Fourth Presbyterian Church: A Light in the City

March 13, 2022 | 10:00 a.m.

Important Adverbs

Shannon J. Kershner
Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 27
Luke 13:31–35

We have no idea why these Pharisees came to warn Jesus. It is actually a rather strange moment, because Luke so often draws an antagonistic line between the Pharisees and Jesus. That makes it difficult to imagine some of them were sympathetic to his situation. Or at least sympathetic enough to want to warn him about Herod’s threats. And yet Luke pointedly tells us that some Pharisees came to Jesus and said, “Go on your way, get out of here, for Herod wants to kill you.”

By this point of his ministry, even if Jesus was not so sure about trusting the motivation of the Pharisees, he did know enough about Herod to trust the threat was real. After all, Herod was the ruler so threatened by John the Baptist’s public indictment of Herod’s unethical marital behavior that he threw John into prison and then beheaded him on a whim. So given what had happened to his cousin, Jesus knew firsthand that Herod often made good on his awful promises. Therefore, if Herod said he wanted Jesus dead, Jesus knew Herod would do everything in his power to follow through on his threat.

Herod’s history is why I wonder if Jesus was tempted to turn around. He could have, you know. He had not gone too far just yet. He was making his way to Jerusalem, but he had not arrived. According to Luke’s Gospel, Jesus was right in the middle of his journey to Jerusalem. This passage is at the exact midpoint in the story between the mountain of transfiguration and the triumphal entrance into Jerusalem’s gates on Palm Sunday.

So Jesus could have turned around. He could have headed back to his hometown of Nazareth or to his friends’ place in Capernaum. He could have taken that threat seriously and kept his head down, determined to be safe until the death order faded away. I wonder if he was tempted, even just a bit. He was fully human, we claim, and that means he was not impervious to fear. But just like we heard last Sunday, Jesus once again fights that temptation and stays true to his mission.

Even with that very real threat hanging in the air, Jesus does not waver in his dedication to be on his way to Jerusalem, come what may. As a matter of fact, Luke reports Jesus did the opposite of keeping his head down and playing it safe. He baited Herod with his response. “Look,” Jesus declares to the Pharisees, “I’ve got another idea. How about you go on your way and tell that fox Herod that I have work to do and I am not done yet. You make sure he knows I will leave when I am good and ready to leave.”

We must admit that it is a gutsy move on Jesus’ part. But it’s a move that probably does not surprise us. By this point of his ministry, Jesus knew what embracing his call to be Messiah, Emmanuel, meant for his earthly future. He knew that the way he was living, the things he was saying, the ways he was healing, the friends and enemies he was making, the attention he was receiving, the rules he was breaking, and the authority he was claiming were all adding up to one big, nasty conflict with the powers that be.

For that is what happens when you challenge the status quo; when you stand up to the powers and principalities; when you refuse to play the game of dominating violence. You come face-to-face with very real threat.

Jesus knew that. He lived that. And he was as prepared as he could be for what was to come. This determination to live into his call to be God-for-us was why he was on his way to Jerusalem in the first place. He had a story, a ministry, to finish, regardless of the personal consequences. “You go on your way,” Jesus responded to the Pharisees, “and tell that fox that I still have work to do and I will leave when it is done.”

With his words, Jesus demonstrates that not only does he refuse to give into the temptation of fear, he will also not be distracted by Herod’s threats. Truthfully, depending on how we imagine Jesus’ tone of voice, we can easily hear irritation over the fact that he has to have this conversation in the first place. “Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day, I will finish my work. But until then, go tell King Herod to mind his own business. I do not have time for his distracting nonsense.” By the time he is done with his retort, we wonder if those Pharisees had to pick their chins up off of the ground before turning on their heels to return and deliver Jesus’ dangerous message.

But then, even as the sound of the Pharisees’ retreating footsteps can still be heard, we might notice a strange shift of tone. Did you hear it? As I studied this text, I heard a definitive shift from a tone of defiance and irritation to one full of yearning and grieving. Luke tells us that even though Jesus has yet to enter Jerusalem, he is already lamenting what he knows will come: rejection by those whom he loves plus suffering at their hands. He is already dealing with the reality that the household of Jerusalem is not ready to embrace him as God’s Logos, nor is it ready to embrace the kingdom/reign that he proclaims: “O 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. See, your house is left to you.”

It is this vivid image painted by Jesus that signals the shift of tone. He speaks of himself as a mother hen. God-with-us as a mother hen. An animal with no real means of defense. An animal whose chief purpose in life is to lay eggs, sit on them, keep them warm and safe until they hatch, and then protect the chicks until they are big enough to be on their own. She does not have anything like the rooster’s talons or his powerful beak. Instead of a loud crow, she squawks. Furthermore, as Barbara Brown Taylor points out, when a mother hen comes face-to-face with a predator, all she can do in defense is fluff up her body and sit on her chicks. That implies that when she comes face-to-face with a fox, all she can do is put her own body between the predator and her babies, hoping that she satisfies his appetite enough that he’ll leave her children alone (Barbara Brown Taylor, Bread of Angels, pp. 124–125). This is the biblical image for himself, the image of God, Jesus chooses to use.

