The problem is us, not logic. Jesus invites us into a new world of mercy based in nonviolent relationships and we’d rather kill it.
Jesus and our own human journey to Jerusalem
Lent 2C | Luke 13:31-35
I love Ash Wednesday. It comes like a shot of adrenaline to me. I’m zapped awake to my own mortality, to the challenge of discipleship, to the need for discernment, and it shocks me awake like a bucket of cold water.
But at the end of the night, after inviting numerous people to keep a holy Lent, I’m wiped. It’s like Lent in microcosm.
And yet every Thursday after Ash Wednesday, I wake up ready to go again.
Discernment
In the liturgy for Ash Wednesday, we’re invited to keep a holy Lent of fasting and discerning. But at its core, the central theme of Lent isn’t for you to do you. Like the planet’s 2 billion Christians are all on their individual journeys alone.
The invitation on Ash Wednesday reminds us that we’re on a journey. Every one of us is part of something way bigger. That our actions impact the community. And that our shunning of others hasn’t brought the Kin-dom any closer.
We each have a walk that is ours. But we have a walk together that is ours. And sometimes, when people’s walks have taken them away from us and now return to us, we remember what it is to be merciful, inviting, open to change and to be changed. To become a new thing.
Into the wilderness
Lent’s a weird time. And its themes are really challenging to embrace. Mercy, discipline, self-denial? Ugh. Where’s the Jesus who just wants to party or celebrate the finding of the lost? That’s my favorite Jesus. And I know a bunch of you like that one too.
But no sooner have we cleaned the ashes from our foreheads then we’re taken out into the desert to witness Jesus’s temptation. The adversary comes at him with offers of power and security. Last week’s gospel shows us
Next, disciples
In the chapters that follow, Jesus starts collecting followers. He calls an inner circle and calls them disciples. Then apostles. He shares his power with them and gives them authority to heal and exorcize demons, to proclaim the day of the lord’s favor.
He heals people all over the countryside, heads north into Gentile territory and heals people there, too. Then he turns his face to Jerusalem. And he’ll spend the next 9 chapters traveling there, healing, serving, transforming the world as he goes.
Fishing
I wonder what the disciples are thinking as they go. Promised to fish for people; it certainly seems like they are. The crowds are going nuts over him.
Something about Jesus is really attractive, charismatic. Even when his message is challenging.
Do they hear it? Or do they not care what he’s really saying? Yet.
Three Days
We’ve moved into chapter 13, which is nearly halfway from the time Jesus starts heading to Jerusalem and when he’ll finally get there. This isn’t a journey of a day. He’s taking time to get there.
Today, tomorrow, and the next day.
Things happen on the third day. Of course, the resurrection. But in general, things. Big things. Momentous things happen then.
“Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work.”
Not a literal three days, right? This is symbolic of something big. And yet for Jesus, it’s strangely mundane. It’s what he’s been doing this whole time. This is becoming his daily routine. Casting out demons and performing cures. By now it’s somehow pedestrian. What we’ve come to expect from Jesus.
And yet it is the core of his work. It is what he spends his time doing.
“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.”
Jesus names two sequences of days. Two sets of actions at once.
Healing and moving. He’s doing all this healing stuff on his way to Jerusalem.
Where Herod wants to kill him.
Some leaders have just told Jesus that he shouldn’t go to Jerusalem because Herod wants to kill him. And Jesus’s response is a big No
Jesus is moving.
Jesus isn’t staying still. There’s no dwelling place on the Transfiguration mount or living in his Mom’s basement. Jesus is on the move. It’s a kinetic thing.
It reminds me of watching the walk-and-talks on The West Wing where the people keep moving while they’re always doing other things at the same time.
Like this walk-and-talk is getting in the way of his walk-and-heal or walk-and-teach or walk-and-exorcize some demons.
Bringing Freedom
A few verses earlier, Jesus showed up in a synagogue. There was a woman there who was crippled for 18 years. He walked right up to her and set her free of her torture.
Of course the leader of the synagogue wasn’t happy that Jesus healed someone on the Sabbath. Which Jesus has already been yelled at for, of course. But this time he points out that we take livestock to water every day. We don’t deprive them because it’s the Sabbath. Shouldn’t a woman bound by Satan for 18 years be freed on the Sabbath?
