Tag: teachings of Jesus

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Is He Worth It?

“Any one of you who does not renounce all he has cannot be my disciple.” Luke 14:33

But wait—don’t we say the gift of grace is free? Why does he say here that it costs all we have? (And the parable of the Pearl of Great Price says the same thing allegorically.) But in the passage before that, he tells a story about a great feast that the invited guests refuse to attend, so the host throws open the doors and invites all the riffraff from the streets.

So it’s free, or it costs. Which one?

Both—it’s free. And it costs.

The Interstate highway system is (mostly) free, but there’s a cost to driving on it: auto maintenance, gas, taxes. Food banks are free but there’s a cost to stocking and maintaining them. Oxygen is free, but there’s a cost to breathing it, as every breath puts your body to work and the body eventually wears out.

Not perfect analogies, but there’s a cost to everything, and it’s not the same as the price. Sometimes the two can be wildly disparate, as when a one-dollar lottery ticket nets $50,000. Or when a $50 investment nets nothing. We can’t pay a price for grace because it is literally price-less. But the cost is steep: all you have.

I can’t pay. But I can “renounce.”

Not just my possessions (some of which I work hard for), but my assumptions, my pretentions, my affections, my time. And it’s not a once-and-done deal, either: cost is something that must be continually reassessed. From my side, not his. He has already priced in my weakness and wavering, but I can be poleaxed between desires. I have to keep asking, Is he worth this sacrifice? These funds? This time? This life?

In Daniel Nayeri’s memoir, Everything Sad Is Untrue, the author tells how his mother, a Sufi Muslim in the top ranks of Iranian society, converted to Christianity and, as a result, had to flee for her life with her two children in tow. When asked why she gave up so much for a religious belief, her reply was simple: “Because it’s true.” Almighty God had sent his own son to die so that she might live forever with him–why wouldn’t she sacrifice all she had for that?

Is he worth it? He is.

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David’s Son

But he said to them, “How can they say that the Christ is David’s son?”  Luke 20:41

These few days are laced with music.  Roving bands of singers and musicians are not uncommon during Passover week, but the mood this year is uncommonly light.  The city fizzes with anticipation, knowing something momentous is in the works.  He may wait until after the Passover feast to declare himself—or why not during?  Passover means deliverance, and behold, it is at hand; who could keep from singing?

The Lord declared to my Lord,

‘Sit at my right hand

Until I make your enemies your footstool.’*

A cobbled-up children’s choir, blown in like blossoms and led by someone’s older sister, sing in his presence:

Rule over your enemies, call up your people on the day of battle;

In holy splendor, from the womb of dawn,

Rise up in the dew of your youth—

For the Blessed One has sworn, and will never disavow,

‘You are a priest forever, in the line of Melchizedek,

The LORD stands at your right hand

Ready to crush kings, judge nations, pile up the dead.

Refresh yourself from sparkling springs

And lift up your head!*

Their order breaks down as the song ends.  Giggling and blushing, they stammer out, “Blessings on you, Son of David!” before running away in all directions.

Charming, think the followers.  Disturbing, think the scribes, who have sung the identical psalm any crownnumber of times with no more than a theoretical understanding.  But now it is looking at them—or is it?

“Tell me,” The Nazarene asks his audience: “why do they say Messiah is the son of David?”

His followers merely gaze at him dumbly, like sheep.

“Well,” one of the scribes begin (with some hesitation, suspecting a trap), “David was promised a successor who would reign forever, and . . .”

“How can David himself call him ‘my Lord,’ as you just heard in the Psalm, if Messiah is his son?”

The people keep on grinning, delighted with this rhetorical flourish, but the scribes know it isn’t a flourish.  He claims to be greater than David, their greatest king.  This can lead to no good.  Irksome as the Pharisees are, insufferable as the Sadducees, they all must align in a common cause.

The teacher is clever, they’ll give him that, and more than that—the teacher is profound and wise and infuriating and attractive and repulsive and . . . something entirely outside their experience.

