eyes (Grand Rapids; Eerdmans, 1980)
26-27; cf. Buchanan, Jesus 86; see also §14.4h below.
504