The careful observer of life’s nuts and bolts soon learns that he can put up with almost anything for a little while. When you can glimpse the end of pain, you become almost invincible.
So it might have seemed entirely plausible to the young enthusiasts who gathered admiringly around Jesus that they should accompany him to his destination. He had, after all, had problems in the Samaritan villages precisely because his face was set like stone for Jerusalem. Everyone knew where Jesus was headed.
It would be no life-shattering experience to put up with some discomfort and humilation until they got there.
Jesus’ dismaying response to such would-be hangers-on seems to take away from them the comfortable expectation of destination:
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.’
We may not get to Jerusalem, Jesus’ warning seems to suggest, or we may not stop there if we do. To follow me is to abandon not only self and home but also resolution to the common expectation of pilgrimage: that we will arrive.
With a sentence or two, Jesus seems to raise the bar on what follower-ship entails. You may never go home.
Canter Bridge 
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