Ultimately though, he’s a great trouble.  He is on a collision course with reality.  Real kings crush pretend kings every time and the collateral damage is horrendous: often counted, as every son of Israel has reason to know, in the multiples of crosses strung along the roads.  Better one casualty than dozens, or hundreds.  For the sake of many, one must die.

*Psalm 110, commonly understood as a Messianic prediction

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For the original post in this series, go here.

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Here Come the Grooms

There came some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, and they asked him a question, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, having a wife but no children, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother.  Now, there were seven brothers . . .”  Luke 20:27-29a

“Let us try,” say the Sadducees.  “We have a question that’ll make steam come out of his ears.”

They are the political class, the priestly class, the church-and-state party, the ones who understand how the world really works.  They’ve seen messiahs come and go; these days, the so-called anointed ones are mostly zealots or country boys who saw a vision once.  Under clever questioning they fall apart, and then head for the caves if they know what’s good for them.  For the gallows if they don’t.

“Teacher.”  The teacher looks up; there stand two priests and a Levite, quietly but elegantly dressed in their ecclesiastical authority. “We have a question, if you can spare a moment.  As you recall, Moses wrote for us that if a man dies childless, his nearest brother should take the widow and beget upon her heirs to the dead man’s estate.

“A very curious case came before us some years back: the oldest of seven brothers took a wife, but died without producing an heir.  So the second took her, but also died childless.  Then the third, then the fourth, and so on until all seven had married this woman in turn but left no children.

“So we were wondering: in the resurrection–” the Sadducee’s voice embraced that word with subtle but obvious sarcasm–“whose wife will she be, after legally marrying all of them?”

A little group of scribes nearby glare at the challenger: they recognize a trick question even though they can’t answer it, and it touches on a sore point.  Scribes and Pharisees believe in the resurrection; Sadducees do not.  The teachers answer will put him on one side or the other: which?

“The people of this age,” he begins, “may be duty-bound to marry.  But there is another age, and those resurrected to it” (take that! think the scribes) “will find they have no reason for marriage, for they will never die again and will not produce offspring.  They are like angels in the new age—children of God by the resurrection.”

The scribes suck in their collective breath at this.  They picture the resurrected life as something like this life, only longer.  Maybe forever.  But he speaks as though it’s a different quality, a different kind of life altogether.  As children of God?

“Moses himself knew that the dead are raised—what did he hear when he encountered the burning bush? I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  The patriarchs were still alive to God, as they are now.  He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”

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After a stunned silence, one of the scribes speaks up.  “That was very well put, Teacher.”  And it went in a direction we didn’t expect.

As for the Sadducees, they have no follow-up questions.  No more questions at all.  They bow stiffly, gather up their robes and take their leave.  And when out of earshot, they ask each other how he could know such things.  “He speaks with authority,” one says, unconsciously echoing a long-ago observation from the Galilean hills.  “Maybe . . . he speaks the truth?”

But no.  That can’t be.  Their world is not for shaking.

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For the original post in this series, go here.

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The New Song of the Vineyard

And he began to tell the people this parable: “A man planted a vineyard and let it out to tenants and went into another country for a long while . . . Luke 10:9

vineyard

He’s raised his voice just loud enough for them to hear—the delegation of elders, chief priests, scribes.  Almost as if they can’t help themselves, they turn to listen.

The story is simple: a man plants a vineyard.  He rents it out and leaves the province to attend to matters elsewhere.  It’s an arrangement not unknown among priests and the Levites who  own land outside of Jerusalem entrust their fields to local farmers while they tend to their duties in the city.

“When the time came, he sent a servant to the vineyard to collect his share of the produce.  But the tenants beat the servant and sent him away empty-handed. He sent another servant, and another after that.  But in every case, the tenants treated the owner’s servants shamefully, and sent them away with nothing.”

What a way for tenants to behave!  How would they expect to get away with that?  Some of the teacher’s stories make sense, but this one is completely outside human reasoning.

