For Sunday
Lent 2C
Collect
O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
Reading
Reflection
Some Pharisees warn Jesus about the treacherous king — he’s planning to have him killed — and they tell him to get out of town. Herod’s getting close. And Jesus seems to stand firm. He wants them to take a message back to Herod: Jesus has work to do. And Jerusalem is the city that kills its prophets.
I’m tempted to read this with some sympathy to these Pharisees, even as they are compelled to align with Herod who aligns with Rome. They seem to want to do the right thing here, at least warning Jesus of what is coming. What else are they supposed to do? They can’t say no to the king, can they? There is a tension for many of us as the reader because we can sympathize with the situation and also reject it. That they feel trapped and we also can say, but you should do this differently.
This tension would be far less strong if we had read the passage before this: when Jesus responds to a question: “Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able.” For those that don’t, they will try to get in, but can’t. God will pretend not to know them, he argues. So we don’t get to put off doing the right thing because we are compromised, or A right thing when we are in the midst of profound evil. “Indeed, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”
In reading these passages together, I’m reminded of people who, like these Pharisees, hold positions of power and influence in our world, but don’t use these positions to prevent the king’s cruelty or protect the people — they merely warn of the evil to come. Jesus resists these Pharisees’ hope that he will paint this as virtuous — instead implying that they’ll be among those locked out. They are among the first who will be last. Because warning the prey isn’t “good” enough.