Patrick Comerford
We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and the week began with the Second Sunday after Trinity (Trinity II, 29 June 2025), the Feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, and – in many dioceses – the Petertide ordinations.
Today also brings us to a point half-way through the year. Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, reading today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Matthew 8: 18-22 (NRSVA):
18 Now when Jesus saw great crowds around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side. 19 A scribe then approached and said, ‘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 his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ 22 But Jesus said to him, ‘Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.’
Today’s Reflection:
This morning’s reading at the Eucharist (Matthew 8: 18-22) follows Saturday’s reading about healing incidents, including Jesus healing Simon Peter’s mother-in-law in her home in Capernaum (Matthew 8: 5-17). Today, we read about two half-hearted excuses when it comes to following Jesus, one from a man who says he wants to follow Jesus in the here and now, and one from a disciple who wants time out from following Jesus.
There are times when Jesus goes out of his way to meet the crowds, such as the occasion he is filled with compassion because he sees them as sheep without a shepherd. But in today’s reading, he gives orders to cross the lake apparently to avoid the crowds pressing in on him.
There are two kinds of crowds: those in real need of teaching and healing, and those who are driven by curiosity to see the unusual and the spectacle, for whom Jesus is a sensation, a wonder-worker, a superstar. But what does it truly mean to want to follow Jesus?
When a scribe approaches Jesus and says, ‘Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go’ (verse 19), it seems like a genuine and a generous offer. Buy Jesus reminds him of the cost of discipleship and there is no cheap grace: ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.’
To follow Jesus means, like him, to be ready to have nothing of one’s own. As Jesus said earlier in the Sermon on the Mount, we cannot serve two masters at the same time. To follow Jesus is to accept a situation where we may find ourselves material possessions, to find that our security lies somewhere else.
Perhaps there is a suspicion there that the scribe is exchanging the stability of being a scholar or of academic life for the stability of being a disciple, still a student of God’s word. Karl Barth once said: ‘To understand the scriptures we must stop acting like mere spectators.’
Did this scribe take up the challenge?
Does it really matter?
Jesus is not so much testing the scribe, but testing the wider audience, the disciples, challenging you and me. Do I really want to Jesus? Or do I only want to follow him on my terms and conditions?
Another person, described as already being a disciple (verse 21), says to him, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ It is a reasonable request but Jesus’ reply sounds rather harsh: ‘Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead’ (verse 22).
It would be a harsh-sounding reply to hear in our society today, just as it was then in both Jewish and Hellenistic society, where burying a dead parent is a filial obligation of the highest importance.
I know how some HR managers keep a count of the unusual number of grandparents some employees seem to have, and how often they need compassionate leave to attend a family fumeral.
It is quite clear a few verses earlier that following Jesus does not mean abandoning ageing or dying parents. We read on Saturday that when Simon Peter’s mother-in-law was sick and dying, Jesus went to the family home in Capernaum (Matthew 8: 14-17).
But what if the man’s father is not dead? What if what he is really saying, ‘I will come and follow you in the future, after my father is dead and buried.’ In those circumstances, is the man wishing for his own father’s death?
Is Jesus telling him this demand will be followed by one-after-an-another case of what looks like filial responsibility but becomes an excuse or even an obstacle to real unencumbered discipleship: after burial, his father’s will needs to be read; the seven days of shiva or mourning move on to the obligation to recite the Mourner’s Kaddish prayer for 11 months; he needs to make sure his widowed mother is secure; the family farm or shop needs to be looked after because there is no one else to do so; there are younger brothers and sisters who are now without a father and who need a wage-earner in the home.
One excuse after another becomes one more reason after another not to follow Jesus, not just yet.
To follow Jesus is to enter a new family with a new set of obligations. Following Jesus has to be unconditional. We cannot say, ‘I will follow you if …’ or ‘I will follow you when I am ready.’ When he calls, we have to be ready, like the first disciples, to drop our nets, leave our boats and even our family members.
Discipleship calls us to a new way of life, and to leave behind the old ways of those who are spiritually dead. The rituals of society, including burial, have an important place in life that cannot be laid aside. But the call to the Kingdom is a call to an even more important set of values.
Today’s Prayers (Monday 30 June 2025):
The USPG Annual Conference takes place over three days this week at the Hayes Conference Centre in Swanwick, Derbyshire. The theme of the conference this year is ‘We Believe, We Belong?’ and centres around the 1700th anniversary of the Nicene Creed (AD 325). Updates of the conference as it happens are available by following USPG on social media @USPGglobal.’
‘We Believe, We Belong?’ is the theme this week (29 June to 5 July) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel). This theme was introduced yesterday with reflections by Rachael Anderson, former Senior Communications and Engagement Manager, USPG.
The USPG prayer diary today (Monday 30 June 2025) invites us to pray:
Father God, we pray for all staff, speakers and delegates joining together for the USPG Conference. We pray for safe travel to the event and that the time together is centred around you, Lord.
The Collect:
Lord, you have taught us
that all our doings without love are nothing worth:
send your Holy Spirit
and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of love,
the true bond of peace and of all virtues,
without which whoever lives is counted dead before you.
Grant this for your only Son Jesus Christ’s sake,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Loving Father,
we thank you for feeding us at the supper of your Son:
sustain us with your Spirit,
that we may serve you here on earth
until our joy is complete in heaven,
and we share in the eternal banquet
with Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Faithful Creator,
whose mercy never fails:
deepen our faithfulness to you
and to your living Word,
Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s reflections
Continued tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition copyright © 2021, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