“Then the owner of the vineyard said, ‘What shall I do?  I will send my only son; perhaps they will respect him.’  But when the tenants saw him, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir: Let us kill him, to the inheritance may be ours.’  And they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.  What should the owner of the vineyard do then?”

Listening hard, the elders, priests, scribes and Pharisees begin to suspect a trap.  There he goes again, speaking of a father and a son (my Father; my house); is he implying that they are the spiteful tenants?

And speaking of vineyards, it’s almost impossible for the learned among them to block out a passage of scripture.  It steals upon them unbidden, a song of supreme disappointment:

I will sing about the one I love, a song of my beloved’s vineyard;

My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.

He broke up the soil, cleared it of stones, and planted it with the finest vines . . .  (Isaiah 5:1-3)

Yahweh expected good grapes from them and got worthless grapes.  But that was in the old days, when Israel practiced the most blatant idolatry and refused to learn the lessons their God continually tried to teach them.  It led to exile—they lost everything and had to sojourn in a foreign land before Yahweh allowed them to come home again.  Lesson learned: now they were a people obedient to the law—rigorously, relentlessly.  No idols in the temple, no wild orgies to Astarte, no high places sanctified to Baal.  They are better than their ancestors.  Do you hear that, Jesus of Nazareth?  Better.

No better, he seems to be saying.  For, what should the owner do?  “He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others.”

“Surely not!” a voice among the scribes cries out.  At least some of them have no doubts at all: this parable is against them.

And so is the teacher.  He is looking directly at them, now; no pretense of speaking only to his closest followers.  “You don’t think so?  Do you recall the psalm which testifies,

The stone the builders rejected

Has become the cornerstone?*

Of course they do.  And they know how it continues: This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.

The teacher continues, “Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.”

This is intolerable.  No longer is it “my” (as in my house, my Father)—now it’s me.  For what else does he mean by this “cornerstone,” except himself?  Like a stone he stands among them now, like the massive building blocks that still lie around the temple complex, rejected by the builders for some imperfection, but too much trouble to move.  Careless pedestrians have tripped and broken bones over them, and unfortunate souls have been crushed to pulp when they came between a slipping stone and a faulty pulley.

That’s the obvious object lesson.  But who would do such a foolish thing as to reject the Lord’s clearly anointed Messiah?

The chief priests, scribes, and Pharisees, now looking on with stony faces.

The fans, the crowds, who have set their hearts on their own expectations,

Even the disciples, the inner circle, who don’t suspect how shallow their loyalty really is.

“You’ve walked over it, around it, past it, but now it lies in the middle of your path.  It won’t move; if you fall on it you’ll be broken, but if it falls on you you’ll be crushed.”

The only thing to do, it seems, is climb up on it and take a stand.

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For the original post in this series, go here.

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Young, Rich, and Rootless

For a rich man, he puts on no airs.  In fact there is a puppy-ish eagerness about him, in the anticipatory way he rides up (on a white horse, no less), tosses his reins to a servant and strides forward with a smile that looks almost shy.  Used to having his way, but well brought up, plainly dressed but shot through with quality, he nods at the disciples with only a trace of condescension and raises a hand in blessing to the Master.

“Good teacher,” he says.  “Thank you for meeting with me.  I have a question to ask you.”

“Am I good?” the Master asks in return.  “Is not God alone good?”

“Well . . .”

“What is your question?”

“Only this.”  The winning smile reappears.  “I’ve heard you speak of the kingdom of God, whose subjects live with the Blessed One.  My heart is stirred.  So tell me please, how may I enter this kingdom?”

rich young ruler

The disciples, naturally suspicious of the rich, can’t help but feel their hearts warm to this guileless young man.  So they are relieved to hear a straight answer instead of a story.

“You know the commandments,” their teacher replies.  “Do not commit adultery, murder, theft, false witness?  Honor your father and mother?”

The young man is nodding.  ‘Yes. Yes.  All these I’ve kept all my life.”  And he’s not lying.  There he stands, his parents’ pride and joy–handsome, obedient, pious, everything a prince of Israel should be.  Commandment five: check.  Six: check.  Seven: ditto.  Eight: likewise.  Nine: absolutely.  Ten: what’s to covet?

