There is a real tragedy in today’s gospel. The people who don’t follow Jesus are not being callous or evil or mean. They do not reject Him because they cannot abide by His teachings, or because they think He is blasphemous. They are making requests that are, on the surface, reasonable. It is not evil that gets in the way of their following Jesus, but good.
This is the most insidious way we can fall from grace. Many Christians do not fall because they want to something obviously evil, but because they want something that is apparently good—like burying one’s father. But if something is keeping us from following Jesus, or otherwise hinders our love of God, it is time for us to re-examine just how good that thing really is, and whether our love of it is healthy. Otherwise we, too, will be left behind by Jesus.