Let the Dead Bury Their Own Dead

 I was listening to an Alan Watts talk today while drawing and he quoted this passage from the Bible, from Jesus's Sermon on the Mount. 

The part about not worrying about food or clothes or the future. The way birds don't worry about food and they are fed. The way the Lord has clothed the grass. And he says don't worry and that worrying will accomplish nothing. 

So I said, "okay well that's kinda cool." And then Jesus goes and does some miracles and he's gathering a following and he tells a man to follow him and the man says he will but first he needs to go bury his father. And Jesus says, "follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead."

What a poetic line. What a confounding thing to say. The guy raises a seemingly absolutely valid point and Jesus's response is utterly opaque and bizarre and grim. Let the dead bury their own dead. Completely reject whatever you think is important in the face of a call to faith. It's ominous. 

Jesus isn't much for cajoling or negotiating here. What an intimate thing to respond to. And with audacity.

And people well say, "well, Jesus wasn't being rude or crazy. What the guy was saying was that his father was dying and the guy had to attend to him until he died and basically the guy was trying to put it off and Jesus was telling him that it's not something that can be put off and it's okay because we all know Jesus was right, anyway, that's a given."

Any way you slice it that is a radical thing to say. And a radical way to say it. I like it. I think it's cool. 

I don't really have a larger point. It's just a really cool line to reflect on.