Reading
Matthew 8:18-22
18 When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake. 19 Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.”
20 Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
21 Another disciple said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”
22 But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”
Comment
Jesus is about to pass to the other side of the lake of Gennesaret and two characters emerge from the crowd who want to follow him in his itinerant ministry. He takes the opportunity to outline the quality of the true disciple: the detachment from a "comfortable" life and from material goods.
A scribe recognizes in Jesus a teacher (v. 19) greater than his companions, doctors of the law. Faced with his desire to follow him, Jesus presents to him the sufferings and the rigor that those who become his disciples go to meet.
The term "Son of man" (v. 20) is the title that Jesus most frequently uses for himself. It appears 83 times in the Gospels and has a clear reference to the humanity and humility of Christ. In the book of Daniel (Dn 7: 13-14) it is a title that refers to the Messiah, whose universal power and the eternity of his kingdom are prophesied.
The radicality expressed by Jesus' exhortation to let the dead bury their dead lies in the fact that those who want to follow him must leave everything else in the background, even the duty of burial - which is very important in the Jewish and Hellenistic world - even in the case of the father's burial. The Greek term nekros does not only refer to the actual dead but also to those who refuse to follow Jesus on the path to eternal life.
The expression "first let me go and bury my father" (v. 21), in fact, does not necessarily indicate that the disciple's father was dead, but was commonly used to indicate the desire to wait to receive his inheritance. In this sense, it attests to putting earthly goods before the demands of the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus is demanding with his disciples, but he is the truth that makes us free (Jn 8:32), and freedom is priceless. Are we ready to go with him to the other shore?
Prayer
Give us, o Lord, the freedom of the children of God; so that by putting nothing before your love, we can order our lives to the demands of the gospel. Amen.
- Rev. Dr. Luca Vona
