Luke 9:20–26, 57–62

Bible Studies for Life
Associate Professor of Religion, Samford University

Half-Hearted Interest or Total Commitment?

Luke 9:20–26, 57–62
In “The Cost of Discipleship,” German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote the “call of Jesus and the response of single-minded obedience have an irrevocable significance. By means of them Jesus calls people into an actual situation where faith is possible. For that reason his call is an actual call and he wishes it so to be understood, because he knows that it is only through actual obedience that a man can become liberated to believe.” Bonhoeffer himself was no half-hearted believer: his defiant faith in the face of Nazi oppression would send him first to prison and ultimately to the gallows.

Total Sacrifice, Total Loss (20–26)
In Jesus’ day, many claimants to the title of God’s messiah promised liberation from Roman oppression. This political context of “messiah” was likely the reason that Jesus warned His disciples to tell no one who He was. His identity would soon be clear enough based on his actions.  

The audience shifts in v. 23 as Jesus turns His attention to “them all” and issues a stern challenge to would-be followers to “take up their cross.” Two thousand years have dampened the offensiveness of the cross as a form of execution. It was a horrid and shameful way to die, known to the Romans as a slave’s punishment. We perhaps recover something of the sting of Jesus’ words if we think of our modern associations with execution by hanging or electrocution.

Understanding the cross as an offensive image prepares the reader for the paradoxical statement that follows: only by losing our lives can we save them. Thankfully, discipleship does not require total understanding so much as total obedience. Martin Luther said that God’s message tells us “plunge into the deep waters beyond your own comprehension and I will help you to comprehend even as I do.”

Total Commitment (57–62)
Most scholars identify a key turning point in Luke’s Gospel that lies between our two focal passages. In 9:51 Luke tells us that Jesus “set his face to go to Jerusalem.” From this point forward Luke records Jesus’ slow but inexorable progress toward the city where His mission would culminate on a cross. 

The scene on the road that Luke paints is a vivid one: one can imagine Jesus striding with purpose, His disciples following, some at a distance, and someone running alongside and promising, “I will follow you wherever you go.” Or another: “I’ll follow you but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus’ replies seem abrupt, if not rude and provocative, particularly to the one who would bury his father. However, Luke’s purpose here is to demonstrate quite clearly the high cost of discipleship. The road to Jerusalem leads to the cross and death, not to glory, at least not that of the sort anticipated by most.

The requirement to bury the dead was a key expectation of Jewish family life. This is not the only time Luke’s Gospel places discipleship and family obligations at odds. In a similar passage Jesus tells His would-be followers that they must hate their father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters (14:26). 

The words fall hard on modern ears, particularly in cultures where Christianity forms a key element of the broader social fabric. In such contexts, faith is understood more often than not to reinforce family commitments, rather than undermine them. 

Although the instruction to “hate” is hyperbolic, Luke’s first readers would have had little trouble seeing how following Jesus might create dissension in their families or other social relationships. The early history of Christianity is replete with stories of Christians who faced social ostracism or worse due to their faith. 

To all those who would follow Him, Jesus’ instruction is blunt but clear. Just as His face was firmly set on Jerusalem, so too disciples must fix their gaze on the goal. A farmer who looks backward plows crooked furrows, and disciples whose hearts are divided make poor followers.