1st Sunday of Lent, March 6: “Look forward not backward”

Prepare to Listen.  As you wait in silence and stillness, pray: Give me understanding, that I may keep your law and observe it with my whole heart.  (Ps 119:34)
 
Prayerfully Read Luke 9:57-62
57As they were going along the road, someone said to him, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’  58And 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.’  59To another he said, ‘Follow me.’ But he said, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’  60But Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’  61Another said, ‘I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.’  62Jesus said to him, ‘No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.’
 
Prayerfully Wonder
This story throws some light on what Jesus meant when he called us to deny self and take up our cross.  The three would-be followers were willing to follow Jesus, but on their terms, with their conditions in place.  Jesus’ response isn’t encouraging.  It doesn’t make following him easy or even pleasant.  His way is demanding, as we should expect.  After all, he left his Father’s home, lived a homeless life with “nowhere to lay his head,” and never looked backwards.
 
The warning to the last would-be follower struck me.  “No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”  Jesus expected his followers to be like him and set their faces to what lies ahead.  Let’s be honest, most of us spend far too much time looking back to ‘the good old days.’  We want things to remain the same, or at least not interfere with the familiar and comfortable.  We brag about being conservative, conserving what we know.  Jesus’ warning is hard on us.  But, if we desire to be true to Jesus, we must let go the old ways, stop longing for what has gone and will never return (and wasn’t really that great anyway), and take on the new of God’s kingdom with all its tough demands.  We’re not truly Christian if we insist on remaining as we were, wanting to return to things that are passed.
 
Prayerfully Reflect
What are you conserving, holding onto, or wanting back?  Name it, let it go and look forward to a future that is unknown until you walk into it and learn its new ways.
 
Respond to Jesus
Give me the courage, Lord to look forward even when the way ahead is unfamiliar and strange.  Amen.
 
Live obediently.  Look forward not backward