First Lutheran Church, Detroit Lakes, MN
Lent 2 | 03.13.2022 | Luke 13:31-35
In today’s Gospel we have a potential showdown between the Son of Man and the Roman ruler over Galilee, Herod.
But before I get to that, I want to catch us up to where we are in Luke, since you remember from last week, we pressed rewind on the story of Jesus.
So, relocating ourselves in the story of Jesus: after his baptism by John the Baptist, he went into the wilderness and had his temptation experience; after that, he went and called his first disciples, and together they began his ministry while en route to the region of Galilee.
While in Galilee Jesus did all kinds of ministry: preaching, teaching, healing, and feeding. Then, while in Galilee, a turning point event took place. The turning point event being the Transfiguration of Jesus on a mountaintop, where he was confirmed as the Beloved Son of God. Then he descended that mountain, turned his compass towards Jerusalem, and continued his ministry along the way.
Our Gospel text today is located on that route to Jerusalem. It says in the Gospel of Luke that Jesus went “through one town and village after another” (13:22) …and along that way he was approached by “some Pharisees” (13:31), some religious leaders.
And these Pharisees told Jesus something quite startling. They told him that Herod of Galilee, a Roman official, wanted to kill him.
This is a staggering announcement, because this Herod is a very real threat; this is the same Herod that imprisoned and beheaded John the Baptist, and was quoted just a few chapters ago saying, specifically, “‘John I beheaded; but who is this [Jesus] about whom I hear such things?’,” and Herod wanted Jesus brought to him (Luke 9:9). Here, these Pharisees were warning Jesus.
Now, we might wonder why these Pharisees would seek to give Jesus this ‘heads up.’ Up to this point in the Gospel the Pharisees have been really combative with Jesus, calling him a blasphemer, ripping him for hanging out with the wrong crowds (5:21, 30; 6:2) and they’ve explicitly revealed that they couldn’t wait to “catch him in something he might say” or do (11:54), to get him into trouble.
Not only that, Jesus hadn’t held back on the Pharisees either; he frequently (and very publicly!) called them out, often denouncing them as ‘hypocrites’ (11:37-44, 12:1).
So, it’s odd that the Pharisees would be concerned for Jesus’ safety. They were not friends. Again, we might wonder about their intentions here. Perhaps they were sincere in their concern for their Jewish brother? Or, one biblical scholar ponders, maybe they were scheming to scare Jesus, and get him to run away[1]; or maybe they wanted to bait Jesus into actually going head-to-head with the Roman ruler in hopes that the Empire would finally just silence him.
Nevertheless, one scholar comments, “We don’t know” what motivates the Pharisees here, “and it doesn’t…matter.”[2] What matters here is how Jesus responds to the threat.
Again, here’s the scene: “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you” (13:31), said the Pharisees, and Jesus responded: “Tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day, I will finish my work…I must be on my way”; Jesus continued, “How often I have desired to gather Jerusalem together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings…” (13:32-34).
The power of Jesus’ response is in the details.
In calling Herod a fox, Jesus slams the ruler as a wild animal, and not just a wild animal, a predator. And notice the contrast. What animal does Jesus refer to himself as? A mother hen. One animal is an image of violence, the other, an animal of motherly love.
This imagery of the hen is really important, and it’s not a random choice by Jesus. “The image of a bird mothering her young” is used all over the Old Testament to describe God. I intentionally picked the other readings today so that you could see that (Exodus, Deuteronomy, the Psalms, Isaiah, etc.), and here Jesus responds by applying that great divine imagery to himself, revealing that despite imperial bullying, he will continue the mission from of old, of “motherly love and protection.”[3] I must be on my way (v. 13:33).
Like with the Temptation last week, his committed determination is on full display here…and that is what matters—like a mother, Jesus is determined to love and save his people. That is what matters in this story – this is another example that God’s love will not be derailed, not even by death threats from the Empire.
This sort of bold persistence of Jesus reminds me of a story about the Archbishop Oscar Romero when his life was being threatened due to his challenges to authority on behalf of the poor in El Salvador:
Just before he died, in an interview with a Mexican newspaper…Romero reportedly said: ‘I have frequently been threatened with death. I ought to say that, as a Christian, I do not believe in death without resurrection. If they kill me I will rise again in the people of El Salvador…my blood…the seed of liberty…[So, to the death threats] I wish that they could realise that they’re wasting their time.
[4]
In a sense, this is what Jesus was saying here in the face of his death threats: Tell Herod he’s wasting his time. I have work to do...
Jesus will not be sidetracked, and such Divine commitment to love is the theme of the entire Bible: God persists in order to love. Over and over again despite rejection, despite fickle faith, despite politics, despite the brokenness of this world, again and again God is the mother hen who “draws her young under her wing.”[5]
And NOTHING deters God from doing that, because you are just too important. He is on his way. Amen.
[1] Charles B. Cousar, Beverly R. Gaventa, J. Clinton McCann, Jr., James D. Newsome, Texts for Preaching: A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV—Year C (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994), 206.
[2] David Lose, “Lent 2 C: Courage and Vulnerability,” In the Meantime, http://www.davidlose.net/2016/02/lent-2-c-courage-and-vulnerability/.
[3] R. Alan Culpepper, The Gospel of Luke, The New Interpreter’s Bible, ed. Leander Keck (Nashville, Abingdon Press, 1995), v.9, 282.
[4] Quoted [sic]in—Julian Filochowski, “The Violence of Love Working for Justice to Achieve Peace The Life and Legacy of the Martyred Archbishop Oscar Romero,” Lecture: Houston – Final Text, http://www.romerotrust.org.uk/documents/anniversary%20homilies/working%20for%20justice%20to%20achieve%20peace.pdf.
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