“There’s one thing you lack,” the teacher says.  The young man leans forward.  Yes, this is exactly what he came for, to hear this one thing:

“Sell everything you have and distribute it among the poor.  This will be your deposit on the kingdom.  Then come and follow me.”

After the young man departs—and he didn’t argue, just mumbled something about thinking it over–the teacher stares after him for a long while.  What was he thinking? Mark tells us that “Jesus looked upon [the young man] and loved him,” even before answering his question.  Even before the young man turned away from him because he didn’t love enough.  All the commandments he had indeed kept from his youth.

Except the first one.

Meanwhile, the disciples had been discussing the matter among themselves, and have plenty of their own questions. That was a nice kid in spite of all his wealth.  So much more pliable than the usual entitled crowd.  Wouldn’t he have been an asset to the kingdom?  Shouldn’t he have been encouraged?  If you had asked him to follow you first, and then sell his possessions, he could have contributed at least some of his means to the enterprise, couldn’t he?

(Something else that bothers them—the teacher never tells any two people the same thing.  Sell everything, sell nothing, come follow, stay where you are, tell others about me, don’t tell anybody about me—what about consistency?)

He breaks into their arguments: “How hard it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom!”

What?  Why can’t a rich man be saved?  Isn’t wealth a sign of God’s blessing?  If the wealthy can’t get through the door, who can?

“What is impossible for man is possible for God.”

Peter catches on—or so he thinks.  “We did just what you told that man to do—we left everything and followed you?!  It wasn’t much, but–”

“Whatever you leave for the sake of the kingdom,” Jesus told him, “will be yours again many times over: house, family, possessions.  Your father is rich.”

He turns away and contemplates the road ahead of him.  “But you won’t always see it.”

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For the original post in this series, go here.

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What Kind of Father Is This?

And he said, “There was a man who had two sons . . .”  Luke 15:11

The evening thickens as the day’s yellow sun slides into the horizon and balances there for a long moment, its rounded edge slowly melting into the hills.  How many days have passed since this story was first told, how many ears have heard it since?  And how many lost sons, on the dusty road or snug at home, have come to themselves under its quiet steady gaze?  It’s been a long time, and many tellings, but let’s try to hear it as the first listeners might have.  If they have been with him a while, they know the slightly higher, quicker pitch of his voice as it slides in to one of his stories.  The disciples lean in, the villagers lean out, and the way each one hears reveals more about the person than he or she might care to show:

. . . The younger of them said to his father, “Father, give me a share of the estate I have coming to me.”

–What? You mean before the old man is even dead?  That’s bold.  Wonder if I would have the nerve to . . .

–Disgraceful!  What kind of son would make such a request?  The father ought to–

So he distributed the assets to them.

–?!?!?!?

–Shocking!  What kind of father would agree to such a request?  The other son ought to—

Not many days later, the younger son gathered together all he had, and traveled to a distant country, where he squandered his estate in foolish living.

–Of course he did.  Brainless twit.

–What would I do with a fortune?  Go someplace where no one knew me and . . . invest it?  Probably intend to.  But if there’s a party that night, and new friends to impress, and women . . .

–I know that type.  Fresh faces off the farm, burning to stuff a year’s worth of iniquity into a single night, and pretend they’re the first to conquer me . . .

–Hm.  If I got the other half of that inheritance, I’d put it in the bank and start looking for a nice piece of property.  But I know what’s going to happen to this fool . . .

After he had spent everything, a severe famine struck that country, and he had nothing.

–Right.

He went to work for one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his field to fed the pigs.

–Ew!  Filthy, disgusting creatures—and yet too good for him.

He longed to gobble up the dry pods the pigs were eating, but no one would give him even that.

–Ha.  Just what he deserves.

