Luke 13:31-35
2 Lent C
Luke
13:31-35
The journey of Lent is a journey first to
the cross, and then to the empty tomb of Easter. For Jesus, that meant a
journey to
Today’s gospel text is full of surprising
ideas—we’ll talk about just two of them today—beginning with some Pharisees
coming to warn Jesus that Herod is looking for him; “Get away from here,”
they say, “for Herod wants to kill you.”
Now, you and I are used to thinking of the
Pharisees as the bad guys—as enemies of Jesus. The gospels have more or less
painted that picture of them. In the gospels, it seems like the Pharisees are
out to get Jesus—to trick him, trap him, find him guilty of something in order
to do away with him.
But today’s text, along with a couple of
other passages, challenges the negative stereotype we have of the Pharisees.
Here, we have some Pharisees coming to Jesus to protect him. What’s that all
about?
It might help to remind ourselves of who the
Pharisees were. The Pharisees were a branch of Judaism at the time of Jesus who
were trying to live righteous lives, according to the rules that God had laid
out for the people. Their goal was to make every part of their lives holy, in
an effort to be less dependant on the corrupt sacrificial system of the
The problem with the Pharisees was that in
their effort to follow the law of God, they made the law impossible to follow. They
stressed such a strict interpretation of the law that few could do it. Jesus
was criticized by the Pharisees for failing to keep the letter of the law.
Jesus thought that the spirit of the law took priority—especially when it came
to acts of compassion. Don’t heal on the Sabbath? Compassion, to Jesus, came
before the Sabbath. Take care of human suffering, then observe the Sabbath.
So, why would some Pharisees want to help
Jesus? Well, probably because they agreed with him. Over the centuries of
Christian tradition, we have lumped all of the Pharisees into one group, and
stereotyped them as evil. Recently however, Biblical scholars have shown that
there was more than one school or group of Pharisees. Some were more
conservative, some more liberal—just like we find differences between religious
denominations today.
Jesus had some friends who were Pharisees.
This, too, is reported in the gospels, but we tend to gloss over it. On several
occasions, Jesus is a dinner guest at the home of a Pharisee. Nicodemus, who
came to Jesus by night, was a Pharisee. Joseph of Arimathea, who gave Jesus his
tomb, was a member of the Sanhedrin and was likely a Pharisee. Jesus and the
Pharisees had some similarities. They both taught in parables. They both
believed in the resurrection.
As Christians reading the gospels, we need
to remember that not all of the Pharisees were bad guys, out to do him harm.
Some of them were good guys—friends of Jesus, who cared for him and agreed with
his message. Why have I spent so much time to make this point? Maybe it is because
I am going to see “The Passion of the Christ” today—which by some reports, does
a disservice to the Jews, Pharisees included.
We live in a religiously plural society,
where it is very easy to stereotype and demonize other religious traditions, in
order to defend and uphold our own. This is not acceptable. Whenever we
stereotype any person or group of people we not only distort the truth about
them—we also destroy any trust, friendship, or love between them and us. God’s
love, in the person of Jesus, has broken down all stereotypes. God’s love is
offered to everyone. As messengers of God’s love, our calling is to break down
all stereotypes, too.
Which brings me to the second surprising
idea in today’s text. It may surprise us because it doesn’t show up all that
often in the Bible. The surprise is this—Jesus speaks of God with a female
metaphor. Jesus says that God is like—that Jesus himself is like—a mother hen
gathering her brood of chicks under her wings; “
Here, Jesus portrays God as a broken-hearted
mother who cannot save her children. Quite a different picture of the God of
the Old Testament, who saves his children “with a mighty fist and an out stretched
arm.”
And yet, if we open our ears to the voice of
scripture, we will find many passages to back up Jesus’ mother-hen image of
God. Deuteronomy reports that “God sought out
This same image is also all over the Psalms,
as in Psalm 57; “Be merciful to me, O God, for in you my soul takes refuge. In the
shadow of your wings will I take refuge, till the storms of destruction pass
by.”
God is just too big to be described by one
metaphor. So in today’s text, Jesus surprises us with one we probably don’t
think of that often—God as mother hen.
And yet, it is a very apt metaphor for God,
if you think about it, and one that is true to life. Birds do use their wing to
protect their young—even when it puts them in danger.
In the barnyard, a mother hen will gather
her chicks under her wings to protect them if a chicken hawk swoops down. The
hen is too big for the hawk to carry off, and the chicks are saved. Other birds
do this too—and will go so far as to sacrifice their own lives for the sake of
their young.
An
Indian Christian man named Sadhu Singh, tells this story about a bird
protecting her young in a fire;
"When the bird’s nest caught
fire, I said to myself, ‘Now the mother bird will fly away.’ Instead, to my
astonishment, I saw her fly down and spread her wings over her young ones. In a
few minutes, the poor bird was burnt to ashes. I had never seen anything like
it, and said to those standing near; ‘Are we not astonished by this wonderful
love? Think how much more wonderful must be the love of God who created such an
unselfish love in his creatures! That same infinite and unselfish love brought
Jesus Christ down from heaven into this world to become human that, by giving
his own life, he might save us who were dying in our sins.’”
Jesus, our
mother hen loves us, protects us, shelters us under holy wings, even dies for
us so that we might have life, forgiveness, and salvation. What a wonderful
surprise. AMEN