Luke 13:31-33 is a pronouncement story against Herod. The story is unique to Luke. Luke recounts the events of the ministry of Jesus as a long journey to Jerusalem taken by Jesus and his companions. The journey begins in 9:51 and continues through 19:27. Luke breaks up the account of the journey into three sections, each beginning with a mention of Jerusalem as the fateful destination of Jesus in 9:51, 13:22 (the context for this incident), and 17:11. Is Jesus still in Galilee?
31 At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod Antipas, Tetrach of Galilee, whose official residence and regional capital city, Sepphoris, was four miles north of Nazareth, wants to kill you.” We might infer from this that Jesus is still in Galilee. Luke 9:7-9 has Herod confused over hearing about Jesus, thinking that he had already rid himself of troublesome prophets when he executed John the Baptist. Do the Pharisees warn Jesus out of respect for him? Do they warn him because they want him out of their territory? We do not know. 32 He said to them, “Go and tell that fox for me, assuming these Pharisees are actually in the employ of Herod, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. 33 Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way. Jesus reassures Antipas that he is leaving, the reference to the three days foreshadowing the days between death and resurrection. He offers them a reason: because it is impossible, divine necessity in that Jesus “must” fulfill his destiny, for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.’ The taunt by Jesus might both reassure and annoy. This statement would be disrespectful in the sense that Antipas is incapable of killing him. Jesus has no fear of Antipas. He also anticipates what will happen. He is a prophet with a message from God for that city, and he will die there, like so many prophets before him. Thus, a prophet is not welcome in his home country (Luke 4:24, Mark 6:4, Matthew 13:57, John 4:44), but Jesus also makes it clear that he will share the fate of other prophets before him. For the image of Jerusalem as the city that kills the prophets and stones those God sends to it, we can go to Matthew 23:37-39 as well. In Matthew 22:6 and Luke 7:52, Israel generally tends to kill the prophets. Jeremiah 26:20-23 has the story of Uriah, who managed to escape to Egypt, but whom King Jehoiakim brought back to the city to execute because he uttered a prophecy of which the king did not approve. Jesus understood his public utterances put his life in peril. Herod has already killed John the Baptism. Luke 11:50-51 (also Matthew 23:29-37) relate the execution of Zechariah in the courts of the temple, recording in II Chronicles 24:20-22. The king who executed Zechariah was Joash. Interestingly, the father of the prophet was the High Priest, Jehoiada, who saved the life of the king from the murderous Queen Athaliah. One can read of this intrigue in II Kings 11:1-21 and II Chronicles 22:10-23:21. Yet, Joash had Zechariah killed despite this. Among the parables of Jesus is that of the wicked tenants. Jesus likens the prophets to the servants of a vineyard owner whom the tenants kill. When the owner sends his son, they kill him as well. See Luke 20:9-19, Mark 12:1-12, and Matthew 21:33-41 for this story.
Luke 13:34-35 contains a saying concerning lament over Jerusalem. The source is Q. 34 Jerusalem, Jerusalem; the saying anticipates the arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem and final lament in Luke 19:41-44, the city that kills the prophets and stones those whom God sent to it! Barth reflects on the history of the covenant Israel had with God, where the presence of the Lord elects them in divine action and powerful work of faithfulness and goodness. Yet, Israel followed its ancestors in the wilderness in complaint and disobedience. The elect people of God will not be neutral in the face of what God said and did in Jesus. Israel had the possibility of Yes, but it also had the alternative of a No of the most radical rejection, repudiation, and resistance. He stresses they were not wicked. In many ways, they were much better than their Roman and Greek contemporaries were. Yet, everything was at stake. It was a matter of life and death. Israel understood the question that Jesus put to it and the situation that allowed it to arise. It could not accept it. It was inevitable that Jesus would meet repudiation and resistance.[1] How often, implying that Jesus made many visits to Jerusalem, have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings. An acceptable image of his time, taken from Isaiah 31:5, God as a bird hovering protectively over Jerusalem. The image of the sheltering wings of God under which the people find refuge is one we find in Deuteronomy 32:11, Ruth 2:12, Psalm 17:8, 57:1, 61:4, and 91:4. Here is the only time Jesus uses a female image for himself. The harsh reality, however, is clear: and you were not willing! This saying of Q views the death of Jesus as a prophetic destiny known in advance from the Old Testament.[2] 35 See God has left your house to you. The house in question is the temple. Jeremiah 22:5 in the LXX has the additional word “desolate,” a word we also find in most manuscripts of the parallel in Matthew 23:38. I Kings 9:7, Jeremiah 12:7 and Tobit 14:4 focus on the coming destruction of the temple of Solomon. This brief statement reflects a prophecy concerning the besieging and destruction of Jerusalem as a judgment of God the people of God. Early Christianity saw a fulfillment of this prophecy in the siege and overthrow of the city by Titus in 70 AD.[3] Further, I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, in the words of Psalm 118:26, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’ ” We will hear from this psalm again in Luke 19:38 and John 12:13. On Palm Sunday, Jerusalem greeted Jesus as the heir to the throne of David, riding into Jerusalem on a royal donkey, as did Solomon when he became king in I Kings 1:33-35. Zechariah 9:9 prophesied the coming Messiah in this way. Jerusalem spread its garments before Jesus as Samaria did before Jehu in II Kings 9:13 and five days later the city executed him. In essence, the saying presents Jesus as a heaven-sent messenger and herald of the wisdom of God commenting on the sad condition of Jerusalem. As such, this saying links the idea of preexistence, which we find in Jewish wisdom speculation in Proverbs 8:22-23 and Sirach 24:3ff, to the figure of Jesus in the tradition concerning him.[4]
This passage makes clear a basic truth. It has never been easy to be a faithful witness to the truth of God. Human beings do not always respond well to the truth. We often set ourselves in opposition to the truth. When someone speaks the truth to us, our instinct is to defend our ground. When one commits oneself to the truth, one places oneself at danger and risk. After all, no one was more faithful than Jesus was, and his way was the way of the cross. Yet, human rebellion does not mean that God gives up. In fact, God keeps extending the possibility of receiving the truth into one’s heart and life. God makes this offer through faithful witnesses, who represent the extended arms and warm embrace of God. Such faithful witnesses become the tangible offer of God to rebellious humanity. God offers the sheltering care that a mother bird offers her children.
