LENT 2, 28 Feb 2010
Luke 13:31-35


We have some challenging readings this morning. We have Abraham, who is offered everything he wants, everything God thinks he has missed out on in his life, yet he still has a hard time believing it will happen. And so he challenges God. He doesn’t trust God to deliver on his promise. Our epistle has a similar theme – Paul is challenging those people to live their lives differently. And they seem to resist his promises on God’s behalf. Struggle and mis-trust. What a very human response. We tend to avoid difficult choices, preferring to keep things as they are. Why rock the boat? Who likes conflict, anyway?
Now let’s look at the Gospel. We have some Pharisees running up to Jesus. The Pharisees. What do we know about them? Well, technically, they are a sect of Judaism, they are a political party, they are a social organisation. They are so committed to keeping the Torah’s purity laws, they create additional laws covering the nuances. They are known to us, through Mark’s Gospel, to be the Jews that offer the most opposition to Jesus and his followers. They were so strict in following the rules that they would not eat or socialise with people who did not, as they considered them to be unclean. Other sects of Jews, including the group called “Followers of the Way” – we’ll get back to them – interpreted this behaviour as arrogant, snobby, Stand-off-ish. They started considering the Pharisees to be the Bad Guys, hypocrites, nasty folk that we wouldn’t want to spend time with even if we could. The Pharisees became “Them.” Not as good or holy or smart as “Us.”
And yet – this gospel story opens with the Pharisees. Them. Those people. What do we expect from them when we see them walking up? Criticism, derogatory comments, negativity towards Jesus and his followers. It’s what they normally do. Why should today be any different? Yet here they are, giving Jesus a warning. “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you”. As if to say, “Look, Jesus, friend – I know we don’t always get along. I know we’ve been harsh in the past. We disagree on so many things, and have never really had a chance to chat about what and why, but you know we’d not harm you. But for now, please believe me – your life is in danger! Herod – the bad guy – he’s coming, and it’s not good!”
This is completely unexpected. The Pharisees know Jesus’ teachings have been rocking the boat, which is why Herod wants Him out of the picture. And here they are trying to save him, to aid his continuing in rocking the boat. And Jesus’ reply, that the Pharisees go back and challenge Herod’s authority, confuses them even more. Jesus knows that he has work to continue to do. He is still needing to teach, cast out demons, heal people. So he ignores the warning that he is in danger, and continues working. He even has a bit of a challenge back to Herod, through the Pharisees.
Now, we work very hard to make sure that this type of “he-said-she-said” stuff does NOT happen. It’s called triangulation, and it’s a bad thing. Especially when insults are involved. And to call Herod a fox is indeed an insult. What do foxes do? They invade the henhouse and leave a path of death and destruction. And who does Jesus refer to as the hens? The people of Jerusalem. So his followers and the Pharisees hear him say that Herod will cause death and destruction in Jerusalem with the very people that Jesus is trying to protect and offer motherly, unconditional love to. Jerusalem, the henhouse full of ‘hens’ who are in need of care and nourishment so that they might grow strong, now in danger from a fox. Jesus seems to hint that the people of Jerusalem are so concerned about saving themselves that they are not being true to themselves and true to God. They present whatever is necessary to not ‘rock the boat’ to keep a semblance of peace. That’s why prophets and outsiders are murdered throughout it’s history – their words may disturb the peace, and the people are so spiritually uncertain that they cannot bear the instability.
So Jesus turns to everyone gathered – his followers, the Pharisees, the people he had been teaching – and gives them a challenge. “Your house is left to you.” Basically, he’s saying – “OK folks, what happens next is up to you. You decide if you are going to be a hen, brooded over by my love, and standing up together against the lone fox. Or, if you’re going to sit in your house, afraid. Afraid of everyone who is different, who says things that challenge society. The choice is yours – but you won’t see me – really see who I am and what I’m offering – until you can say ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord’.”
So – who do you want to be? Do you want to be a Pharisee, one of them? Do you want to be one of Jesus’ followers, one of us, learning his cryptic teachings and trying to follow them? Do you want to be part of the other sect, the Followers of the Way? Well, over history, all thr groups changed a bit. The Pharisees over time became teachers of the original rules, and are now known to us as the Rabbinic (or Orthodox) Jews. They are our brothers and sisters, with whom we share a history and tradition. Jesus’ followers – well, we know where we ended up. What we may not know is that the critical “Followers of the Way” is us. That was the name Christians went by at the time of Christ. They were the followers of Jesus. They were as critical of the Pharisees as the Pharisees were of them. Early Christians were just as human, just as guilty as everyone else – they got caught up in human challenges, in choosing safety over truth, in inter-personal conflict.
So Jesus’ lesson here is for everyone around him. He’s challenging folks to recognise that they have somehow developed an us-them conflict, and he wants it stopped. He wants people to celebrate the truth of God – HIS truth. Jesus challenges them, as he challenges us, to see that the people we love and the people we dislike are equally beloved by God. That the very nature of creating this us-them conflict takes us away from the all-encompassing parental love that God offers us.
May our Lenten challenge this week be to spend some time reflecting on God’s love for all of us. May we hold within our prayers those people we already love. May we think very deeply on those people we dislike, and see that we dislike their words or actions, but that we can –and are indeed called to - love them as children of God. And then we can receive God’s love, blessing the one who comes in His name. May we have the strength, perseverance, and faith this week to see beyond the boundaries of us-them into a better world of a wider We.

Copyright 2010 LMP