JESUS AND A FUNERAL AND HIS INSULT AGAINST THE DEAD MAN

Cult leaders try to cut or weaken family ties. Jesus performed an extreme example of this tactic. 
 
Jesus once asked a man to follow him. The man said that he would but that he wanted to bury his father first. Jesus said that the dead should be left to bury their own dead.

The story is plain enough.  But sure enough Christians try to read their notions into the text to hide how vicious it is.
 
Some say that the reason for the reply was that the man was making an excuse which was why Jesus said that the dead should bury their own dead. The dead is either the dead in the graves - if Jesus meant these then he was more than sarcastic and was saying that he didn’t care if the old man was never buried for the dead can’t bury – or he meant the spiritually dead should bury their literal dead. Which? The answer was blunt and cruel no matter what it means and the man would have been insulted by it so it is most likely that Jesus was saying that the real dead should bury the father! Take the literal interpretation when it should be the one and there is no reason not to take it. The Gospel would say if Jesus did not mean that corpses should bury the father.
 
Plus Jesus had never taught the concept of spiritual death. This is the state of being estranged from God which is described as death for it is death to a relationship with God. Therefore we cannot take dead as meaning spiritually dead.

Some say that if the man means that he has to attend his father’s funeral soon and others say he means that he has to live with his father until his father dies. But it is obvious that he is most likely to have meant the former for he would not have spoken as if he had a funeral to attend. When the story is put in the gospel for our “edification” it shows that the argument that the story does not prove that Jesus was evil for he could have had a mysterious reason for commanding what he commanded is false for we have no Jesus to tell us when to break the rules now.

Christians say that Jesus wanted the man to drop everything and follow him for a purpose that was unique to the situation. This would be an indirect good purpose but God should look after these purposes himself for he has magic power. The purpose could have been creating new disciples for Jesus. The man could have tried to bring his father’s friends and family to Jesus. Christian excuses would make one vomit. Jesus never hinted that anybody was justified in not following him. This idea that some had big sacrifices to make that are not expected of everybody else is false.