Lent 2

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

SEASON: Lent 2
PROPER: C
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: March 11, 2001


TEXT: Luke 13:22-35 – At that very hour 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 . . . . How often have I desired to gather you4r children together as a hen gathers her brood under he wings, and you were not willing!’”

ISSUE: Jesus is fixed and intent on his mission, in spite of Herod the Fox. He will persist as the Mother Hen in the call and protection of her chicks. The passage calls the people of God to be repentant and focused on their mission to enter and join with Christ in the Kingdom or Realm of God. Lent calls us to renew our focus on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the cross, and keep aimed as people of God in a world of distractions.

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Jesus continues his journey toward Jerusalem and his eventual crucifixion on the cross. As he makes his way toward Jerusalem he teaches and preaches in the villages along the way. A significant part of Jesus’ teaching was his belief that God sought to establish a new Kingdom of justice and love. This proclamation was good news in a world that was full of injustice, cruelty, and the degradation of so many poor people. Jesus’ movement and followers were probably few in number. The question is raised, “Will only a few be saved?” The question seems to mean will only a few be allowed to enter this Kingdom of God. Jesus’ reply is that they must struggle, strive, work at, entering through the narrow door, “Many will try, but will not make it.” So you get a picture of a large crowd of people trying to enter a house, but the owner of the house closes the door and excludes a large number of people. And those people continue to knock at the door crying, but “Lord, open to us. We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.” But he will say, “I do not know where you come from; go away from me, all you evil doers.” These lines are similar to the parable of The Wise and Foolish Virgins who arrive late at the bridegrooms wedding feast. We’ve heard them before and they’re always disturbing.
At this time, eating together had a great significance. People who ate together were considered a part of an “in-group.” Many people who had eaten with Jesus and listened to his teachings saw themselves as having a special worthiness when it came to the Kingdom of God. It is also to be noted that many Jewish people of this time believed that by virtue of their heritage, they were automatically worthy, and considered themselves ‘the chosen,’ of the Kingdom of God by their DNA. Jesus challenges that belief. You neither get into the Kingdom of God by virtue of your heritage, nor by listening and having had a casual acquaintance with Jesus. You don’t get to the Kingdom simply be virtue that your great grandfather was baptized in our font, or that he helped build the church. Privilege is not in your heritage; it is in your personal repentance, change, and commitment to the way of God.
It will be something of a shock to see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and many repentant disenfranchised people and Gentiles coming from the north, east, south, and west eating in the Kingdom of God. We get the impression that a sizeable response of the unlikely folk may well inherit the Kingdom.
While Jesus is making these points, he is told by some Pharisees that Herod wants to kill him. Whether this is a fair warning on the part of some Pharisees, or whether they are trying to run him off, we can’t be sure. We do know that Herod Antipas did kill John the Baptist who taught repentance. So it is a fair warning. But Jesus’ response is interesting, “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 killed outside of Jerusalem.’” A fox was considered to be sly animal, the most destructive of animals, and symbol of a worthless and insignificant man. The image of Herod the fox is contrasted with the image of Jesus as the Mother Hen who has made every effort to gather a larger community under his protective wings that would not listen and significantly embrace him. This part of the passage clearly implies that though the powers of the world seek to wipe out the ministry, healing, and graciousness of Jesus Christ, that ministry will be neither distracted, nor fearful, nor minimized, nor eradicated. Jesus Christ persists in a clear unwaivering commitment to his meaning and purposeful ministry. He will not be distracted from what must be done.
What’s all this about? Any of us who live in families know well that in spite of the fact we’d like to think life is easy, it is not. Good sound family life is hard work. It’s not just a matter of eating together, and listening to one another, as important as those two aspects are. But it is seeing one another through sickness and other bad times when there is trouble. It is hard to influence and keep our children doing their homework. There are many activities that we all are encourage to participate in: sports, music, community projects and involvements, the church. Saving for the future, and making financial ends meet isn’t always easy. Finding time for recreation and vacations, quality time together are important for the health of a family. And when I talk of family, I mean to include the extended family as well. There are many demands; and it is not always easy. It is a struggle, and that’s one of the realities of our lives. In order to keep the family strong, intact, and healthy everyone needs to stay focused and committed to doing their part.
At the same time there are many things that distract from our being healthy people in families, both within and without. If someone in the family is not pulling their weight, there’s a problem. If drugs and alcohol become a factor in a family, it becomes badly dysfunctional. There are also problems from the outside. Sometimes the demands, or at least what we see as demands become overwhelming: working too hard, loss of a job and diminished income, the demands to become over involved in so many community activities. The influences of the culture that challenge our moral standards can be a real problem. Watching TV at the so-called ‘family hours’ can at times be embarrassing even in mixed adult company. We are bombarded with anger and rage that seems to have infiltrated our way of life. Look what all this may be affecting our school children in this nation when we experience the shootings and violence.
What this passage from Luke is saying today, is that in fact. Life is a struggle. It is demanding. In order to maintain justice, love, mercy, compassion, and a meaningful purposeful life you have to keep focuses. The gateway to the world is big and wide. But the way to God’s way, to the realm of God requires keeping our spiritual lives fixed on the narrow door. You must not underestimate your need to keep focused in the present and rely on the past and your heritage. It was great if you were an acolyte where you were a kid, but what is your Christian focus today as a part of the family of God. You see Herod is all around us. The ways of the world culture that both distracts and misleads us can be devastating, not just to family life, but to our existence as worthwhile human beings as well. Civility, sense of caring for community and the common good, can be lost in a culture of violence, fear, materialism, success demands. Becoming over extended weakens our overall being of who we are and what our real skills and talents are. People eventually say, “I’m burned out.”
Jesus says to the Pharisee, “Tell Herod the Fox, [the world], that I am committed to my calling which came to me from God. I am staying focused on what God is calling me to do, until my time is finished.” At the risk of the world, and at the risk of crucifixion, Jesus remains faithful to his calling to bring the world safely to the protection and love of God. The whole idea of Jesus as a mother hen seems so very counter cultural for the time, but so vivid expresses the mother’s love of her children and the risks she takes for her children in the face of the fox.
Some may remember the time when they were in school, and how during the exam times there always seemed to be so many distractions. There was always good weather that tended to call you away from the books. There was always the guy that had finished his exams and encouraged you to go some where wonderful before you had finished yours. There was even the temptation just to give up; “I’ll never know this stuff,” or “What good will it do me anyway?” Sometimes you persisted, and sometimes you allow the distractions to overcome to the expense of a good grade.
Somehow this season of Lent seems to me to be like exam time for us Christians. It is our time to study or reflect on our relationship with God, and with our Lord. We have to ask if we just take our Christianity for granted and as something that is just a passive part of our heritage, or is it integrated into our being. We have to be aware that we can be called away and distracted, the world is very demanding. We have to examine the heart and its richness in love, its caring concern for God’s world. We all need to enter into the struggle, the narrow door, of awareness of what God’s Kingdom, or Realm really is.
Recently I read an article about the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The tower started to lean from the time it was built. Sandy soil under its foundation very early on could not bear the weight. The workers building the tower realized it was leaning, and made compensations in order to straighten it. Had they not done that, the tower would have fallen over by now. But it still leans and is again in danger of falling. Workmen are trying again to adjust its foundations to bring the tower back in plumb to prevent its falling. The tower will never be completely perpendicular. But it can be kept from falling.
No one of us is ever completely perfect. We can only hope to become more mature. But in our humanness, we always have to recheck our foundations, and allow God to keep us as plumb as possible, and enable our foundation in the ways of Jesus Christ to be perfected. May we with Christ continue to be authentic partners in the Dominion of God.