Let the Dead Bury the Gospel

by

“Let the dead bury their own dead.”

“No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom.”

“Foxes have holes... but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

These are not polite sayings. You will not find them on church banners or stitched into needlepoints on pew cushions. They ’t the verses we quote at funerals or Bible studies. However, if we take Jesus seriously, we must allow ourselves to be unsettled by them.

The writer tells us that Jesus "set his face to go to Jerusalem." That phrase carries the weight of finality. It means Jesus has made up his mind. He walks directly toward confrontation, the empire, the religious authorities, and ultimately, his death. He is not interested in prolonging his teaching tour. He is not recruiting fans. He is calling for companions on the road to suffering.

We have turned Jesus into a therapist, a CEO, a spiritual mascot, and a patriotic symbol. The Jesus in Luke 9 speaks not as a life coach but as a prophet. He calls people away from everything they believe is sacred (family, inheritance, home).

One man says, “I will follow you, but first let me bury my father.” It is a reasonable request. A righteous act. But Jesus replies, “Let the dead bury their own dead.” That response shocks us. It sounds harsh. But it is not cruel, it is urgent.

The kingdom of God does not arrive according to our schedules. It does not politely wait until we have wrapped up our obligations. It breaks in, interrupts, and demands a decision.

Another man wants to say goodbye to his family first. No. Jesus says, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” You cannot move forward while clinging to the past. Jesus is not just asking for commitment. He is demanding dislocation. He is prying us loose from everything familiar and safe.

This is deeply offensive. What we want from religion is comfort, stability, and assurance. We want a gospel that fits into our lives without altering them. Jesus keeps refusing our terms. He insists on interrupting our illusions, naming the things we won’t name, and demanding we abandon systems that benefit us.

(Here’s where I tell you something your pastor probably never told you)Jesus did not come to improve your life. He came to dismantle your middle-class sensibilities.

Jesus says:

Home is not where your mortgage is. It is where your witness is.

Family is not defined by blood. It is defined by risk.

Obligation is not an excuse for delay.

The kingdom does not arrive when you are ready for it. It comes when it is ready for you.

Jesus reshapes the moral universe. He decolonizes the minds of his followers, guiding them and us away from allegiance to the empire, family structures that shape us, and traditions that serve as cages.

These are not easy truths.

We have made the church into a place where no one is offended, where the gospel is polite, predictable, and manageable to market, and where Jesus sounds less like a prophet and more like a life coach. We have drained the urgency from his words and replaced them with performative vulnerability. If our gospel cannot bear the weight of these hard sayings, if it smooths or silences them, it is no gospel.

At that point, it is no different from a self-help podcast or a motivational book. And the truth is, those do what we do better. They lift spirits without dragging people through guilt, offer affirmation without judgment, and help people live better lives without the tangled burden of institutional shame.

The gospel was never meant to compete in that market. It was never meant to help people feel better about themselves. It was meant to call us out, to call us forward, and to invite us into a kingdom that is neither safe nor respectable but full of justice and risk.

When we strip the gospel of its prophetic edge, we do not make it more accessible. We make it irrelevant.

The hard sayings are not the problem. Our refusal to hear them is.

The Rev. Richard Bryant is an educator, writer, and recovering preacher. He writes about theology and language.