When he came to his senses, he said, “How many of my father’s hired hands have more than enough food, and here I am dying of hunger!  I’ll get up, go to my father and say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight.  I’m no longer worthy to be called your son.  Make me one of your hired hands.’”

–A nice little speech.  But it’s just words.

–What if I told my father something like that?  How would he take it, especially if I meant it?  Would I mean it?

–Poor silly boy.  But he’s hurt the old man deeply—slapped him in the face.  I don’t know if I could ever forgive that.

So he got up and went to his father.

–Oh yes, and it seems to me dear old Abba has some repenting to do as well.  The boy isn’t the only foolish one in this story . . .

But while the son was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion.  He ran—

–?!?!?!?!?

–threw his arms around his neck, and kissed him.

–What!  He ran, the old fool?!  The soft-headed, muddle-brained, sentimental—

–Filled with compassion.  Filled with compassion.  Compassion.  As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear him, for he knows their frame, that they are dust.  Compassion, compassion . . .

–Can it be?

–Wait.  What father is like this?

prodigal-son

The son said to him (between the kisses), “Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight.  I am no longer worthy to be called your–” 

“Quick!” his father called to the servants.  “Bring out the best robe and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his poor bleeding feet.  Then bring the fattened calf and slaughter it, and let’s celebrate with a feast, because this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!”  So they began to celebrate.

–Oh, I get it.  The father is the real fool.  Like father, like son; I see it now.  The old man will get his lesson too.  Maybe from the other son—we haven’t heard from him yet . . .

–Insanity!  So wrong!  The boy must pay, or justice flies right out the window!

–Too much, too much.  No father behaves this way.  If only mine would . . .

–I’m totally lost.

–I’m lost.  Yes, that’s me.  Can I be found?

Now, his older brother was in the field . . .

–Aha!  I knew he’d make an appearance.  Now we’ll hear some good sense.

. . . as he came near the house he heard music and dancing.  So he summoned one of the servants and asked what these things meant.  “Your brother is here,” he told him, “and your father has slaughtered the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.”

–Boiling.  I’m just boiling.  To come in from the field after working all day in the hot sun, to find everyone else has been putting together a party—to welcome my lazy, disrespectful, ungrateful, frivolous—

Then he became angry and didn’t want to go in.

–Quite right, too.  Anyone would be.  Now we’ll see justice done.

So his father came out and pleaded with him.

–Seems to me this dotty old man should apologize to him.

–But . . . it’s the father’s house and property, after all.  Can’t he do wait he wants with his own stuff?  Does the brother really have a right to be angry?  He sounds a little like Cain.  Only, of course, his little brother is no Abel . . .

–Pleaded with him.  Pleaded with him.  What father is like this?

But he replied to his father, “Look, old man–”

–Ooh.  Not very respectful is he?  Well, chalk it up to righteous anger.

“I have been slaving for you all these years, and I have never disobeyed your orders . . .

–Exactly. Obedient.  Blameless.

–Orders?  It’s a family, not a military camp.

. . . yet you never gave me so much as a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends.

–Did he ever ask?  I wonder.

–Wait a minute: is this envy?  You’re supposed to speaking up for righteousness, young scion.  It’s not all about you.

“But when this son of yours came . . .”

–Er, your brother too.  Part of the family and all.  I wonder if the good boy had a part in making the bad boy what he was?

“. . . who has devoured your assets with prostitutes . . .”

–Yes!  Drive it home!

“. . . you slaughtered the calf for him.”

–Your turn, old man.  Too proud to apologize?

“Son,” he said to him, “you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.”

–Oh.  Well, I guess that’s true.

“But we had to celebrate, because this brother of yours was dead, and is alive again.  He was lost and is found”

* * * * * * * * * * *

It’s almost dark now.  The Master’s voice falls silent.

–Is . . . is that all?

–How does it end?  Does the elder brother go in and enjoy the party?  Has the younger brother really learned his lesson?  What about the inheritance he spent—will there be anything left for him?

–Well, that’s . . . I must say, that’s the most unsatisfying story I ever heard.  Who won?  You’d almost think both brothers are equally lost.  But that can’t be.

