But that is the mission. Jerusalem is the goal. This is where it will be finished. This is where the glory of GOD will be revealed and death will not have the final word.

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How the Pharisees try to warn Jesus and he keeps going anyway
Lent 2C |  Luke 13:31-35

This is kind of a hard piece of Scripture to unwrap. The lectionary has given us this difficult passage from the middle of a difficult chapter and thrown it out to us in the middle of Lent. Happy day, right? And you know, before we can talk about these Pharisees and Jesus talking about the death of prophets and the chicken, I have to help us get the context.

So chapter 13 begins with this auspicious description of violence against Galileans by Pilate. Remember that Jesus is a Galilean who will be killed by Pilate. And then Jesus tells this parable about a fig tree: a parable about second chances: give the tree one more year to bear fruit.

Then Jesus goes into a synagogue and heals a woman on the Sabbath. And when he’s confronted for working on the Sabbath (a big no-no) he says to them you have to lead your animals to water, right? Keeping them alive doesn’t count as working. He argues that this woman needs healing on the Sabbath because that’s what the Sabbath is for: it is for protecting, for saving lives.

Hearing this, the crowd is eating it up! And then he teaches them in a couple of parables of miraculous growth: the kingdom of GOD is like a mustard seed and its like yeast. So we’re getting this vision of a Kingdom of growth and vitality and second chances and about life!

But then he gets all dark and talks about the narrow door which closes on those who don’t get in there when they have the chance. It ends with this challenging teaching, culminating in these verses right before this morning’s gospel reading:

There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrown out. Then people will come from east and west, from north and south, and will eat in the kingdom of God. Indeed, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.’

The Warning

So this is where we start. But notice in that list: “Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God”. And Jesus is heading to Jerusalem, the city which kills its prophets. It is no accident that Jesus is teaching them about the narrow door and what it spells out for the Kingdom of GOD, while also lamenting how that kingdom is often treated in the here and now. We martyr our saints and elevate our villains.

This message of openness and life suddenly sounds conditional or closed. And it is hard to know exactly what Jesus is thinking here.

But then, Jesus receives a warning from an unlikely group: the Pharisees of all people. The people who are often troubled by Jesus’s teaching, who often try to trick or scheme against Jesus; here they warn him. What are we supposed to make of it?

Tradition has often cast the Pharisees as enemies: the goats of the story. In the way that disciples are often treated as mildly incompetent, the Pharisees are often treated as being the ones trying to get Jesus. So tradition often treats this as a trap.

It doesn’t read like one, however. There is no trick. They are warning Jesus about Herod. And it is worth noting that the Pharisees disappear from the story halfway through Holy Week. After their attempts to trap Jesus at the Temple, they are gone from the story and the scheming, the arresting, the trial: this is all done by the chief priests and the Temple authorities. Not the Pharisees.

Tradition has often miscast the Pharisees as the enemy.

So then what do we make of this warning? Are these people trying to help Jesus or not?

Friend or Foe?

I think the answer is more complicated than that. They have a different vision of the game than Jesus does. And a way different vision than ours.

They warn Jesus about Herod, but how do they know? How would they know what Herod is after? Whose side are they on? Both?

Were they OK with Herod when they were getting something out of it, but now he’s crossed a line? If that’s the case, why would they side with someone so abusive to the Jewish people? Were they merely looking out for themselves? Or are they playing politics?

But rather than malign the Pharisees, I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt. Like modern economists who think what is best for the markets is that people will always do what is in their best interest. Perhaps the Pharisees really are trying to play both sides. Perhaps they are worried that Jesus will hurt the people: that he’ll start a rebellion which will backfire.

Regardless of their motives, what they actually ask Jesus to do is stray from his path. Back in chapter 9, he set his eyes on Jerusalem and is heading there. So the Pharisees are setting themselves before him like Peter. They are a stumbling block to Jesus’s mission. A mission of going to Jerusalem to face his ultimate fate.

On the third day, it will be finished. On the third day, he will rise.

This is what he is telling his followers, what he reiterates to these Pharisees cryptically. That he is heading to his death in Jerusalem. A prophet, killed as prophets are killed. Joining the Patriarchs in triumph and vindication. Taking the narrow door to the place GOD has promised. So they should get with the program and join him there.

Focus on the Kingdom

This strange chapter may be less confusing if we regard the Kingdom of GOD in the way Jesus describes it: that it is open and expansive. And we regard the urgency of the moment Jesus uses to describe the narrow door: as in get in there! Because his eyes are already set on Jerusalem. He is trying to gather the little ones under his wing.

Jesus isn’t a king like Herod, the fox, but a hen. A chicken. The victim. The one who will be killed. The one who will be eaten and destroyed. That’s a hard message to deliver, isn’t it?

But that is the mission. Jerusalem is the goal. This is where it will be finished. This is where the glory of GOD will be revealed and death will not have the final word.

This is the perfect example of the old saying: The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Our good intentions to derail Jesus’s mission in our world. Our attempts to keep Jesus from going to his death in Jerusalem. To avoid the good Jesus is trying to do with us for good reasons.

But we always have good reasons. Reasons that keep us from Jerusalem. And keep us from finishing our work. Good reasons like not wanting to hurt or offend each other. Good reasons like not wanting to drive each other away or proclaim a challenging gospel.

Gray Lesesne, the priest planting Good Samaritan Episcopal Church in Brownsburg reminded us at Vestry College that he had to be reminded by his mentor that everything he writes, everything he shares, has to be about the core message of the church. About what they are trying to do: to be a church without walls. A people devoted to love and service.

This is Jesus’s response to the Pharisees who try to derail him here, as it was when Peter tried to prevent him from going to Jerusalem to die and when his family tried to protect him from the crowds. Stumbling blocks – detours from the core mission of Jerusalem and the core message: that we help build this amazing Kingdom. That we do it now! That our time is right now! That vitality and growth and life come from sticking to the tough message of the Kingdom.

So this message we receive is a message about the message. About burrowing down to our core that we can embody this message in everything. A message about living out the Kingdom here in Terre Haute. About being the Kingdom here on 7th Street and when we go across the street to serve others.

May we not silence each other when we are called to proclaim. May we not prevent each other when we are called to serve. May we embody the love, the courage, the sacrifice of the one who serves us; who is building the kingdom with us, bringing hope and life to our neighborhood, to our world, to our very lives. Amen.