An unforgettable comment was made at the New York City Marathon, and was recorded by a newspaper reporter. When the wheelchair participants came into view and people began to applaud, a man alongside the reporter remarked, "Wait until the real runners come along!" Another person nearby said, "This is as real as it gets!" (Donald J. Shelby, "Unless the Race Is Worth Running,")

That is where it is today with our scripture lesson. Jesus' call is "as real as it gets": "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the Kingdom of God."

Jesus is talking about discipleship, about following Him. This particular word is His response to three men who said they wanted to follow, but gave reasons why they couldn't do it then. Let's look at these three men and their excuses.

I. A Victim of Impulsiveness

The first fellow was a victim of impulsiveness. No one ever followed Jesus under false pretense. He made it clear that the demands were tough. Let's read verses 57 and 58 again: As they were going along the road, someone said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head."

It is a graphic picture. Jesus is pointing out that he didn't even have the comforts that such lowly creatures as foxes and birds have. They had their own holes and nests; He had no place of his own, no resting place to which He could retire--no home to which he could return for renewal and rest--no place where he could settle down and be at ease. His was a moving life--always on the move--eating and sleeping in other people's houses. Not even living out of a suitcase, because we don't know whether he had a change of clothing or not.

So, following Christ on the road to Jerusalem would obviously involve a disciple in a similar homeless journey. But there is more to the scripture than that--a deeper level of meaning. That meaning is for you and me. If we are going to follow Christ on the road to glory, we must be prepared to give up the idea of this world as our home. Do you remember that old gospel hymn? "This world is not my home, I'm just a passing through, My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue."

We usually accuse the writers of those gospel songs of being totally other-worldly--but they have something to say to us. If we are going to follow Jesus, we must become travelers, restlessly moving on, never willing to settle down as long as Jesus is walking ahead of us. You know how to test whether you are where you need to be in your Christian walk? Ask yourself this question: How far out front is Jesus? Most of us have a lot of catching up to do.

Jesus makes it clear that following him is serious, often tough and painful business. And no one ever followed Jesus under false pretense.

"Hopping bandwagons" is no new phenomenon. It is as old as this first fellow who encountered Jesus on the road to Jerusalem. The scribe simply had not thought it through! To follow Jesus meant sharing his homelessness and rejection. Could he do that? Can we? How impulsive have we been in our response to Jesus?

II.  A Victim of Reluctance

Now look at the second fellow in our story. If the first fellow was the victim of his impulsiveness, this one was the victim of reluctance. Let's read his story, verses 59-60: "To another he said, "Follow me." But he said, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." "But Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury this own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God."

The point Jesus was making is that in everything there is a crucial moment; if that moment is missed the thing most likely will never be done at all. The man in the story had stirrings in his heart to get out of his spiritually dead surroundings; if he missed that moment he would never get out. There is an old proverb based on the experience of blacksmiths which is appropriate for our Christian faith. "Strike while the iron is hot."

Certainly, there are occasions when we need to take our time and think through the actions we are about to take and calculate the results. That is what Jesus was telling the first man who volunteered to be his follower. But Jesus moves quickly to say that there is a time for moving ahead once the consequences are considered. To fail to move ahead is to court disaster.

"Many years ago a young man went to work at a hardware store. He found all sorts of junk that took up space but did not sell well. This clerk asked the owner to allow him to put it all on one table and sell each item for 10 cents. He did so and had a successful sale. Later he did the same thing, and had another successful sale. The clerk approached the owner and suggested that they open up a store specializing in items that cost only a nickel or dime. The owner thought it was a bad idea and refused. The clerk went into business for himself and became very successful with his idea. His name was F. W. Woolworth. His old employer later said, 'I have calculated that every word I used to turn young Woolworth down cost me a million dollars.'

Jesus wants his followers to consider what they are in for, but he does not want them to waste their lives over the matter without ever making up their minds. The all-consuming claim of Jesus is too important! Matters of the Kingdom of God just will not wait. Obedience is necessary when Jesus calls.

There are people in this congregation this morning who have been backing away from obedience. The call of the Lord is clear to you--at least clear enough to take a step or two, to change your direction.

For some of you, it is as dramatic as answering the call to preach, or to go into some other full-time Christian ministry. For others, it may be less dramatic. You know that the Lord is calling you to become involved in a particular ministry -- maybe our prison ministry, or literacy, or teaching in the Sunday School, or singing in the choir, or tithing your income. You have dickered with that idea of tithing for years. You have played with it, raised your pledge a little, but you have never taken that step of faith -- laid it on the line, and started giving the first ten percent to the Lord, and trusted him to guide you in using the other ninety percent. Some of you doctors have felt the pull to use your gifts and resources for the poor, for those who, even with medicare, are not getting the medical attention they need. Why don't you act on those calls? Give a day each month to the Church Health Center. Or, give two weeks a year to medical missions.

