004. "Suffer Me First to Bury My Father"
"Suffer Me First to Bury My Father"
"And Jesus said to a man, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. And the Lord replied, Let the dead bury their dead." This answer appears to us very harsh and unsympathetic. We see in our mind a young man grieving for a dead father and wishing naturally to remain near him, and Jesus calls him, and the young man refuses the call. The Palestinian understands this as being nothing in the world but an excuse, and an exceedingly common one in that country. No doubt the father was perfectly well and strong, but the son did not want to follow Christ, and as was the common custom, he answered, "No, I cannot, my father is dead and I must bury him."
If you ask some natives even today to do anything they do not want to do, they will not answer that they do not feel well, or haven’t the time, but they will instantly say to you, "No, I cannot, my father is dead."