Luke 9:57-62
As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” 58 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.”
He said to another man, “Follow me.”
But the man replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”
60 Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
61 Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family.” Jesus replied, “No one who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”
I know a thing or two about ploughs. I have put my hand to one type of plough or another for forty years. Ploughing is hard work, even if it is behind a tractor. Perhaps Ronald Reagan may have had it right when he said, “It’s probably true that hard work never killed anyone – but why take the chance?”
The first plough I put my hand to was a One-way Disc plough (PP-2). They were the only plough used when I first started farming. Now they are hardly seen on Australian farms. They followed an Aussie invention that allowed the shear blade to jump over a stump lodged under the soil, the Stump Jump mould-board plough (PP-3). Look at those beautiful creatures (picture of Heavy horses pulling a plough)! Next I put my hand to an Offset Disc plough (PP-4). I thought this was the “Bees Knees” of ploughs. Of course these were the modern equivalents of the horse drawn variety of the mould-board and disc ploughs (PP-5-8 ploughing Eulo Glen, 1923).
But in my time on the land, after thousands of years of ploughing the soil, they were all superseded, not by another plough, but by a process called “Direct Drilling”, where you use a Boom-spray and chemicals to kill weeds instead of a plough (PP-9). Instead of using a 230hp giant to pull a 9-metre-wide plough at 6 km/hr, now I could cover a 25-metre swath behind a little 100 hp tractor at 18 km/hour. Almost three times wider and three times faster! You can just imagine the man-hour and efficiency gains. We were covering more than six times the acreage we used to with the plough in a day, and we could “knock off” at sunset and put our feet up… well that was the theory anyway! (PP-10 backdoor Sunset Heatherbrae) The farmers will know differently!
But the plough Jesus was talking about was a bit different to the ploughs I put my hand to. This is a bit more like the ploughs used in Jesus day (PP-11).
I have also put my hand to a similar plough, only metal, and horse-drawn, like this (PP-12 ploughing competition, 1920’s, Australia). It was an interesting experience. I have always loved heavy horses, and I got the chance to work one at an exhibition day for horse drawn farming equipment. The man operating the plough called out asking if anyone was interested in driving the plough. Well I nearly fell over! No one else seemed interested, but I jumped at the chance. I raced up to him and waited for the instruction, but he just handed over the plough handles and reins to me, and I was on my own. I struggled to keep it upright and headed in a straight line, but to no avail. It was messing up his straight furrow, and he let me know in no uncertain language. You see a straight furrow is the chief pride of a Yeoman. If a neighbour spotted a wobbly line in a ploughed paddock it would be a disgrace. Everyone in the pub would know about it forthwith. Finally he showed me how to steer it straight, simply by leaning it one way or the other.
I wondered about this text for a long time. All of these sayings seem very severe.
If you put your hand to a plough and then turn around to see the job you are doing, you will certainly make a big mess of the plough line. When I set out for the first line across a paddock, I would set my eye on a distant point beyond the paddock, like a tree, and I would steer straight for that tree and not take my eye off it until the run across the paddock was complete. Because this would set my line for the whole day. If I got that first run crooked, I would mess up the whole paddock, it was very difficult to straighten afterwards because you are so influenced by the last crooked line, you tend to follow it. This is what Jesus is hinting at. Look at the preceding passage in:
Luke 9:51-53
51 When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. 52 And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; 53 but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem.
See how the ploughman concentrates and leans his whole weight into the work (PP). Jesus had set his face toward Jerusalem, like a ploughman sets his face. His concentration was fiercely fixed on that bitter cup he would drink. His whole being was fixated on this sealing of the Kingdom at Calvary. Nothing would take his eye off that goal. And Jesus disciples must do similarly. Those who begin with the work of God must resolve to go on with it, or they will make nothing of it.
If you have decided on a project then entertain the idea of quitting, you have already sown the seeds of failure. If you want to lose some weight to look and feel good again, but then you waver and vacillate in your mind, the battle is already lost. You want to re-educate yourself – get a better job, but you equivocate and get off-track. You want to stay away from sexual temptation, but you take your mind off God and keep it on sex – you’ve lost the battle. But keep fighting the war, even if you lose the current battle.