The Pharisees and scribes are the first to take their leave, gathering their robes and tassels about them and nodding briefly to the teacher, who nods back.  Then the women round up their little ones, and the householders with livestock head for the fields to see that their sheep are safely folded.  Last of all, old Simon the sot and young Amos the fool and the good-time girls, Rachel and Joanna.  Before she goes, Rachel impulsively grabs the Master’s hand.

“Is there such a father?” she asks him.  “Would he take me—would he take someone back who had hurt him so badly?  My own father barely noticed if I came or went, until the day I left for good.  Is there a father who watches for me?  I need to know, because–”

The light pressure on her wrist stops her, reminds her she can’t make excuses.  “Ask him,” Jesus says.  “Use my name.”

She knows who he’s talking about, and is filled with an inexpressible hope.

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for the first post in this series, go here.

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What’s in It for Me?

Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.  Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.”  Luke 14:25-37

On the road again, and “great crowds” go along with him.  Where did they sleep?  What did they eat? Obviously he wasn’t multiplying loaves and fishes at every stop.  It must have been a shifting crowd, like a great amoeba breaking off parts of itself and growing new parts, as people join up for the excitement and drop out when they get thirsty or tired or not much appears to be happening.  There’s a rumor going around: he’s headed to Jerusalem.  I’ll bet that’s where it starts.  Going to be crowned there.  Going to call down fire on the Roman garrison and the stuck-up political-priestly class.

He doesn’t seem to be going anywhere directly, though.  If Jerusalem is the goal, why follow this zig-zaggy trail of one dusty insignificant village after another: west, then east, then northwest, and southwest . . . .  What’s up with that?  All it does is give more deadbeats and sinners an opportunity to join the parade.  But look, he’s stopping.  He’s speaking!  Let’s hurry and catch what he has to say.

Messiah’s face appears stern, but also sad, especially when his eyes dwell on individuals.  When they restnarrow-road on you, you can’t help but feel a little uncomfortable—well, a lot uncomfortable, as though he were peeling you like a grape and uncovering motivations hidden even to yourself.  Or like he is seeing into your future, and it isn’t pretty.  You reach him at mid-sentence:

“. . . only for a day?  Or a week?  Do any of you think you’ll follow to the end?  Let me ask, are you willing to give up your father and mother, son and daughter, wife or husband?  Are those who are dearest to you so distant in relation to me that you may as well hate them?

“In other words, what am I worth to you?

“You’d better not pledge to follow me until you know where I’m going.

“You’d better not promise me everything you have until you’ve heard everything ask.

“You’d better not build this tower or call up that army until you’ve counted the cost and calculated the risk.

“Because the building lot isn’t yours, neither the fight.  You don’t build on me, or recruit me—I build, I recruit.”

Are we still listening?  Because he’s still speaking.  And the one thing we must never, never ask him is, What’s in this for me?  The only question you should ask is,

Who is ‘me’?

For the first post in this series, go here.

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On the Road

He went on his way through towns and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem.  And someone said to him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” . . .   Luke 13:22-23a

He’s touring the towns and villages that the seventy disciples scouted out for him earlier.  It looks like a meandering path—now east, then west, veering north, turning south—but the destination is never far from his mind.  Everyone is going somewhere, whether they realize it or not; all those wrong turns and backups are ultimately headed in one direction.

the-road

A man falls in beside him as they walk along the road.  “Lord!  I have a question for you.  Are only a few on their way to salvation?”

There’s a whole context here.  Anyone who asks this question, in this way, probably considers himself among the in crowd, however exclusive it may be.  The Lord spares him barely a glance.  “Don’t worry about the number of the saved—just make sure you’re one of them.”

“But—“

“There’s a door, not wide.  And there’s a time, not long.  And there are those, not few, who think their place is assured, so they choose their own route and presume on my Father’s patience.  They will be shocked to find the door locked against them, after strangers and sinners have already gone in.  When they pound on the door and cry out, “Lord, don’t you remember us?  We ate and drank with you and sat at your feet.  We even walked beside you in the road.”  He sent a quick, sharp glance to the questioner, a look that peeled the pretentions from the man.  “And what will he say then?  ‘I don’t know you.  I never knew you.  Depart from me.’”

