The scribe said “wherever,” so Jesus tells him plainly where that is. Tonight, it is a boat with no pillow. A fox has a hole in the ground. A bird has a nest. Neither is much, but each belongs to its owner. Jesus says, “I have less than that.” He was not homeless in exactly the way we use the word; he had a home base in Capernaum and people took him in. But as Leon Morris puts it, he was devoid of all middle-class security. He had left the carpenter shop in Nazareth. He had no steady paycheck and no place of his own. That is who the scribe just promised to follow.
Why would Jesus answer an eager volunteer this way? Not to get rid of him, but to love him. Jesus tells him the truth before he gets in the boat, not after the storm hits. Daniel Doriani frames Jesus’ question well: you have resolved to follow me, but can you follow through? Resolution and execution are not the same thing. The treadmill holding laundry in the spare room and the empty gym in March testify to how easily good intentions fade.
Jesus himself taught us to count the cost before building the tower (Luke 14:28). That is not a call to hesitate; it is a call to understand. Many people walk an aisle on a wave of emotion, or sign up to serve because it sounds exciting, and then discover that following Jesus means showing up on rainy Sundays, loving difficult people, and staying when it would be easier to leave. Enthusiasm is not the enemy of discipleship, but it is not the same thing as following. Following means going where Jesus goes, and Jesus is going to Gethsemane, to Golgotha, and to the tomb.