Luke 13:31-35
At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him,
‘Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.’ He said
to them, ‘Go and tell that fox for me, “Listen, I am casting out demons
and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my
work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way,
because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed away from Jerusalem.” Jerusalem,
Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to
it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers
her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See,
your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time
comes when you say, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the
Lord.” ’
At some point my mother wanted me to become a
priest. I don’t know exactly when, but
she’d pepper our conversations with it enough that I knew what she wanted. Just like little Ralphie wanting a “Red Ryder
BB Gun,” I knew my mom would like me to become a priest. And in the Episcopal Church I could still
give her grandchildren.
In the Episcopal Church we use something called
a Lectionary. Each Sunday an Old
Testament Reading is read, a psalm, or portion of a psalm (depending on how
long it is) is read and then a reading from the New Testament. After that, the Priest in charge reads a
reading from the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke & John). The people who created the Lectionary where
all the readings can be found tried to find a common theme or thread that runs
through them all. Sometimes it works
great. Sometimes you’re left scratching
your head.
The Priest then preaches on the readings of the
day. Typically a priest will focus on
the Gospel reading but he, or she, can pick-and-choose from the four what they
want to talk about. And, again, since
they’re SUPPOSED to all be in common (kinda) hopefully they’ll inform each
other.
During Lent, I’m taking the Gospel reading for
the Sunday and am going to write about it (kind of like a sermon). This will take up one of my 40 blogs! Oh boy!
One more down just another couple dozen to go:
It’s an election year in the United States and
Social Media and television networks are ablaze with political news. Speeches, sound-bites, seemingly endless
debates, town halls, call-ins, Twitter messages, it goes and goes ad nausea.
In this work-a-day world of 24-7 news feed and
social media it is very difficult to just turn your back on the political
machine. Michelle, my daughter, has said
though that she “doesn’t pay attention to it.”
I wish I could say the same thing, sometimes.
This reading from Luke reminds me that the
struggle that takes Jesus to Calvary and his eventual death and resurrection is
based on a political struggle. The story
of Christ from the virgin birth to his resurrection seems to lose some luster
by referring to it as a political revolution, but in many ways, that’s what it
was.
In this reading we see the Pharisees basically
giving Jesus a: “Hey, dude, cut that out
or the mayor’s going to be pissed.” And
Jesus saying right back: “Nah. I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing and
you can go back and tell him that.” But
then Jesus says: “Still…I’m going to take
my leave for a bit and I’d love to be able to help all the people you’re not
helping. So, guess, what I’LL BE
BACK! And then you’ll see!”
Jesus has, basically, thrown the gauntlet down
and you can bet that Herod didn’t take the news too well.
This is just one of many scriptures where Jesus
challenges the status quo. I almost see
Jesus holding up a “Jewish Lives Matter” sign in this moment when talking to
the Pharisees and, of course, once he’s away from the city, what is Herod to do
but wonder about this “miracle worker” and his desire to bring all people under
his wing? Is Jesus amassing an
army? Is Jesus going to come back with
(figuratively) guns blazing? Jesus is
basically calling out the authority and you can bet your hat that if this was
the USA today, he’d be on some watch list somewhere.
Still – what are we to make of Jesus and this
struggle against a corrupt authority?
How does it inform our own struggle against authority? How do we afflict the comfortable while
comforting the afflicted? Can we, you,
me, I, spend part of these 40 days wondering about our own political structure
and see how it deals with those that Christ seemed so very concerned: The poor, the sick, the dying, the old, the
marginalized, the hated, the weird, the different, the “other?”
If we look at Jesus’s journey through these 40
days as an act of a political revolution that would eventually lead to his
death (and his resurrection) – how does that change Lent for you? Or does it?
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