First Reading (Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18/CEB)
Gospel Reading (Luke 13:31-35/NRSVUE)
Jerusalem, Jerusalem — Rev. Brent Gundlah
One of my favorite things about this time of year in the rural part of Ohio in which I used to live was going to the local farm supply store to see the baby chicks they had for sale. They were typically right by the front door — just hanging out in a poultry playpen with some water bottles, feeding stations, heat lamps, and a bunch of pine shavings.
This set up not only allowed people to get close to the aforementioned chicks but also kept them all in one place (the chicks, not the people – though the people were so completely mesmerized by these little creatures that they weren’t going anywhere either).
It really didn’t take long to figure out who the target consumer of this little business venture was. Most of the farmers in that area already had chickens of their own who were dependably laying eggs and giving birth to new chicks — so it probably wasn’t them. One only needed to watch the excitement of the ten and under crowd gathered around that pen in order to understand who the prospective buyers were — a thesis that was confirmed by shouts of: “Mom, Dad – Can we get one?”
Now, while it’s possible to raise one lone chick, it certainly isn’t recommended. Chickens are inherently social animals that tend to fare better in groups, so if you decided to get one then you were probably going to end up getting more than one. That’s fine, right? They’re really small; how hard could it be to take care of them? Well, as it turns out, it isn’t as easy as some people might think.
Chicks need a brooder box that can be kept at a constant temperature (one that gets progressively lower as they get older); they need perpetual access to food and water and clean bedding; they need to be handled very carefully, lest they get hurt or stressed out (yeah, that’s a thing); they need to be monitored for illness (which can spread like wildfire); and they need to be protected from all sorts of predators.
Baby chicks require time and work and patience and so it’s not surprising that a lot of people give up on them pretty quickly; they’re a whole lot of trouble. I can’t help but wonder how many farmers have added to their own flocks by taking in chicks from tired and frustrated parents — which is probably for the best since those farmers have a track record of caring for chicks over the long haul; after all, that’s what farmers do.
Jesus is committed to caring for his chicks (albeit, metaphorical ones) too. Ever since he came down from that mountain with Peter, James and John a few weeks ago, he’s been laser-focused on getting to Jerusalem in order to minister to the people there — in spite of their recalcitrance, in spite of the difficulties that await him there; that’s what God’s Chosen One does.
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!” Now, this doesn’t exactly make Jerusalem sound like a place that most people would go out of their way to visit, but Jesus isn’t most people. He simply can’t stay away from Jerusalem because that’s where God has called him to be.
Luke can’t seem to stay away from Jerusalem either. I say this because he mentions the city 23 times in his Gospel — compared to the other three Gospel writers who mention it just 18 times combined. As I noted last week, Luke’s Gospel begins in the Jerusalem temple with Elizabeth and Zechariah, the parents of John the Baptist (the one who would prepare the way of the Lord), and it ends there too (with Jesus’s disciples worshipping at the temple after his death and resurrection). In between, it’s the place where we get the Bible’s only glimpse of Jesus’s childhood; it’s where Jesus is betrayed and executed; and it’s where he reappears soon after being resurrected.
Jerusalem is really important to Luke because, as we see in today’s reading, it is really important to Jesus, and it’s really important to Jesus because it’s really important to God. So, while the city definitely presents its fair share of problems for Jesus, nothing will prevent him from getting back there and tending to his brood.
As our passage begins, Luke tells us that a group of Pharisees has warned Jesus to flee Galilee because King Herod wants to kill him. You see, as Jesus’s ministry has grown he has been attracting increasingly big and enthusiastic crowds that threaten to upset the peaceful social order the Roman empire has charged Herod with preserving. The ruckus that Jesus is causing is making Herod look like he’s really bad at his job, so it kinda makes sense that Herod would want to get rid of him.
Are these Pharisees sincerely trying to help Jesus here? It’s tough to say, but it’s certainly plausible. We tend to think of “the Pharisees” as the stereotypical bad guys in this story but is it really that simple? Clearly some of the Pharisees have it in for Jesus, but as he makes his way to Jerusalem (indeed, in the story right after this one), Jesus will dine with other Pharisees in their homes — and he’s always willing to listen to them and engage them in conversation (as he is with everybody, really). Maybe this is all meant to remind us of the danger of vilifying entire groups of people based on the words and actions of some.