Jesus refers to leaving their house to them. Their house is the temple. Desolation will come in 70 AD. Thus, I am thinking about homes. Suzanne and I have thought a bit more about them as we age. United Methodist clergy do not get to buy a home during their careers, so it becomes an issue as one ages. However, this is a dangerous road for me to travel. I am not a builder. Consequently, what I say here may not be right. I hope the articles to which I refer are right. In any case, my main desire is that the spiritual lessons I draw will make sense.
I recall being on a mission trip to South Carolina several years ago. We were working on a home on John’s Island. Several persons said it would have been easier to build a new home. I asked Bruce, our project leader, about that observation. His response was simple. “The foundation was good.” Therefore, we ripped out almost everything for the week, and prepared the ground for the next work team to start building the home.
A house is so important to us. The building is what you see. You do not see the foundation. Things can go wrong with the building, so wrong that you need a complete re-do, but if the foundation is present, you have something with which to work. Yet, the most important aspect of the house is that it becomes a home for a person or family. It becomes the hub of activity and rest.
I thought of this as I read an article about the collapse of a house in Maine. I can just hear the soil engineer say, "There's a solid ledge under this dry ground." He was planning to put a fine home on the cliff's edge over the salt water along the coast of Maine. I have found many images of houses in Maine along the coast. Most of them do fine. In this case, I can imagine the contractor came with his backhoe in tow and dug until he hit solid ledge. The cement truck followed, and then came carpenters who built, and then the builder sold the house. The house became a home for a family. Sadly, twenty years later, after the sea had done its secret work, a rain from an offshore hurricane came to wash away the remaining silt and sand from beneath the so-called solid ledge. Half of the home tumbled down into a huge and sudden hole where once there was solid ledge. One can imagine the homeowner wringing his hands at the sight of his house sinking to the bottom of the bay. He had lost his home.
Another image of the home has been the home foreclosure crisis. Many communities have desolate houses. Mortgage owners sometimes force out those who live in the home. Sometimes, the owner thinks they must abandon the home, giving up on trying making the payments. Moreover, we know how things often go from there: With no one tending them, the buildings start to crumble, eaves begin to sag, windows get smashed, mold becomes a problem, yards become overgrown and vandals, squatters or drug dealers add to the deterioration. The houses begin to die and so do the neighborhoods in which they sit.
For most of us, I suspect, desolate homes create some sadness. They are a sign that something is wrong, very wrong. The foundation might be solid, but one did not take care of what one built upon it. The foundation may have looked good, but time and life reveal the foundation was weak. Of course, the building relies upon a family caring for it. If something has gone wrong in the economic wellbeing of the family, they may have to abandon the house.
Is it natural for us to have some sadness when someone loses a home? A home is a large investment financially. When something goes wrong there, the family will go through much upheaval and dramatic changes. The family might go to a new house, but it will take some time to make it a home.
We might consider the difficulties of another building. Take the Italian engineers trying to save the Leaning Tower of Pisa, for example. The work on the tower began August 9, 1173. The builders, contractors, engineers, and architects did not mean to make it lean. They designed the tower to be perpendicular. However, tilting became a problem. So for centuries, the 177-foot-tall Tower of Pisa has looked like it is about to fall over. The combined weight of all the marble stones pressed onto and into the soft, silted soils, squeezing water from clay underneath, bulging into the dense sand beneath. This tower teetered on the extreme edge of disaster for 800 years. All 32 million pounds of marble constantly verged on collapse. Its 5.3 degree tilt is startling, even shocking - a full 15 feet out of plumb. Finally, computer models proved that the tower was going to fall - sooner, rather than later - and a committee of engineers and scientists set about to right the tilting tourist trap. Thanks to some hi-tech engineering the Leaning Tower is now moving, centimeter by centimeter, in the right direction. Engineers are removing bits of clay from beneath the tower through long, thin pipes, at about a shovelful or two a day. By removing these insignificant amounts from the right places, the tower is tilting back toward stability. It is not a perfect or a permanent fix, but sometimes that is the best that anyone can do with ancient buildings. Engineers believe that they will be able to bring it back by 20 inches, which is enough to save the structure for several centuries. Of course, it will still lean a little - preserving the tourist trade for tilting tower towns. This is by design. The Pisa makers do not ever intend to bring the tower into an upright position!
We have a lesson here for church and Christians. God does not expect that any of us will reach moral perfection. God does expect us to listen to the witness God has given us in the Bible. God expects us to be faithful in aligning our lives with that witness. Of course, we are fallen creatures. We are “crooked timber” as Immanuel Kant put it. We are capable of so many remarkable things, and at the same time so deeply flawed. Each of these stories reminds us, I hope, that spiritual health is not always easy to detect. Foundations are important, even if most people do not see them. It reminds us that the center is not in us, but outside us. Even if the foundation is largely in order, we can mess up in the decisions we make as to how we live our lives. The beautiful thing is that God is the master builder, if only we would listen.
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