to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
It was a radical message - radical because it included and invited everyone into God’s kingdom
- a kingdom of dramatic reversals where everything was upside down: where not everyone who thought
they deserved to enter - would enter; where the last would be first and the first would be last; and yet a
kingdom where people would come from all over - all kinds of people from East and West and from
North and South.
And, right from the beginning, it was a message that was more than some people could accept.
In fact, the good people of Nazareth were so offended by this message that they tried to kill Jesus.
But he passed through their midst and went on. He had talked the talk - now he walked the
walk. He acted out and demonstrated the good news of the kingdom of God. He met all the bad news
of the world with the good news of God’s kingdom. He healed sick people and fed hungry people and
cast out demons. He forgave sins and touched lepers who no one else would touch. He reached out to
all kinds of people who didn’t belong - sinners and tax collectors and prostitutes and Gentiles. He called
people to repentance - a new way of discipleship in the kingdom. I think you could say that Jesus had
really good eyes - eyes that good look at the world the way God does - eyes that could, as the Gospel
song says it, look beyond people’s faults and saw their need - again, the hug.
In doing what he did, revealing God’s love as he did, he offended a lot of the good “church”
people of his day, most especially the Pharisees - some of whom even conspired with their worst
enemies to kill him. And after a while it became clear to Jesus where all of this would lead: to Jerusalem
and suffering and a cross and death and finally resurrection.
But he kept on, showing the world that God was really a lot like a mother who wants all her
children home at the table and will not really be happy until they are all there.
When we meet Jesus in today’s reading from Luke, we see him with some Pharisees who are
there to warn him that Herod wants to kill him. We don’t know why they came to Jesus - whether it
was to offer protection or whether they just wanted to avoid trouble. Whatever their reason for coming
to Jesus, what is clear is that both Herod and Jerusalem are very threatened by Jesus.
Why was King Herod so threatened? Well, Herod represents secular power - corporate and
political institutions. Jesus talked about God’s kingdom, not Herod’s kingdom. But I think that Herod
was smart enough to realize that he would have a whole lot of reasons to worry if people really got fired
up with a vision of the kingdom.
Think about it. Think about our church’s body language in the world. Think about something
like collecting a ton of food to feed hungry people. How could anyone be threatened by that?
Now think some more. Because feeding hungry people can be subversive to the powers that
be. You see, when you do that for a while, first you start to wonder: why are so many people hungry in
a world in which there is enough for everyone? Why do 30,000 people - 20,000 of them children in
Africa - die every day from hunger? And then you go on to other questions. How is it that people can
work two jobs and still be poor? No wonder Herod wants to kill Jesus.
And yet, the real threat to Jesus isn’t Herod. Herod will not kill Jesus. Jerusalem will.
So why was Jerusalem so threatened by Jesus - by God’s love? It’s hard to say. Probably a lot
of reasons, just like there are a lot of reasons why good church people are still threatened by Jesus and
his radical message today and why like the people of Jerusalem, they miss out on the God’s love and
God’s kingdom because they don’t like the company. But maybe that’s a topic for another day.
 |
 |
 |