Lent 2

February 28, 2010 (Year C)

Preached at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church

Brookline, MA

The Reverend Jeffrey W. Mello

Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18

Psalm 27

Philippians 3:17-41

Luke 13:31-35

The Pharisees come and warn Jesus that Herod is out to kill him.  The urge him to “Get away.”

Such an odd little piece of scripture.  We are told by the Gospel writers just about every time the Pharisees are mentioned that they are enemies of Jesus; that they are religious hypocrites out to prevent the kingdom of God from coming, rather than to help bring it about, as their priestly rank would suggest.  But here, for some reason, they are presented by the author of Luke’s gospel as Jesus’ protectors and would-be heroes.

While I bet that some of the Pharisees were decent folks, just limited in their understanding of how God moves in the world, I have a hard time making such a sudden shift.  Either they are the agents of Jesus’ enemies, or they aren’t.

When we are presented with dichotomies in scripture; you are either this or that, it is tempting to see ourselves as either all one or all the other.  Most of the time, however, there is a little bit of each in us.  We are made up of multiple characters in scripture, not usually just one.  We are a bit Peter and a bit Thomas, we have some of Martha and some of Mary in us.  So maybe what Luke is trying to say here with the Pharisees is that nothing is simple; nothing is clear.  Perhaps Luke is saying that the Pharisees are complicated characters, urging us not to write them off as all bad.

And maybe I would be tempted to agree, if today’s reading didn’t follow last week’s.  Last week we heard about Jesus’ time in the wilderness and his temptation by the devil.  This week’s reading is from the same Gospel, but it is nine chapters later.  Last week marked the beginning of Jesus’ ministry and today’s marks his journey toward the end of his earthly ministry – his imminent death in Jerusalem.  So while they do not occur one after the other in Luke’s Gospel, reading them one after the other I began to see them as bookends, as important markers in Jesus’ ministry and the similarity between the two stories began to emerge.

In the desert, right after his baptism, Jesus is tempted by the devil.  As I said last week, these temptations are opportunities for Jesus to turn away from who he is, who God created him to be, to take an easier path through life.  Jesus says no to the easier ways, and his ministry begins.

In today’s Gospel reading, the same thing happens.  Jesus is not alone in the wilderness, he is in Galilee surrounded by his followers.  He is not tempted by the devil, but by the religious authorities of his day.  But the temptation is the same.  Once again, Jesus is given the opportunity to bail out.  Once again, Jesus is handed a perfect excuse to derail his ministry and pack it all in.  And if he did, who would blame him?  “Herod wants to kill you” the Pharisees exclaim for all to hear.  Who would have faulted Jesus for taking some time off; waiting for things to cool down; continuing his ministry somewhere else, not in Jerusalem – a town known for killing prophets and stoning those whom God sends to them.

But again, Jesus says, ‘no’.  Jesus looks at the road ahead, fairly sure of how things will play out, and walks defiantly right into the middle of it.

The Pharisees warning to Jesus was not an attempted rescue.  It was the fourth temptation.  The Pharisees come to Jesus and tempt him to give into fear, and to take his future out of God’s hands and try place it in his own.

Now we do not get tempted very often to turn a rocks into bread, or to throw ourselves off the steeple to prove that God will rescue us.  No one I know has ever had the devil offer them the kingdoms of this world in exchange for their soul.  That is the stuff of Hollywood.

But being tempted to let fear win;  being tempted to avoid the unknown and often painful experience of transformation?  We see that one every day.  I know that one quite well.

It’s what keeps many folks from walking in those doors.

It’s what keeps people from claiming an identity as a beloved child of God.

It is the difference between coming to church, and being the church.

We are not a culture of joiners anymore.  There is a lot of public conversation about the shift that has happened in this country from a culture of Boys and Girl Scouts, bowling leagues, Women’s auxiliaries and communites of faith as centers of our social lives to a culture of fierce individualism and strong reluctance to joining just about anything.

There is a fear that, if we give ourselves over to something as fully as we are able, we will no longer be able to be fully ourselves.

But scripture and experience tells us that it is only when we give ourselves over as fully as we are able to something bigger than us that we are most fully ourselves.  It is then that we are giving ourselves over to most fully who God calls us to be.  It is only when we give ourselves over to the possibility of transformation, that transformation has a chance of happening.

Jesus knew he had a choice in that moment.  I can’t imagine knowing that with each step toward Jerusalem he was that much closer to the end of his life, and choosing to go anyway.  Choosing to go anyway because if he didn’t fear would win.  Death would win.  It was only in walking to his death that life had any chance at all.

How many of us have avoided making difficult, but necessary decisions because we simply can’t imagine life on the other side.  How many people stay in abusive relationships?  How many avoid going to the doctor because they afraid of what they might hear?  How many stay in the closet?  How many remain in the throws of addiction not because they want to be, but because the fear of transformation is stronger than the misery of the status quo.  Ask someone recovering from an addiction what it felt like the day they knew that life, as they knew it, was going to end, so that life, as they wanted it to be, might begin.

As I watched the butterflies go into the cocoons that now hang over our heads, I wondered what a butterfly thinks as it spins itself into a cocoon.  What surety does the caterpillar have of life as a butterfly.  Yet it is not afraid.  It is the caterpillars very nature to embrace death so that transformation and new life might follow.

I think you are brave for being here.  I think it takes great courage to walk in those doors each week and give yourself over to something bigger.  I think it takes courage to offer your life to a community that has, as its central purpose, transformation.

In this place, we are after transformation.  We are seeking new life.  We are, each of us in our own way, walking toward Jerusalem.

And the Pharisees of our own day wait at each step of the journey.  They wait to whisper words of doubt and fear.  They come to tell us that, if we continue to walk toward the heart of God, transformation awaits us, and we may never be the same.

The Pharisees of today preach that walking toward Jerusalem means certain death, but they say nothing of resurrection.  They say we must remain afraid, aloof, detached.  The Pharisees in our lives say that is not worth it, that it is safer to remain outside of our own lives looking in.

But don’t you believe them.

AMEN.

© 2010 The Reverend Jeffrey W. Mello