Lent 2C, 2007
Luke 13: 31-35
BEING ‘LIVING STONES’ OF COMPASSION
Within the national life of the Uniting Church
there is a very special young people’s mission program in place,
called “Interns in Mission”.
After one such program with the Middle East Council of Churches,
a Palestinian Christian shared these comments with one of the participants:
“Thank you for coming to visit the ‘living stones’, and not just the dead stones, the holy places, the archaeological sites. Most Christian pilgrims bypass us. We are invisible. We are at best dirty, dangerous Arabs.
“They say ‘how wonderful it is to walk where Jesus walked’. I say it is more wonderful to walk with the people with whom Jesus walked. I have been walking where Jesus walked for the last 50 years. It’s a big deal! But, the purpose is not to walk where he walked, but to walk how he walked” (From Tell the tourists).
And that require us to embody compassion.
'Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets
and stones those who are sent to it!
'How often have I desired to gather your children together
as a hen gathers her brood under her wings,
and you were not willing!’
oo0oo
One of the really important things to come out of the historical Jesus studies
over the last 100 years, is the rediscovery and the recognition of
• the utter Jewishness of Jesus, and
• the way the gospel storytellers tend to present a Greekish Jesus
rather than a Jewish Jesus.
Jesus, and the disciples of Jesus during his life,
and the communities that formed soon after his death, have a clear identity.
They are groups of Palestinian Jews within Judaism.
And there is little to no evidence
that Jesus had any conscious intention
of founding a new religious institution
either superseding Judaism or existing alongside it.
So, I want to suggest,
we can never really appreciate the depth of feeling
a Jew like Jesus had for Jerusalem.
No earthly place was more precious.
And no place brought out Jesus’ sense of compassion more,
than Jerusalem.
The storyteller Luke reminds us of this.
All told, Luke mentions Jerusalem 90 times in the stories that carry his name.
While all the other New Testament writers combined,
mention it only 49 times.
So it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Luke sees the place as important.
Jerusalem is the dwelling place of God,
the place where God’s glory shall be revealed.
Jerusalem is also the place where God is betrayed
by those who hate the good and love what is evil.
Barbara Brown Taylor’s comment sums it up well:
“Nothing that happens in Jerusalem is insignificant. When Jerusalem obeys God, the world spins peacefully on its axis. When Jerusalem ignores God, the whole planet wobbles” (B B Taylor/Religion-online Web site).
So let me offer a couple of brief comments with this as context.
oo0oo
My first comment which I invite you to reflect on, is
it seems clear Luke’s Jesus lived in the context of danger.
Danger, because of what he was saying.
Danger, because he was probably being grouped together
with zealots and other political agitators, by the powers that be.
Danger, because, it is claimed, Herod Antipas
was never backward in coming forward to deal
“decisively with the leader of a religious movement whom he perceived as undermining the authority of his government...” (Funk. 1993/349).
And that danger is emphasised in Jerusalem - the centre of power.
It also seems, according to William Loader for instance,
that the warning given to Luke’s Jesus by some of the Pharisees,
indicates that engaging in acts of compassion and caring
which restores dignity to people,
can have wide ranging implications: both personal and communal.
Loader sets it up like this:
“Why should Herod worry about such a ‘nice person’? Because Jesus’ vision went beyond the individual to a transformed society. That had social and political implications. Both dimensions matter...” (W Loader Web site)
oo0oo
And my second comment is:
let’s not lose sight of the strong feminine side in this Lucan story.
'How often have I desired to gather your children together
as a hen gathers her brood under her wings,
and you were not willing!
I feel Luke is really digging deep into the Wisdom tradition of Judaism here.
The observation has been made that there is hardly a more feminine picture
of Jesus available in the gospels tradition,
than the vivid picture of a hen rounding up her chickens
and fluffing her feathers protectively over them.
She has ‘no razor-sharp teeth, no claws, no steroid muscles’.
All she has is her willingness to shield her chicks with her own body.
Such is Luke’s picture of the compassion of Jesus.
Now I am certainly no expert in all of this, but I have read
that in Jewish literature, ‘Wisdom’ (always feminine) was pictured
as God’s treasured companion...
Again, perhaps William Loader’s comment will be helpful:
“Behind the image of the hen is the image of Wisdom and behind that is an image of God, the compassionate and caring mother. Jesus embodies that” (W Loader 2004 Web site).
Maybe this is what Luke is challenging his small community to be.
And us, too, as we overhear this story
many generations later: embody compassion.
Indeed, I reckon that’s all we can do!