When we lived for a while in Kent we used to have regular trips in the autumn to one ploughing match after another.
It was an area with a lot of arable farming where a lot of ground gets turned over before the winter - especially on the county's heavier clay soils.
A ploughing match is quite an event. It was great fun.
A lot of skill goes on display.
Ploughing is not an easy game. It's an art. You've got to CONCENTRATE your attention continually.
Jesus seems to know a lot about it for a preacher, and uses that to illustrate a crucial point.
Now, there's a plough here on the farm but I'm a stockman not a ploughman so I am definitely not an expert.
But what I DO know is this, when you're ploughing a field on the farm, you need to keep an eye on what's happening at the point of the plough and navigate your way very carefully according to what's going on there.
It's especially important to concentrate when you're putting in that crucial 'first went' to make sure it goes in absolutely straight, and then to do so equally though less intensively afterwards to make sure the depth stays right, the land is turning over correctly and so on.
So WHAT is Jesus saying here in Luke 9:62?
"Jesus replied,
‘No one who puts a hand to the plough
and looks back
is fit for service in the kingdom of God.’"
Luke 9:62
The context
In Luke 9:57-62 we get a very dramatic portrayal of Jesus.
Jesus is by this point a wanted man up at Jerusalem, plotted against for His life by the religious leaders in that city who DO NOT like at all what He's been saying and doing, far less Who He's been proving Himself to be!
He's been behaving like God in the flesh, and that was rocking the boat for the leading men in Jerusalem.
In Luke 9:51 we read that ... against this threatening background ... "Jesus set His face resolutely to go to Jerusalem".
And then the following verses paint a picture of Jesus leading the way up to that dangerous city with His disciples streaming back behind Him, bobbing along worriedly in His wake ... keeping their eye on Him forging the way out in front, but anxious for the consequences of what was going on and what would come following on behind.
The image painted is really DRAMATIC!
And on that dramatic journey Jesus encounters ...
Three distracted (and rejected) would-be 'followers'
As He strides along three men in particular come along with the intention of following Him themselves.
None of them has grasped the consequences of what's involved in following Jesus. All are pictured considering discipleship but they have all have come trusting to and pursuing their own personal priorities and agendas.
None of them is prepared to follow Jesus's own risky route, by leaving the consequences of their faithfulness to God.
The first man
... is more committed to his political solutions to life's problems than he is to trusting God to make provision for his life:
"As they were walking along the road, a man said to him,
‘I will follow you wherever you go.’
Jesus replied, ‘Foxes have dens and birds have nests,
but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.’"
Luke 9:58
Foxes and birds were nick-names for political factions fighting for the spoils of political power in the ferment of first century Palestine.
Jesus sees right to the heart of this man.
The man sees Jesus as a political Messiah, and was up for following Whomsoever he thought would feather his nest ... but following Jesus involves following Someone Who hadn't even got a nest of His own here, and is not in the business of providing feathered nests.
If he's going to trust and follow Jesus this man is going to have to trust his future this-worldy prospects to the Lord!
He wouldn't trust Jesus with the consequences of following Him.
The second man
... is more committed to serving his still living (i.e. not dead yet) parents than to Jesus ... who could have ages to live yet (do you see the point?) He wants to be able to go and bury them first and that could take years.
The man's parents have become his priority, his religion.
He can't trust the Lord with His parents, so he can't trust the Lord.
"‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’
Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead,
but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’"
Luke 9:59-60
The third man
... is willing to leave his family to follow Jesus but must first go home to tell his family where he's going, as if following Jesus weren't at all a priority that he needed to give his full attention to, urgently, right now.
The Point
All three of these men are concerned for the consequences of committing their lives to following Jesus right here, right now.
They have distractions that detract from their commitment to Christ because they don't trust Him to take care of the consequences in this world of following Him.
And that causes them to be unfit for His service in the Kingdom of God.
Well here's the point.
We're talking about the Lord's service, His service in the Kingdom of God ... what we do with our lives in pursuing His work and His will.
We'd better not try to do that in this God-hostile world without firmly trusting to the Providence of God for all the consequences of our actions as we follow Him.
The Takeaway
Jesus is calling for utterly reasonable but crazy-looking confidence in the Providence of God our Provider, and apparently ridiculous trust in Him to take care of the finish on our furroughs and the consequences that will arise if our first went didn't go in quite straight.
That's called faith and it's first base for becoming and being a believer.
Trusting Him is ... trusting in Him!
How much of your dreaded 'consequences' can you trust to the Lord?
Ridiculous as it may seem but when we've received the Master's instructions and we're ploughing the Lord's furrow: "‘No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.’"
It may look ever so singularly irresponsible to trust in the Lord in that way.
Until you realise that when we plough for the One whose field we are ploughing, His instruction is to keep our eyes forward following Him, trusting HIM to take care of the furrough.
Ploughing without looking back over your shoulder seems irresponsible. Until you realise you're looking ahead to follow the One Who always ploughs a straight furrough ... and following Him you will by definition be ploughing straight!
He Himself takes care of the marks we leave on the ground.
And that's the sort of faith and that's the sort of following that puts us in the right with this Lord.
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