"A man has got to know his limits ... " (Luke 9)

"RJR, you are like a man who sees a freight train heading for a cliff. And you don't know the first thing about freight trains. You just know it's going in the wrong direction, and you are determined to jump on board and turn it around!"

A wise friend gave me this perspective decades ago, when I was determined to "reform" an American denomination by pursuing ordination therein.

As another of Luke's lengthy chapters winds down, we see the Lord inviting people to follow Him, and the responses of the recruits:

Luk 9:59 Bir başkasına, "Ardımdan gel" dedi. Adam ise, "İzin ver, önce gidip babamı gömeyim" dedi.
Luk 9:60 İsa ona şöyle dedi: "Bırak ölüleri, kendi ölülerini kendileri gömsün. Sen gidip Tanrı'nın Egemenliği'ni duyur."

And, a few words:

• önce -- First
  
• gitmek -- to go
  
• babamı -- my father (direct object)
  
• gömek -- bury

The context makes it plain that the called one's father was still alive and kicking. The guy was willing to follow Jesus, after making sure that his own nest was feathered. There was some matter of business that needed attending to, first.

To which Jesus replied, "Let the dead bury their own dead, and go, preach the Kingdom of God." Or, as my beloved mentor R. J. Rushdoony paraphrased it, "Let the dead bury the dead. The living have work to do."

American humorist Al Capp caricatured the campus radicals of the 60's, in his L'i'l Abner comic strip, as Students Wildly Indignant about Nearly Everything (S.W.I.N.E.) . It's easy to get worked up concerning tempting targets. Sanity, however, sometimes requires us to walk away from other people's problems, and mind our own business as well as we can.