So perhaps you can see, then, why I hear Jesus’ tone shifting from one of defiance to one of yearning; from a tone full of irritation to a tone full of grief. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings and you were not willing.”

Even though he has not yet arrived, even though the ride into its gates is still to come, even though the hosannas have not yet turned to “crucify!”, Jesus is already in mourning, expressing his lament: His lament that those for whom he has come are unwilling or unable to see him for who he truly is—God with us, God for us. His lament that those for whom he has come lack the vision to recognize the reign of God that is in-breaking all around them through him. His lament that those for whom he has come will indeed even be hostile to that which he has lived—a ministry where the last are first, the sick are healed, the poor have good news delivered to them, and all those oppressed or imprisoned are set free.

Jesus mourns, he laments, for those whom he loves enough to puff up his own body against the foxes of the religious and political authorities who are in it just for their own power and survival. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, he grieves, heartbroken, “the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it. You just aren’t ready—not yet.”

For me, that “not yet” is a big piece of the theological message of this text, for even though many, if not most, commentators read Jesus’ message as one of condemnation and judgment on the household of Jerusalem, those who despised and rejected Jesus and who he was, I don’t. Rather, I hear a big, loud “not yet” in the middle of it. See if you hear it too. Right after he laments the way Jerusalem cannot see him or accept him for who is truly is, he makes this statement: “And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

Do you hear the “not yet” in Jesus’ voice? For me, it is this moment when his tone shifts one more time. This time, though, it shifts from one of lament and grief to one with shades of promise and expectation. And yes, I know it is hard to hear, especially if you are used to hearing this text said with a gruff-sounding voice and furrowed brow. “And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’” Heard that way, said with gruff voice and furrowed brow, it sounds more like a threat. A consequence. A “too bad you missed it, now you are doomed” kind of message.

Yet the Jesus I know and worship is a Jesus who never says “Time’s up. It’s over. You’re toast.” Rather, the Jesus I know and worship is a Jesus who says things like “you will not see me until the time comes when you say . . .” And sure, we can read his words in relation to what will indeed occur as he makes his way into Jerusalem on the back of a colt on Palm Sunday. But I believe Jesus is speaking eschatologically.

Jesus is talking about more than just that one event. I trust that Jesus uses those adverbs “until” and “when” to signal to us that these things will also happen more fully as God finishes making all things new, making all people new. I believe Jesus is indicating that even those in Jerusalem, even those in Washington, D.C., even those in city hall, even those who sit in the seats of domineering political or religious power, even those who thrive because they make others barely survive, even those who are much more like a fox than a mother hen—even those folks will one day be healed to the point when they, too, will shout “Blessed” when face-to-face with God’s Living Word we know as Jesus.

As theologian Karl Barth once said, the only thing one can ever say about someone who has not come to faith is “not yet.” Even at the moment of death, all we can ever say is “not yet.” We don’t know what happens when they come face-to-face with their loving God. We simply trust that they will. As it says in our Second Helvetic Confession, in Jesus Christ we have good hope for all people.

So yes, “not yet.” Despite everything that is happening, that is exactly what I hear in Jesus’ voice this day. Does he know Herod wants to kill him? Yes. Does he know he is stirring up more trouble than he ever could have imagined? Yes. Does he know that when he goes to Jerusalem and gets up in the face of the powerful who despise the authority and the influence he is building, who feel threatened by his preaching and his healing because it is shaking the foundations of the world they have built, that when he does that, they will crucify him for it? Absolutely. And yet even in the face of all that, out mother hen Savior still says “until” and “when.”

You know that is our truth too, right? Even as we continue to get it wrong, even as we continue to try and have it both ways—to live with one foot in the land of the fox and one foot in the shelter of the hen—even as we profess faith in Jesus with our lips but then live in ways that run counter to the gospel because following Jesus is so difficult in a land dominated by the headlines of scarcity, war, violence, corruption, gun violence, racism, and pull-yourself-up-by-your-own bootstraps, even as we continue to fall short of living out our baptisms, Jesus still looks at us and says, with a mixture of both grief and hope, “until” and “when.”

For Jesus knows, we trust, that the day is still to come when all of creation will lift its voice to say, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” And the foxes and the hens will protect the chicks together. And the not yet will be the fully now.

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Chicago, Chicago until . . . when. Please, Jesus. Soon. Amen.