Acta non verba—deeds, not words.  That would be great.  But, we get carried along, carried off by a feeling, and say things, and then we figure out the feeling and the words require a follow-up of action.  Oh.  Now what?  Jesus heard good-sounding, lovely words without follow-through more than we like to imagine.  Luke shares a few examples with us today. “As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, ‘I will follow you wherever you go’” (9:57).  Oh?  I mean, it sounds wonderful!  Who wouldn’t want to hear words like that?  I’m going to devote myself to you, oh yes!  No matter what, I’ll be there for you.  Then the divorce, or the . . . new interest.  Or the loss of all interest.

Let’s at least think before we speak.  What am I saying?  What am I feeling, really?  Do I know I will always feel this way?  Well, who can answer that in the affirmative?  Always?  Only God knows the future.  But we know we want to feel this way, forever.  Yes, the heights and peaks, the emotional highs: they’re great!  Then comes the less romantic, messier work of working at it.  Day after day, hair a mess, clothes crumpled and smeared with whatever the baby sneezed or slathered on you, the dust from the plant on your boots, shoulders and pants, in your teeth and ears.  The valleys, the low places.  But I’ll tell you this, the fruit?—it all grows there in the valleys.  The valleys are the fertile place, where the water goes.  That water?  It’s all downhill from those mountain heights, those emotional highs: nothing stays there, except maybe hopin’ and wishin’.

I will follow you wherever you go.  “Jesus replied, ‘Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head’” (9:58).  What kind of way is that to respond to or affirm that poor dude’s emotional high?  Beloved, Jesus is glad for for our flights of happiness; Jesus is no kill-joy, and he calls us to remember that words must continue to have real, consistent, long-term content and consequences.  Every word Jesus spoke had its cost: we see the grand total there at the cross.  We see the grand total of the cost of every word of Jesus as we consider the empty tomb, and there with the stunned disciples watching Jesus ascend, Christ triumphant in heaven and eternally victorious on the day of his promised return.   We see words continually supported by actions of grace.  So, we’ve got each of us to think about what we are saying when we say we want to be a Christian: that you (and I!) will follow Jesus wherever he goes, when we say to Jesus, My God, I love you.  We, at least, have the benefit of knowing where Jesus is going, there on his way to Jerusalem this last time.

Yes, we’ve got to think, but we also want (and in a real way, need) our faith to be about feeling, too.  Now, feeling comes easy and feels so good; thinking is hard and doesn’t often make us so happy.  Jesus is saying, if you decide to follow me, if you commit to being committed to me, I can tell you, you’re not going to be making your life in this life easy on yourself.  I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden, here.

“He said to another man, ‘Follow me’” (9:59).  I heard Jesus say those words.  I hear myself saying, all the time, follow Jesus.  It’s the most beautiful, blessed invitation one person can ever offer another.  And how often Jesus was declined.  Do you think that bothered him, or did he just sort of brush it off and move on—whatever!  It’s not impossible to say yes, with a clear sense of what you’re saying, and meaning it, to follow through, beloved, we know that: we know many dear saints who kept on and made it through.  And they had their share of sorrows, and blessings.  Through it all they had the gift of faith.  Never doubt, beloved, that faith is a gift, a gift of God, not some freely-willed choice we make independently of anything or anyone.

Could you look Jesus in the eye, hearing his invitation, and say “Lord, first let me go and bury my father” (9:59)?  Oh, Jesus, you know I will follow, how could I not? . . . I, uh, just have one or two things to see to, first.  You understand, right?  I’ll be back, soon, I promise.  Now, it may just be that Jesus out of the blue grabbed hold of some guy, total stranger, and made his invitation, but that doesn’t seem likely to me.  I have the sense that both, the one who pledged himself to Jesus on the swell of his heart’s high, as well as the one who had better—uh, other—things to do—I have the sense both had been walking in company with Jesus.  It’s not like they had no idea what Jesus was doing, what he was saying.  They knew about Jesus.  They knew stuff he was saying.  It sounded alright.  Some of it sounded great, if it were true.  Some of it . . . well, a lot of it, sounded kind of weird, hard, not so appealing.  All this dying, talk, serving, watching, keeping guard—long nights and hard work.  Nah.  But Jesus didn’t give up or stop inviting.  Why do we?