In any big decision in life you must set your face. If it is a life changing decision, you cannot afford to treat it lightly. This is the case with the kingdom of God. Jesus says, “the kingdom of heaven has been coming violently, and the violent take it by force.” Or, “Violent men take hold of the Kingdom of God.” (Matt. 11:12). He means a considered desperation is necessary for those who join his Kingdom. Are you a desperate person? I am! Desperate people know they have a great need. They know things are not right in their world, and they want something better. There is no offer better than the Kingdom of God! Grab it with both hands, like a desperate woman or man. Put your hand to the plough, don’t turn back, determine to finish the job.
Mahatma Gandhi said, “Violence is any day preferable to impotence. There is hope for a violent man to become nonviolent. There is no such hope for the impotent.” That’s Gandhi the pacifist speaking. He meant what Jesus meant. The impotent man does not have the “guts” needed for the regimen of the kingdom. The impotent man puts his hand to the plough but then turns back!
The impotent woman is turned into salt. That’s what happened to Lot’s wife. She looked back, she “longed for” life in the city of sin. Something attracted her back there – she looked back and was no more. Jesus said we should be the salt of the earth, but Lot’s wife went one step too far!
But also in this saying on ploughing Jesus is almost certainly thinking of Elisha in:
1 Kings 19:19-21.
So Elijah went from there and found Elisha son of Shaphat. He was ploughing with twelve yoke of oxen, and he himself was driving the twelfth pair. Elijah went up to him and threw his cloak around him. 20 Elisha then left his oxen and ran after Elijah. “Let me kiss my father and mother good-by,” he said, “and then I will come with you.”
“Go back,” Elijah replied. “What have I done to you?”
21 So Elisha left him and went back. He took his yoke of oxen and slaughtered them. He burned the ploughing equipment to cook the meat and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out to follow Elijah and became his attendant.
Elisha has heard the many scintillating reports of Elijah’s courage and conviction in Yahweh. As he watches Elijah approaching across the field Elisha senses that it is time for a major decision. Elijah stops and waits for 11 pair of Oxen to pass before Elisha pulls the last pair to a halt in front of the great man of God.
Elijah found him, not in the schools of the prophets, but in the field. Not reading, nor praying, nor sacrificing, but ploughing (PP-13). Elisha is the manager of a large family agricultural concern. This wealthy family could muster twelve yoke of oxen. That’s at least 24 men counting the whip men goading the oxen on. Its more than 48 oxen, for they will only work a team for half a day, and change them for fresh animals at midday. He has the responsibility and status of landed gentry. He commands the respect of servants, family, and community (PP 14). When he walked down the main street of Abel Meholah, his home town, he was “the Man.” Yet he didn’t think it any disparagement to put his own hand to the plough. Being idle does no man any honour, nor is manual labour any man’s disgrace.
But Elisha is called from following the plough to sow the seed of the word, and to feed Israel, just as the apostles were taken from fishing to catch men. When Elisha asked for time to kiss his parents good-bye, Elijah made it clear he must count the cost and make it his own act, and he did not stay for him. Elijah’s response was much like Jesus response. There is only one direction for a disciple to go: forward—and without misgivings and regrets. If he cannot make this commitment, it is better that he stay home with his oxen.
A disciple in the service of Christ, like a disciple of Elijah, must continue to live in this world, but he can no longer focus on its mundane pursuits. Elisha had certainly been thinking about this decision for a while. But now is the time for that decision. He walks away from great wealth, social status and family comfort and support. He asked leave to say good bye to family, but in the story they are not mentioned, but only his determination to make a clean break. Elisha more than accepts the challenge, for the text tells not of his kissing his parents but of slaughtering his oxen and chopping up the yoke in order to make a sacrificial feast dedicating himself to the prophetic ministry. He cooks his oxen with the wooden plough, so there is a clear break with the past, and his parents become just part of “the people” whom he fed.
Of course he loves them, but in God’s service he requires us to “love them less” than Christ. That’s what Jesus means when he says “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26) It means “love less.” And if his family are believers, they will understand. If not there will often be enmity.
