Matthew 8:19-22

The Price of Discipleship

Before he continued with more accounts of Jesus’ healing ministry, Matthew inserted two brief allusions to discipleship after his first cluster of healings.

Matthew 8:19-22     Would-Be Followers of Jesus

The custom in Judaism was for would-be disciples to take the initiative and to align themselves with a famous rabbi. Within the Christian community, the approach was different: discipleship was a response to a call from Jesus.

The scribe’s insight was incomplete: he called Jesus Teacher. 

It is not obvious whether Jesus’ response was intended to rebuff, or simply to clarify the cost.  It is important to allow always for the Jewish leaning towards exaggeration to make an important point.  Jesus would not ask of disciples, however, what he had not been prepared to do himself: he had cut himself loose from family and village support.  Earlier in the narrative Matthew had commented that Jesus had moved from Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum [4:13].   

Matthew left the outcome unresolved.  He was not concerned whether the scribe agreed to follow under those conditions or not.  What mattered for Matthew, as for Jesus, was that the members of his community choose discipleship with eyes wide-opened, and with their priorities clear and single-minded.  The demands of discipleship could not be compromised.

For the first of many times, Jesus used the title of Son of Man of himself.  Drawn directly from the Book of Daniel, the title referred to one: 

• who would suffer grievously, 
• whom God would exalt,
• and on whom God would confer authority and kingship, 
• and according to whose integrity and faithfulness, the world would be assessed and judged.

It is unclear whether the disciple intended to ask leave until his father would die, some time in the indeterminate future, or whether the father had already died, and was to be buried immediately.  In either case, the point of Jesus’ reply was that family commitments took second place to commitment to the Kingdom.  In Jesus’ mind, those not committed to the Kingdom were dead.

Yet commitment to the Kingdom and commitment to parents were not necessarily mutually exclusive.  Commitment to parents could indeed be a necessary expression of commitment to the Kingdom.  Jesus was distinguishing love from psychological need.  True love can be tough love, a love that responds to genuine needs, but not to mere whims and wants.  Co-dependence (which is based on the fear of hurting the other, of losing the esteem of the other, or of suffering financially or socially) can look like real love but not really be such.  It springs from personal need more than from concern for the other – from emotional constraint rather than from freedom.  It is the task of personal conscience to distinguish which is operating.  Individual cases need to be discerned.  What matters is always that disciples love – genuinely love.  Discernment is not always easy.

Later, Jesus would criticise scribes for their duplicity and exploitation of the Torah in matters concerning the demands of genuine love for parents [15:3-6].

Jesus himself showed the dedication he required from his followers.  Not only had he left his family, but he would eventually sacrifice his life, for the sake of the Kingdom.  He was clearly prepared to give to disciples the love he expected from them. 

Next >> Matthew 8:23-34