You get my point? For everything there is a crucial moment. Jesus calls, and the more we resist that call, the less likely we are to hear him the next time around. We run the risk of missing his presence and glory.

To that reluctant man who wanted to first go and bury the dead, Jesus said rather sternly -- "Let the dead bury the dead." And he says to us: Let those who have no sense of duty to the kingdom -- let them do what they will. But you -- you have heard my call. You are sensitive. Come follow me.

III. A Victim of Indecisiveness

Now let's look at the third person. Read his story, verses 61-62. Another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home." Jesus said to him, "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the Kingdom of God."

He, too, was guilty of reluctance, but there was also an indecisiveness about him that is a challenge to us. Jesus' word to him is as clear as it could be. This is as real as it gets: "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God."

A preacher in Pittsburgh, Hugh Crocker, tells about a funny thing that happened down the street from his church. Not his church, but a Baptist church in his suburb, had a sign out front announcing the times of the services and the names of the ministers. And down at the bottom of this sign, they had a little caption to grab the eye of the passer-by. It said, "If you're tired of sinning, stop in here!"

"Well one night," said Hugh, "a funny thing happened. A guy came along with a can of paint and added to that saying. To the surprise of the preacher who came the next day, the sign now read, "If you are tired of sinning, stop in here! And if not, call 445-7751!"

As funny as that is, it makes a point. It is not easy to make the clean break with the past that we need to make. It is not easy to cease following our own whims and our own desires and follow Jesus. But that is the call.

I know I talk a lot about recovering alcoholics, but they have so much to teach us. You would be amazed to know how many recovering alcoholics there are in this congregation. You probably would be even more amazed if you knew how many alcoholics we have who are not even in the recovery process. I talk about recovering alcoholics because they know some of the truths of the gospel in a firsthand sort of way that the rest of us may not know.

I was talking to one recently who was celebrating two years of sobriety. His is a dramatic story of "putting his hands to the plow and not looking back." I said to him that he must really feel good, knowing his past life, and knowing the good things that have been happening during the past twenty-four months as a result of his sobriety. He said yes, he did feel good about it -- that is on the one hand he felt good about it, but not on the other. I asked him what he meant by that. He responded what so many recovering alcoholics say in so many different ways--that you have got to watch out about feeling too good about your sobriety, because you may begin to get cocky and start thinking you can make it on your own and before you know it you have taken that drink that sends you on the skids again.

I pressed him a bit--asking him if he had just one other drink was he sure that he would become a drunk again. This was the important statement he made: "I am certain of it. I have found that the only way I can remain sober is by closing the door on my drinking and never opening it again!"

That's as real as it gets, isn't it? That is as clear a commentary on Jesus' call as we could have: "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God."

I close with this.

A few weeks ago, I preached at the Virginia Annual Conference. After my first sermon, a young man asked for an appointment. He told me who he was and something about himself and I remembered meeting him when I preached in his church in Richmond, Virginia, six or eight years ago.

Over coffee, he told me his story. I wish I had the time to share the thrilling details of it.

Four years ago, after an Emmaus Weekend, a weekend of spiritual renewal, he and his wife began a serious Christian walk. He and his small growth group have gone through a number of my workbooks, and that's the reason he wanted me to know his story. For 30 minutes, he told of the workings of Christ in his life, climaxed by an occasion a few months ago. He was driving home from his law office about 6 p.m. one Friday when he felt overpowered by the conviction that God was calling him to ordained Christian ministry. He had never been so certain of anything.

He kept it to himself because he was frightened. He has a wife and three children and a thriving $250,000 a year law practice. Over the course of the next few days, a number of things happened that reminded him that something was going on that Friday at 6 p.m. which he could not escape.

He finally got up the nerve to tell his wife. She told him she already knew about the call, but didn't know how they would handle it.

That young couple with three children are moving from Richmond, Virginia to Wilmore, Kentucky this August. They are leaving the $250,000 a year Job and everything that has been their life to start a three-year study at Asbury Seminary. That's as real as it gets.

It's been a long time since I've felt such joy and excitement in a person. His face was alive -- it glowed. His eyes danced. His crucial moment came and he responded. He found what all the three men in our Scripture story missed -- the fullness of life that comes only from following Jesus.