Thoughts for the Day

Now when Jesus saw great crowds around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side. A scribe then approached and said, ‘Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.’ Another of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ But Jesus said to him, ‘Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.’

(Lectionary, New Revised Standard Version)

Thoughts

Do you remember the game of hopscotch? I looked at it a few months ago when thinking about the impossibility of obeying the Law of Moses (God's grace). As a game it gets harder to succeed the further one goes, and part of that is because you often have to stand on one leg to pick up a stone, and many of us are not good at balancing on one leg. Today's reading from Matthew's Gospel shows us Jesus dealing with possible disciples. One promises to follow him wherever he goes, and the other will follow him when he has buried his father. We shouldn't take Jesus' comments about buying the father too literally, but the point he makes is that there is no time to stand still. We are pilgrims on a journey.

How many people have we known who work hard all their life and who long for their retirement and all the plans they have made, only to find ill-health or death occurs before they get to enjoy that longed-for retirement? Our life is a journey, and like the game of hopscotch we should keep moving and not try to stand still on one leg. There is a start and there is a finish. We may not like to think of the finish, but we cannot avoid moving on!

When we follow Jesus we should expect things to change. He doesn't call us to sit still. He calls us to deepen our faith; to continue helping others; and to go on worshipping God. All of this will mean life will continue to change. Nothing will stay static for the christian who is on a journey!

Lord Jesus Christ,
may we greet each new day
as one where we meet with possibilities
to learn and grow as Christians,
and where we can offer help to others.
Encourage us not to get too comfortable,
but to see our life as a journey -
with occasional, short, stopping places.
Amen.