Jesus can be a real jerk. Seriously. Major league jerk. Clean-up hitter, empty the bases level jerk.

OK. Maybe not a jerk. Maybe it is just that he sounds so snarky that it’s impossible not to be offended.

OK. Maybe not snarky. But what else could it be? It isn’t nice!

It is something else.

Jesus isn't just offering these people life, he's offering liberation. Share on X

The Dead Bury What?

In Sunday’s gospel, Jesus heads toward Jerusalem. Along the way, some new recruits try to get him to slow down. They want to figure it all out, plan their father’s funeral, or for goodness’ sake, let their Mom and Dad know where they are going.

But Jesus lets them know that he’s not really into that.

“Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”

Wait. What?

The Dead.

Who are the dead? What does Jesus mean? How can a dead person possibly bury another dead person? Is Jesus saying we should let our bodies just rot where they are?

This is the trouble with interpretation. We read creative writing like its nonfiction, and Jesus is a creative writer.

To take Jesus literally would be to imply dead people would be responsible for other dead people.

To take Jesus figuratively would be to imply that bodies are just bodies.

But Jesus is creatively using language midstream.

Dead vs. Dead.

The follower comes to Jesus to just pause so he can go dig a hole in the ground to bury their dad. A literal thing.

Jesus tells him that it isn’t his concern. Why? Because the Dead can bury their own. Not like some zombie undead person can bury anyone. But because some people are dead long before they die.

Being dead doesn’t require having a stopped heart and a lifeless body. It requires a lifeless heart.

Division.

Some take this distinction in a new direction. They see Jesus as encouraging division or encouraging separation from our families. Jesus becomes the defense of cults and culture wars. They argue that he here, as in a few other parts of scripture, speaks of coming to divide us.

But I hear something different.

I hear, not the encouragement of division, but the offer of liberation.

The late Edwin Friedman counseled self-differentiation within our family systems. Many families are unhealthy or encourage some of their members to become unhealthy. To gain health and life, some members have to self-differentiate. They have to initiate a change in themselves and become different from their family.

What self-differentiation does is allow the individual to become healthy in an unhealthy environment.

And sometimes, because of the unhealth of the environment, the member has to leave the family to become healthy.

Life and Death.

Jesus is inviting these people to leave their dead lives to embrace a new life. He is pulling these people out of poverty and out of impure professions. He is bringing along the riff raff and the elite alike. He is pulling all these people up who are struggling and offering them hope.

He offers them life in the midst of death.

Death, then isn’t about religion or the physical character of the body, but about how we are living our lives. It is about how we are treating our neighbors and how we are loving (or not loving) GOD.

So Jesus sees all these moments and interactions as a matter of life and death. He sees these as urgent and necessary. He asks them to do this now!

Remember how he responds to those who criticize his healing on the Sabbath. Would you not save the lives of your livestock, pulling them out of a pit if they got stuck, just because it is the Sabbath? Jesus argues that he is saving people’s lives on the Sabbath. It can’t wait for Sunday or sundown. Save them now! A matter of life and death!

Not Just Pro-Life. Pro-Liberation.

Jesus isn’t just talking about saving lives in a moment, pulling them out of the pit, but rescuing them from persecution. He is pulling people from lives of death and offering new lives in the Spirit.

The world they inhabit is full abuse and violence and hatred. A world not far from ours. A time not unlike our own.

People are suffering at the hands of other people.

Jesus isn’t trying to pull them out of the “real” world and place them into some new world where they can live differently. He is liberating them in this world and offering them freedom here.

Freedom from the pressure to be violent or full of hate. Freedom to love, not just our families, but our friends and neighbors and even our enemies.

Jesus isn’t just offering these people life, he’s offering liberation.

A Liberated Life.

The Jesus we encounter in Luke, a Jesus who controls the weather and sends an army of demons out of a single man, isn’t a jerk trying to get attention. He isn’t being all I’m too good for people. He doesn’t offer a narrow gospel of exclusion or rebuke to the weak. And he certainly doesn’t reinforce a culture of hate and division.

This Jesus empowers. He brings hope in the midst of chaos and strength to the weakest. He has already raised up his closest followers to heal the sick like he does and will soon send out even more of them to all the nations to heal people.

Not to save souls and ask if the people have taken Jesus as a personal savior.

Not to go on a self-smug mission trip without any proselytizing.

To heal. Like he does.

In an act of love and liberation.

Love that is more than identity and liberation that is more than a fig leaf. Hope that is more than words of encouragement and life that is more than work.

Jesus is busy trying to transform the world. Are we?