At that, Jesus stepped up his pace, leaving the man in the dust, bewildered and suddenly fearful.  But then Jesus stops and turns back, his face a little softer as though offering another chance.  “Remember this: some who are last in line now will be first then.  And some who are first will be last.”

Speaking of those who are first in line: a couple of miles down the road, on the outskirts of another town, a delegation of Pharisees and village elders meet him.  “Are you Jesus of Nazareth?  We have word that Herod is trying to kill you.  If you value your life you’d better not stop here.”

“Is that so?”  Jesus barely breaks his stride while brushing past them.  “I have a word for you.  If Herod asks, tell him I have business to attend to: evil to cast out and diseases to heal.  If he wants to kill me he can line up with the rest.  We can meet up in Jerusalem—everyone knows that’s the only place to kill a prophet!”

As he moves on, the Pharisees are stunned silent (as usual) and the disciples exchange uneasy glances.  There he goes with Jerusalem again; what’s up with that?

At the top of a rise offering a clear view for miles around, he suddenly stops and turns toward the southeast, his face full of sadness.

“Jerusalem . . . my city!  How many of my prophets have you slaughtered like lambs?  How many times have you stopped up your ears?  My arms ache with longing to pull you and your children toward me, but you were not willing—you dig in your heels and fold your arms and refuse.  I see your ruined temple, like an abandoned watchtower in a vineyard.  But you don’t see me.  And you won’t, until the day you cry “Hosanna!” in the streets, and “Blessed it he who comes in the name of the Lord!”

There’s a glimmer on his face—would it be a tear track?  Those closest to him are distracted by that; it’s only when he turns back to the road that they are struck with what he said.  My city?  My prophets?  He talks like he owns the place.  Even more: as if he always owned it . . .

For the original post in this series, go here.

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News of the Day

There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose Blood Pilate hand mingled with their sacrifices.  Luke 13:1

Perhaps they are trying to justify themselves by pointing to someone worse.  “Jesus, did you hear what Pilate did in Jerusalem?  There were these people—from right here in Galilee—there for the feast, and he ordered . . . and he killed . . and the blood flowing down the alter was their own!”  The story may have lost some accuracy and picked up some lurid details on its way up from Judea, but it’s essentially true.

An outrage! Think some of the listeners—mostly the younger ones, like Simon the Zealot, whose lives are a parade of injustices that cry out to be made right.  All too typical, think the older ones, who have seen tyrants come and go.  The only interesting question is, how were those people unlucky enough to put themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time?  What did they do to deserve that?  (It’s not a rhetorical question.)

Jesus breaks into their thoughts.  “’What did they do?’ That’s not the question.  The question is, rather, what about you?  Were those Galileans singled out for punishment because their wickedness was greater than yours?  Not at all, but calamity could fall on you at any time, just like that tower in Siloam that collapsed and killed eighteen people.  Don’t sit around observing this group or that and evaluating their righteousness: you’re not the judge.

“Just the opposite, in fact: you’re in the dock—just like those Galileans and the people rushed by the tower.  It doesn’t matter if your end comes by an unjust act or a freak accident, or if you take to your own bed and never rise out of it—your day will come.  The time to repent is now, before you face a judge much greater than Pilate.”

Ironically—perhaps—he knows he will face Pilate.  And that time is not far off.  His inner circle recognize that distant, brooding look that steals over his face—happens a lot lately—followed by the light, quick beat of his storytelling voice:

“A certain man had a fig tree . . .”fig-tree

A breeze stirs the leaves of the fig tree behind him, as his audience leans in.  No longer a “crowd,” but a diverse group of women, stragglers, professional men, scribes.  These days, there are always a few scribes leaning in, listening closely, ready to lap up incriminating statements.

