Reorient Your Priorities and Values to the Kingdom’s
“Your duty is to go and preach about the Kingdom of God”
This last Sunday we looked at Matthew 8:18-22 with two interactions between Jesus and a scribe and a disciple saying they wanted to follow Jesus, but He rebuked them for having their heart in the wrong place. This is interesting since it comes right after Jesus interacted with and healed unexpected people that would be considered unclean, outsiders, and outcasts, even marveling at the faith of the Roman centurion. So here’s the passage:
18 Now when Jesus saw a crowd around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side. 19 And a scribe came up and said to him, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” 20 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.” 21 Another of the disciples said to him, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” 22 And Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.”
The points from Sunday I want us to see are: #1 Kingdom values reorient your perspective on your life (v19-20), #2 Kingdom values reorient your perspective on your priorities (v21-22), with the conclusion that true discipleship requires kingdom values.
Looking at the scribe (v19-20), we would know he has a lofty station in life as a scribe, so Jesus was likely challenging his idols in the rebuke and pushing everyone listening to consider the reality of committing to kingdom values. We don’t know if he left or had a change of heart, but the point being made is that someone of a high station wanting to garner more fame, authority, or comfort by following Jesus had the wrong motivation and they will be disappointed. This brings to mind a short parable Jesus told about someone recognizing the full value of the kingdom and salvation and acting on that new knowledge looked like selling everything he had:
“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” Matt. 13:44.
Looking at the second interaction with a disciple (v21-22), which can be hard to understand because it’s uncommon in our context, we see Jesus calling out the need for reorienting priorities around kingdom values. It seems weird that he’s requesting to bury his father and then Jesus denies it. His point was to shock the audience to realize that our response to God’s call is the most fundamental obligation of all, that is why in the Luke account, Jesus follows up with “But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God” (9:60).
We ultimately don’t know the motivation of the disciple’s request, but we could assume a couple of scenarios. It could be that he selfishly wanted to wait until his father passed so he could have the inheritance to make his own life easier, which would be an offensive notion then and now. Maybe more likely it could be that he wanted to postpone following Jesus until he could finish dealing with all earthly concerns and responsibilities first so that it would be more convenient to be a disciple and follow Jesus without other responsibilities or worries in the back of his mind. This sounds pragmatic and I would bet anyone of us in our day and age would be tempted by that, and may have even done something similar, trying to postpone discipleship hoping to pick it up when it’s convenient.
That’s why I think this harsh statement is there in 8:22, to show the difference between one who has correctly ordered priorities and one who doesn’t. The NLT translates it “Follow me now. Let the spiritually dead bury their own dead.” Those who are unresponsive to the call are “the (spiritually) dead”, so He’s saying they can sit around and bury the dead. Jesus isn’t calling us to renounce family ties or responsibility, but he was making a strong point about the cost and expectation of being a disciple.
We can see this life change value shift in action when looking at the apostles. If true discipleship requires kingdom values, these examples in 8:18-22 serve as a contrast to what we see in the apostles and the early church. They all had varying degrees of having to lay down their comfort, career, and possessions and more to follow Jesus, and they did, with the very next chapter (9:9) having the example of Matthew immediately getting up and following Jesus when He called him.
This short passage gives us the opportunity to evaluate if anything is taking precedence over the Greatest Commandment of Love God and Love People, and our walk as Christ-followers, and if so then we seriously need to take stock of our life and priorities. If you’re a Christian, a Christ-following believer, then you are called to reorient your priorities and values to His. “Your duty is to go and preach about the Kingdom of God” (Luke 9:60b).