“Still another said, ‘I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family’” (9:61).  I’ll be right back; they’re right over there.  I mean, nobody is dead, there’s no long mourning period to observe before you can resume meeting the demands of this life.  No estate to settle.  No long, nasty probate.  But momma, well, she just isn’t quite ready to let her baby go, yet, and Dad, well, he wants me to stay for dinner and leave tomorrow—that’s soon enough, isn’t it, and he’s going to grill burgers, so . . . and sister is crying already.  Maybe tomorrow, then.  Or tomorrow evening.  Jesus would understand; he’s understanding, like that.  So kind and forgiving.

My father, a Marine, had some uniquely coarse ways of putting matters, which he mostly learned in the Marine Corps, thank you USMC.  I won’t repeat just what he would say, but the gist of it was get it done or get out.  So gentle, always forgiving, oh it’s okay Jesus says this, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God” (9:62).  Hey, Jesus!  On another occasion he says, “Just say a simple, ‘Yes, I will,’ or ‘No, I won’t.’ Anything beyond this is from the evil one” (Mt 5:37, NLT).  Prevarication, finding some way not to say what you really mean, always is.  It’s not being polite.  How is it being good mannered to tell someone what is not true?  Oh, but I don’t want to hurt feelings; I don’t want an argument or conflict: I hate conflict, it makes my throat feel tight.  That is living according to the principle of evasion.  No one can evade Christ.  Let us live according to the principle of candor and have the character and maturity to navigate the choppy waters that will come.  Say what you mean; mean what you say.  If you don’t want to follow Jesus, you don’t; if you do . . . well, follow.

God led the Israelites out of bondage into His plan for them: salvation, blessing.  Out in the wilderness, all the Israelites could see was scarcity—got nothing, had nothing, all around nothing.  Oh for the garlic and leeks and cucumbers and melons of Egypt: yeah, we were slaves (we’re accustomed to it!) but we were happy slaves!  We ate, anyway.  As if God was not giving them their daily bread, as well as freedom, salvation, the blessing of His very presence there with them.  That’s great and all, God, but I don’t want cream of wheat, every day.  I don’t even like cream of wheat.  There was a man who would eat every last grain of rice off of his plate, because he remembered even all the years after what it felt like to go hungry; he knew just how precious, blessed, each bit of food was, even if it wasn’t steak.

If you put your hand to the plow, then plow.  I’ve never plowed in my life.  I’ve seen it being done, of course.  Jesus talks about plowing.  Well, those people knew all about it.  “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”  All the plowing I’ve ever seen is in nice, clean, neat rows, long, long acres of them.  Well, I suppose those rows are the most efficient way to maximize crop yield.  It’s labor saving, down the road—get a good start and the rest becomes that much easier.  Ever start a job wrong?  Ever have to go back and fix a mistake halfway through?  Stop everything!  Time is money.  Lost time.  I’m told that plowing straight also makes it easier to distinguish later between weeds and seedlings.  Jesus also talks about those, as I recall.

If you’re going to plow, going to begin the work of cultivating your plot, your God-given plot, do it right.  What is plowing for?  As I’m told, plowing brings fresh nutrients to the surface, giving the crop a good start, the food it will need to flourish.  Plowing also buries for decay what’s been turned over, adding nutrients to the soil, improving your plot.  Plowing can also expose pests, and I guess it’s clear why you would need to do that, and what you would need to do about those that are exposed.  Jesus, I want to plow with you, I want you to plow me: I just know you’ll do it right.  Jesus says, do it right, with me.