I WILL FOLLOW YOU WHEREVER YOU GO

I WILL FOLLOW YOU WHEREVER YOU GO

By Fr. Felix (African Times Guest Writer)

The journey up to Jerusalem, to the Passion of

Jesus, begins with three lessons on the

uncompromising demands of discipleship.

These are not ‘counsels of perfection’, but are

demanded of every disciple of Jesus. First: the

Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. The

disciple has no right to creature comforts.

The contrast is made most extreme by the

illustration of a jackal: this is the wildest, most

savage of creatures, making a living as a

scavenger; and yet even the jackal has a lair

when Jesus has none.

Second: perhaps the most counter-cultural of all

Jesus’ demands, for in a close Jewish family

burying a dead father was regarded as a sacred

duty, and yet not even this may stand in the way

of a response to the call of Jesus.

Third: a more rigorous condition than even

Elijah demanded of Elisha, no backward glance

even to bid the family farewell. Not even the

most sacred of natural ties may stand in the

way of the demands of following Jesus.

These conditions may seem unfeeling and

unacceptably harsh: Jesus expresses his

teaching with maximum vigour. This is partly

the nature of the Semitic language, which rarely

uses a comparative, ‘more than…’ It is either day

or night, no dusk! But we should beware of

softening what must remain hard.