Or maybe these Galilean Pharisees simply hope that Herod won’t kill Jesus in their town, causing them a whole lot of trouble with the locals (remember, Jesus was pretty popular among the people at this point). So perhaps these Pharisees and Herod have found common cause — some mutual benefit in getting rid of Jesus somewhere other than Galilee — and are conspiring to do so.
But Jesus doesn’t appear to be worried about any of this. He responds to the concerned Pharisees by telling them that he will eventually leave Galilee, but not because he is afraid of Herod (or anyone else); no, Jesus will leave on God’s terms, when he’s done “casting out demons and performing cures,” as God has called upon him to do.
Does Jesus actually expect that the Pharisees will “Go and tell that fox,” Herod that he won’t be leaving Jerusalem for a few days because he still has work to do there? Truth be told, he probably doesn’t care one way or another (or, to be more accurate, he cares too much about other things to care about that).
This is not to say that Jesus is indifferent about all of the lousy things that Herod is doing — things that are affecting the lives of real people in that place and time — because he’s definitely not. When Jesus refers to Herod as a “fox” this is clearly not a term of endearment, or an acknowledgement of Herod’s cleverness or his skill as a leader — it’s an insult.
In the Jewish culture from which Jesus came, foxes were seen as harmful pests (ones that ate people’s chickens). So in comparing Herod to a small, cowardly, conniving, scavenging animal Jesus saying that Herod is one too. He’s a nuisance (and a distraction); he’s a leader (and I use that term loosely) who might be kind of powerful by worldly standards, but who’s insignificant in the grand scheme of things. And Jesus cares way more about the grand scheme of things than he does about worldly things.
Jesus does, however, care a whole lot about fulfilling his God-given mission of ministering to the people. At the end of chapter nine, Jesus “set his face to go to Jerusalem” and he’s been slowly but surely making his way there ever since. He won’t actually arrive in the city until about halfway through chapter nineteen, but nothing will deter him from getting there — certainly not Herod or his fear of Herod — because he has important work to do.
And when Jesus acknowledges that “it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem” and laments that it is “the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it” he seems to understand that this is the fate that awaits him there, but he goes anyway because it’s where the people are, it’s where the people believe God resides, it’s where he will establish a new covenant between God and all God’s people — one that transcends things like time and place and nationality.
Is Jesus troubled by Jerusalem’s knack for murderously rejecting those who have sent by God to save it? Sure he is. But the lament Jesus offers here is isn’t about himself, it’s about others. These stubborn people — the ones whio have dismissed the prophet’s attempts to protect them from themselves — is what Jesus is concerned about because it’s what God is concerned about. He will stand his ground like a mother-hen, defending his brood to his last breath, because his love for God and for God’s people compels him to do that.
Jesus’s steadfast determination to complete his journey isn’t about resigning himself to his fate; it’s about living into his unwavering belief in us and in God, and in the idea that our relationships with one another and with God can and must and will be better than they are right now, someday.
But someday seems pretty far off sometimes — and sometimes it seems farther off than others. The truth is, though, the kingdoms of this world have always had leaders like Herod who look out only for themselves and theirs, and there’s never been a shortage of other people whose motives for saying and doing the things they say and do are rooted in their own selfish interests. And this reality can be pretty demoralizing — especially when society continues to lift these people up, to deem them worthy of admiration and imitation, to worship them in strange and troubling ways.
But thankfully, the world has also always been full of other people who are willing to tune out all of that noise and walk with determination to the beat of a different drummer upon another path (you know, like Jesus did) — putting the needs of others ahead of their own, doing the right thing even when it’s costly, caring for the ones that nobody else wants to care for, feeding the hungry, nursing the sick, fighting injustice, working for peace for all God’s people, gathering the brood under their wings, worshipping God by loving their neighbor.
So maybe we too could look beyond all of those worldly distractions (which, let’s face it, are often intended to distract us) and focus on that other, more important stuff instead. I mean, at the end of the day, Herod’s gonna do what Herod’s gonna do, but that doesn’t change what Christ’s disciples have always been called to do.