These two statements may have circulated as independent sayings. But the original setting of the first statement must have been something like the present one, which is so shocking that it couldn’t have been created by the Evangelists. See pp. 44f., 89.
And as they were traveling along the road, he said to a certain man, “Follow me.”
And the man said, “Let me first go and bury my father.”
But Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their dead.”
Another man said to Jesus, “I will follow you, sir, but let me first say good-bye to my family.”
And Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and then looks back is ready for the kingdom of God.”
Let the dead bury their dead: The most generous interpretation of this saying (we have to stretch it and disregard its harsh tone) would take it beyond the context of funerals. “Of course, your duty is to go bury your father, and you should honor him as best you can. But you shouldn’t lose yourself in your grief, like those who don’t know any better. Death is just a transition, as is life. Beyond life and death is true life, the only reality. That is what you should be centered in, at every moment, whether your father has just died or you have just gotten married.”
John Tarrant comments, “I read in this saying the harshness of a fresh realization of the transitory. In Zen we might say that Jesus is overvaluing the eternal and empty side of things, is dazzled by it.”
Another man said to Jesus: Something like this dialogue, which typifies Jesus’ attitude toward family, may actually have taken place. But it may just as well be a creation of Luke’s. It is meant to show Jesus’ superiority to Elijah in I Kings 19:20:
And Elisha left his oxen and ran after Elijah and said, “Let me kiss my father and mother good-bye, and then I will follow you.”
And Elijah said, “Go back; what have I done to stop you?”
I will follow you: John Tarrant comments, “The man needs to ignore Jesus and follow him: to go back and set his affairs in order and then leave. In this way, he would honor the great truth of the summons, as well as the smaller but necessary truth of human feeling.”
No one who puts his hand to the plow and then looks back: If you look back, you can’t see where you’re going.
source: Luke 9:57, 59-62, Matthew 8:22