Our Lord's words in the text seem at first sight harsh and severe. They are regarded by many as breathing the very spirit of those religious movements and institutions which dissolve the nearest and most sacred ties of natural kinship and affection for the interests of the Church and for the promotion of the individual religious life.
I. But what is it that our Lord said, and under what circumstances did He say it? It is probable that the young man heard of his father's death while he was with Christ, for, if he had been in his father's house when he died the Jewish law would have pronounced him ceremonially unclean, and kept him from intercourse with others for some time. He heard of his father's death while he was with Christ, and he wanted to return to the funeral. The father was dead, and beyond the reach of his affection. The son could really do nothing for him. If he had been a good son he had already done everything for his father that it was in his power to do; if he had been a bad son it was too late now to make up for past neglect. There are scores of cases in which a clear imperative duty would require a man to be absent even from his father's funeral. If the Duke of Wellington, on the morning of the battle of Waterloo, had heard that his father was dead, and had left the army to come home to bury him, I do not know what military law would have inflicted on him, but he would have committed a great crime. There are duties which refuse to suffer a man even to go and bury his father. To such a duty this man had been called. He appears to have been selected as one of the seventy; for our Lord told him that he was to preach the kingdom of God. He might have had his purpose weakened as well as have been kept away from a great and solemn work, the opportunity for which would not occur again. His father could not suffer by his absence, and our Lord lays His hand upon him, and commands him to discharge, even in the hour of his grief, this great service. "Let the dead bury their dead."
II. Is there not something hard in the way in which our Lord remits the burial to those who had no spiritual life? Does not this look like the contempt with which many persons, claiming to be spiritual, speak of those who have no religious faith? But, certainly, that was not Christ's habit, and it was to minister to the spiritually dead that this man was called. Our Lord never spoke with contemptuous indifference of those who were dead in trespasses and sins; and it was the very eagerness of our Lord that they might rise from that spiritual death to a new and better life, that led Him to call this man away from what he was going about, and to send him to preach the Gospel. This whole narrative suggests that critical moments in a man's life bring critical duties.
R. W. Dale, Penny Pulpit,new series, No. 744.
References: Luke 9:59. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. ii., p. 554.Luke 9:59; Luke 9:60. H. M. Butler, Harrow Sermons,p. 255; W. Wilson, Christ setting His Face to go to Jerusalem,p. 42.Luke 9:59-62. Homiletic Magazine,vol. xii., p. 204.Luke 9:60. T. Cuyler, Christian World Pulpit,vol. vi., p. 65.Luke 9:61. H. Wonnacott, Ibid.,vol. xvii., p. 84; Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. vii., No. 403.Luke 9:61; Luke 9:62. W. Wilson, Christ setting His Face to go to Jerusalem,p. 56; H. M. Butler, Harrow Sermons,p. 266. Luke 9:62. A. Barry, Cheltenham College Sermons,p. 164; Preacher's Monthly,vol. iv., p. 61.Luke 9 Expositor,1st series, p. 148; Parker, Christian Commonwealth,vol. vi., p. 515.Luke 10:1. Preacher's Monthly,vol. ix., p. 98. Luke 10:1-7. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. iii., p. 160. Luke 10:1-38. F. D. Maurice, The Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven,p. 160. Luke 10:2. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. v., p. 32; W. Baird, The Hallowing of Our Common Life,p. 39. Luke 10:3-7. W. Wilson, Christ setting His Face to go to Jerusalem,p. 85.Luke 10:3-9. J. Clifford, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxvii., p. 264.Luke 10:5; Luke 10:6. Phillips Brooks, Ibid.,vol. xxxi., p. 322.