Water and freedom. Jesus isn’t messing around.
“and the entire crowd was rejoicing”
Distracted
Jesus is offering freedom in a way people still can’t completely comprehend.
He’s preaching about the kin-dom being like a mustard seed. Small but it grows way beyond its ability.
And while our rational minds get frustrated with him, trying to pin down what Jesus means like those leaders from Jerusalem, we miss that the central theme isn’t condemnation, but freedom.
Right before this passage, Jesus is asked about the restrictiveness of salvation. It’s a weird and distracting passage, but Jesus responds, not with who gets in, but instead with a verb: strive.
You. You strive to get through. Because you will be surprised at what you see if you are unfortunate enough to be on the outside looking in.
Protection
When the leaders come to “protect” Jesus from Herod, we should already get that Jesus knows the jig is up. How would they know what Herod wants? They wouldn’t! Unless they’re friendly with the fake king.
Jesus contrasts their form of “protection” with his own. They’ve chosen to ally themselves with the fox. But Jesus? He’s the only one protecting the chicks.
Facing Jerusalem
This is the strange dichotomy we’re walking into this Lent. We’re heading to Jerusalem, knowing what we’ll find there. At least as far as the story of Jesus goes.
We’ll find division and fear and hate and death. And we’ll watch Jesus walk into it anyway.
But our journey together, our walk with Jesus is going in that same direction. We’re facing our human struggles. We’re doing our work and walking in faith, today, tomorrow, and the next day.
The Third Day
Three days ago, I woke to the horrific mass murder of 49 people of faith at prayer in the ironically named Christchurch, New Zealand.
One of those many children of Abraham, one of those stars Abraham saw in the sky killed 49 and injured 39 other stars from that same sky. Abraham’s children. One of ours killed a bunch more of ours. Abraham is our common ancestor and we are all his children.
God’s promise wasn’t just to Abraham, but to his children, Ishmael and Isaac. God blesses them both. Then God blesses their children. And their children.
God’s promise, not of all the stars in the sky for his possession, but of kinship too numerous to condemn any one of them. Strangers are really neighbors who are also family: holy siblings.
Today is the third day. It’s also Today. It is the moment of resolution and the beginning of a journey. The first day and the third. And every one of those days is a call to healing, rather than destroying.
“Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work.”
Every day restoring.
“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.”
Every day walking and facing this violent world with a gospel of nonviolence. Facing narcissism and hate with humility and love.
This is the Lenten Journey.
This is why we discipline ourselves and dig deep within; when we faithfully explore the deeper questions of living our faith.
There’s something to it. Something about it. Something about this work of reconciling the world, sharing the freeing mercy of Christ with each other, loving the people society wishes we wouldn’t that can only really be engaged now. While we’re walking.
Only in this season, when we’re open to it. Or only in the midst of tragedy when we finally realize we need it.
Exploring what it would take to forgive the unforgivable. Or be forgiven for our own unforgivable, notorious sins.
We’re just walking to Jerusalem.
Maybe exploring what it means to give up power or having our way. Or receiving a hand to help, a gracious gift of new strength when we’re afraid to trust.
We’re just walking to Jerusalem.
Maybe we really are healing old wounds and exorcizing demons which crippled a neighbor for 18 years. Or maybe we’re letting someone in for the first time, really ever.
We’re just walking to Jerusalem.
This is what carrying a cross looks like.
It isn’t just the doing or the believing. There’s something more. There’s walking and carrying. We wrestle with the demons we don’t want to face and the angels we’ve refused to face.
It’s walking. Not just anywhere. To Jerusalem. Straight into the arms of the fox, the Adversary, and all the forces of hate and violence and oppression with the only things we have.
Our bodies.
Hope.
And a different story.
A story of looking evil in the face and never flinching because we know God is on the side of mercy and freedom. The side of the powerless and the oppressed and those who welcome the stranger into their homes.
This is our walk, our way. The way of love. The way in the wilderness and the pathways, in the rain and in the sun, a way we walk with Jesus. Even when it’s through the valley of the shadow of death. May we fear nothing.