Focus Passage: Luke 9:62

‘No man,……..looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.’

There was a news item in a local newspaper fifty (or sixty) years ago that had the heading, MAN KILLED BY A SINGLE BEE! Whoever came up with that heading, at the very least, recognized something of what was involved in attracting attention. He very evidently had a good idea of how to get a reader’s attention so that his article would receive a good reading. And he succeeded in drawing an audience to the rest of the news article. Indeed, the question would be immediately raised as to how in the world could a man be killed by a single bee. We may know today much more about allergic reaction and anaphylactic shock whereby a single sting from a single bee would certainly have serious consequences, but fifty or sixty years ago this knowledge was not widely disseminated among the common folk. So then the question remains to be asked, how could someone be killed by just one lone bee as the heading of this story asserted? Well, here is how the account was related. It was a hot summer day as this individual was driving his automobile down a country road through fields of clover on the one side and a winding creek on the other side. It had not rained in some time causing the old dirt road to be rather dry; this dry road surface offered an abundance of dust to be raised by the tires of the car biting into the dry terrain. In order to prevent his being covered in road dust, the driver rolled the windows closed; yes, rolled the windows up; not many folk had power windows in those days. But as it happened, a lone bee flew from his perch on a clover plant in the field through a window of the car just before it was sealed shut. Now, of course, the bee’s sole purpose after being trapped inside this moving vehicle was to find his way back out. He began flying this way and that way from windshield to rear window and from side window to side window frantically bouncing off glass after glass in his futile attempts at freedom. All the while, he was buzzing—as bees are wont to do—all around the driver’s head. The driver, evidently having a great fear of being stung in the face—or anywhere else for that matter—by this marauding insect, began to swing wildly with his free hand in his desire to ‘exterminate’ this uninvited guest. As he exercised all this attention upon his tiny, but fearful, enemy, the attention that he needed to be giving to steering his car was diminished more and more, until the ill-fated individual lost control entirely of his motor vehicle, went off the road, rolled into the creek upside-down where he drowned in four feet of water in a few minutes. Incidentally, in the tumbling the windshield popped out and the happy little bee flew away back to his place in the field of clover. Thus it came to pass that A MAN WAS KILLED BY A SINGLE BEE! Please excuse the rather embellished recounting from the questionable memory of a seven-year-old boy.

The object lesson involved in this somewhat lengthy recounting, however, is the lesson that our Savior intended to put forward to His hearers in Luke, chapter nine, when He spoke those words, No man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God. This was the response that our Lord gave to the third individual spoken of in this narrative. Each of the responses seem rather harsh and unequivocal to our present-day sensitivities. The first ‘certain man’ had said that he was willing to follow Jesus ‘whithersoever thou goest.’ Jesus’ response to him seems to be something of a warning that he should first ‘count the cost.’ And it appears that he may have not considered well just what he was saying and just what his offer would entail. It reminds us of our Lord’s teaching in the parable of the sower when He spoke in His explanation of that parable to His disciples about the one that heareth the word, and straightway with joy receiveth it; He had to inform them of this hearer that when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, straightway he stumbleth. Many are they that have sadly fit this pattern of the lamented rocky ground hearer. It may well have been that Jesus was trying to advise this one who thought that he was able to follow the Lamb whithersoever He might lead him to ‘count the cost;’ it was not an easy path to tread.

And to ‘another,’ when He said Follow me, the man’s reaction was to say, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. The rejoinder that this man received seems particularly harsh. Jesus said, Leave the dead to bury their own dead; but go thou and publish abroad the kingdom of God. Some writers have suggested that the man was actually speaking of a father that was on his deathbed and he felt that he needed to attend upon him until he did die. Either way, whether honoring the father in sickness, or in death, the action in itself is laudable. Yet Jesus was communicating that there was another need that was far more important; publish abroad the kingdom of God. The third man simply averred that he would indeed follow the Christ, but with this one amendment, first suffer me to bid farewell to them that are at my house. Each one of these three appeared to be willing followers of the Lord, yet they shared one further thing in common; and Jesus hits this nail perfectly on the head in His third response when He says; No man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God. The inferences regarding each of these persons is that they have allowed distractions—like a migrant honeybee—to cause them to take their hands off the wheel; to take their hands off the plow; to permit reasonable and legitimate responsibilities to take one’s eyes off from the main things. ‘Count the cost,’ He says; ‘leave the dead to bury their own dead,’ He declares; ‘Don’t look back once you have put your hand on the plow.’ Keep on keepin’ on! Fight the good fight. Run the race that is set before you! Put on the whole armor of God! And He states how very serious this matter is when He declares that any that start out for the Celestial City and then turn aside are not fit; they are not fit for the kingdom of God. This makes it conspicuously to be a matter of life and death; spiritual life and death. Even as the driver in my story was distracted by a silly bee and forfeited his life, so one who sets out on the Way, and then allows for any distraction to hinder him, or her; who turns the eye away from Christ and looks back, as did Lot’s wife, will become, in metaphorical fashion, a Pillar of Salt, and unfit for the kingdom of God.

David Farmer, elder

Fellowship Bible Church