In Luke’s story, Jesus implicitly refuses the man’s request to say goodbye to parents. Elisha was permitted to go back to say good-bye to his family, but the story is clear that Elisha has already made a determined decision. He had already put his hand to a different task. I’m sure he would fondly remember his days on the farm, he would never forget his family and always honour them, but he had taken up the mantle of the prophet of the Kingdom. He had put his hand to the gospel plough, and there was no turning back.
When James Calvert went out to cannibal Fiji with the message of the Gospel, the captain of the ship in which he travelled tried to dissuade him. “You will risk your life and all those with you if you go among such savages,” he said. Calvert’s magnificent reply was, “We died before we came here.” Of course he meant he had died in Christ to this life. Yet he would have been the last to talk about a sacrifice; for to him it was not a life of sacrifice, but of real pleasure.
There is no place here for hesitation or delay. To do anything other than to move right into the calling would be to behave like the man at the plough who is ploughing his way forward, but keeps looking behind him, and so loses the line of the furrow. That is not good enough for the kingdom of God! When the demand of God presses upon us, it must take priority over all that belongs to good sense, good citizenship, and good family membership.
If you have left the plough behind, you must put your hand to something else, like Elisha.
Jesus lets us know what that task is, in general, in:
Luke 9:22-24
23 Then he said to them all, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. 24 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.”
On a tablet in a church in Algiers is the name of “Devereux Spratt, 1641.” It happened that the Englishman, Devereux Spratt, was captured with one hundred and twenty others in 1641 by Algerian pirates. He was put to work with his fellow slaves on the fortifications around Algiers. Cut off from company, he looked to God for sympathy and strength, and God’s grace sustained him.
His fellow-captives were full of despair, so he began to cheer them with words of faith and hope; and through his testimony he soon had gathered around him a little group of praying and worshipping Christians. Through the influence of his brother in England, after several years, Devereux Spratt was ransomed, and the order for his release was brought to the fort.
His fellow-captives rejoiced with tears at his good fortune, but expressed regret that their leader was to leave them. Devereux Spratt refused to accept the ransom. He remained until he died, a slave among slaves, so he could continue to bring comfort to those whom God had brought to Christ through him.
If we are his followers we need to put our hand to the cross. If we have put our hand to the task of proclaiming the gospel we have a different sense of what is good, we have citizenship in the kingdom of God, and we too must set our face toward Jerusalem, towards the place of sacrifice. The cross is the strange symbol we now boast in. We must take it up and follow our master without equivocation.
To take up the cross means sharing the gospel message. We need to package that message for the culture of our day, and for each individual. And each of us have a different make-up. You will do it differently to me. And I can’t do it how you will do it. Francis of Assisi said, “Always tell of God’s love. If necessary, use words.”
You see for some people words are not the most easily come by, and they can show love in practical ways. I met a lovely older Adventist lady in Sevastopol last weekend, and she only needed to smile and you knew she was a Christian. Christ shone out of her face. But at some point tell them in so many words where your love comes from, that it does not originate in you, because not everyone will know your smile came from Christ.
There’s a gospel spiritual that I like, called Gospel Plough. I would like to introduce you to singing it, but I don’t have the music backing yet. African slaves sang it, probably as they worked, and some of the lyrics go like this:
Gospel Plow
Sister Mary was bound in chains And every link was Jesus' name Keep your hands on that plow of God
Chorus Hold on, Hold on Keep your hands on that plow, Hold on
Well, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John All those prophets are dead and gone Keep your hands on that plow of God
Well, I got my hands on that Gospel plow And I wouldn't take nothin' for my journey now Keep your hands on that plow of God
I never been to heaven, but I've been told The streets up there are lined with gold Keep your hands on that plow of God
The first line tells us we are slaves of Christ.
The second tells us the apostles are no longer here, and we are left to preach.
The third says we won’t take compensation for what we do, because we love it.
The fourth line tells us about the blessings of the kingdom of God we await.
So what are we waiting for?
Here is The Nashville Bluegrass Band singing Gospel Plough:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyg4cElli1w&list=PLXbiP57vi_WYqo1TemFG4Z0j0UVH4VakI&index=5
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