Luke 13:31-35

     Some Pharisees come to Jesus and warn him that Herod wants to kill him. The mention of the Pharisees is interesting. Scholars sometimes argue whether Luke presents a more positive picture of the Pharisees than the other gospels, although there are arguments against it as well.
     “The Pharisees” are generally lumped together as a group and their portrait is frequently negative. As a consequence, Christians have used the term, Pharisee, to refer to people who are hypocritical, falsely spiritual, and unawakened to truth. A more balanced Christian scholarship will recognize that the Pharisees were likely the ones who were responsible for holding the Jewish faith together after the complete loss of Israel. Much of the good teachings passed down in Judaism will have come from them. Indeed, there are some scholars who suggest that Jesus himself might have been a Pharisee and that this accounts for their particular ire toward him. That is...one who publically calls his own fraternity to account for its shortcomings tends to be disliked more than those who do some the outside.
     Logic says that no group could have been entirely against Jesus. There were Pharisees known to be interested, attracted and positive toward him. But Christians have, unfortunately, grouped them together as one, just as Christians sadly did the same for the Jewish people.
      What we know in this case is that some Pharisees warned Jesus of danger. We don’t know their motives, but there is no reason to believe they were negative. Jesus’ response is to the threat itself. Herod’s enmity is not surprising. Jesus calls Herod a fox and indicates he will continue his ministry, adding that a prophet cannot die outside of Jerusalem.
     Jesus had a clear understanding that his work was raising opposition; he understood human nature, and he understood the climate of the violent age in which he lived. It didn’t take a genius to know that if he didn’t back down, he was likely to die, and he must have known it was most likely to happen in Jerusalem, where the power base was, and where he would most openly challenge it.
     Jesus’ words about Jerusalem shows both a frustration and a sorrow over a city that had a history of making mistakes. Prophets had also challenged the wealthy and religiously important people of Jerusalem, and had sometimes suffered for it. Yet Jesus loves this city of his people and uses images also found in the Old Testament, that of gathering the city about him in the same way as a mother hen would gather her chicks close to her.
     The last statement is full of irony according to one scholar, but one may wonder if there is also layers of meaning here. Jesus says that they will not see him again until they say, ‘Blessed Is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” Those are words used as part of the processional hymn sung by pilgrims as they enter the city of Jerusalem. One scholar says this prefigures the end times (the end of the world and the final return of Jesus). Yet many disciples and sympathetic onlookers chanted these words (Palm Sunday) as Jesus entered Jerusalem the last week of his life. The question might be raised whether it is really “seeing is believing” or does believing provide sight to the individual?
      The temptation of this passage seems to be the temptation of using it to enhance the suggestion of rejection of the Jewish people based on their failure to accept Jesus. This can be part of anti-Judaism. It also denies us the opportunity to see what wisdom is available to us.
     Christians have also spend considerable effort to reject or ignore not only the prophets, but the parts of Christ’s message that do not fit what we want. Jerusalem can be a symbolic intersection for us as well as those who lived in Jesus’ day.

Where have we resisted being gathered?
Where have we faltered and could have been counted amongst the foxes?
Where have we asked to see in order to believe?
Where have we believed, and thereby had our eyes opened to perceive truth?