“He planted this tree himself, right in the middle of his vineyard, and took special care of it.  He expected not just a beautiful tree, or a shady tree, but a fruitful tree.  Wouldn’t you?”

He directed the question to one of the scribes, who nodded uncomfortably.

“But after the tree had matured—nothing.  Sometimes it blossomed, but never bore.  One year, two years, four, six—all it did was stand proudly in the middle of the vineyard, as though just being there justified its existence.

“’Look here,’ the owner said to his overseer. ‘This tree should have been pumping out figs for the last three years, but I’ve never found a thing.  Why should it be taking up valuable space in my vineyard?  Cut it down!’

“’Sir,’ answered the overseer, ‘give it one more year.  I’ll aerate the soil and add some fertilizer.  If nothing happens then, I’ll cut it down myself.’”

The end.

Many of the listeners probably found this rather abrupt.  So . . . what happened after that?  Did the tree stay, or go?  Did the extra TLC make a difference, or not?

But the scribes and teachers of the law got it.  The vineyard tipped them off: why plant a fig tree in a vineyard unless it’s supposed to represent God’s garden, God’s people—Isaiah’s metaphor.  They knew the Song of the vineyard and the owner’s disappointment: He expected it to yield good grapes but it yielded worthless grapes (Is. 5:2).  What more could I have done for my vineyard than I did? (vs. 4)  Only one more thing could be done: Send a mediator who’ll say, “Let me try.  One more year.  One last chance.  Are you listening, you leaders of my people?”

Unless you repent, you will all (small and great, wise and ignorant) perish.

For the original post in this series, go here.

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The Fire Bringer

I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled!  I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished!  Luke 12:49-50

The sun slips; a wedge of light remains above the horizon, and the western sky blazes.  It seems to affect his mood; he steps away from the little flock and confronts the sky.  His face reflects its fervent heat, reminding John (perhaps) of that everlasting moment on the mountain when he seemed transformed into someone else.  (Sometimes John talks it over with his brother James, or ponders it in the night: Did they really see that?  And what did it mean?)

“I’m the fire-bringer!” the Master calls out suddenly.  “Fire is my anointing, my punishment, and my baptism, and every breath takes me closer.  How I burn for it to be over!”

sunset

The people, who were beginning to disperse and drift away, freeze in their tracks as the disciples glance uneasily at each other.  His family, remember, thought he was mad.  Could it be they were on to something?

He strides back and forth on the low ridge that separates his band from the crowd.  “Do you suppose I’ve come to bring peace, as Isaiah says—the Prince of Peace?  Well, not so fast!  First there will be division, even within the same household: son against father, daughter against mother; step-children, in-laws, even husbands and wives.  I was sent to come between: between you and God, surely, but also between you and you! And you and you!”  He points to individuals in the crowd, who jerk back as though stunned.

“Don’t you see the signs?  A cloud in the west brings rain, correct?  A south wind brings a scorcher.  You can anticipate the weather—what about the coming judgment?  It’s right here, standing before you!  Do you have an adversary you mean to take to court?  You, there–”  He seeks out the man who had asked about his inheritance.  “Are you going to drag your brother before the judge?”

The poor man seems transfixed, poleaxed.  He finally manages a timid shrug.

“How do you suppose that will end?” Jesus demands.  “What if the judge sees through your false piety and brings up all those times you rebelled against your father and neglected your widowed mother?  What if he mentions your missing prayer shawl or the Passover feast that cost considerably less than the money you were given to buy it?”  A look of terror comes over the hapless victim’s face, but still can’t seem to move.  Jesus’s tone of voice drops with the light.  “Not as righteous as you think, are you?  My advice: settle with your brother.  Don’t risk the judge.  Do it now.”

As though suddenly unchained, the man starts upright, turns and pushes through the crowd.  Jesus watches him go, then waves a dismissing hand toward the people who remain.  “Don’t bask in your superiority, sons of Israel.  Judge for yourselves what is right.”

Because there will be a judgment.

For the original post in this series, go here.

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