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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?

Luke 13:22-30

     Jesus is again traveling.
     The gospel stories are not biographical in any way that we would recognize. It is difficult if not possible to construct a historical timeline for the life and ministry for the most famous man in history. Gospel means “good news” and that is what the gospels intend to proclaim, rather than biography. What we do catch glimpses of in the gospels, is of what seemed to have been a ministry lasting approximately three years. Jesus traveled a great deal, including into Samaria and sometimes back to his home territory. It seems likely that many of his parables and other teachings were repeated on frequent occasions. Sometimes, he may have varied his words or stories to fit a particular situation or audience or question.
     As Jesus traveled, he became known. Word spread about what he did as well as about what he taught. On this occasion, someone may have heard stories about his parables showing amazing growth of God’s kingdom. Or the question could have arisen on its own. We certainly raise the same question today. Will many or all be saved eventually? Or will there only be a few who will be saved?
    Some who ask the question of many or few are hoping that it will be few, and of course assuming that they know exactly who will be among the fortunate few. For some, there is an appeal in the idea of “heaven” (whatever you conceive it to be) as an exclusive country club. And there are people for whom exclusivity is exactly what makes it attractive...the idea that others have been excluded. It is easy then, to pat oneself on the back, feel superior, self-righteous, and judgmental.
     Others who ask the question of many or few in today’s world find it difficult to picture a loving God excluding anyone. The idea of being saved while others are lost is distasteful. So the hope is that salvation is universal, even if God has to work on some souls for centuries to get them aboard. (There is, in Timothy, an implication that this is the plan).
     Not surprisingly, Jesus’ answer is beautifully ambiguous. It is hard to know whether it is parable, or teaching and parable together. Some scholars believe that Luke could have collected a variety of teachings and combined them here in answer to a question that was asked both during the lifetime of Jesus, but also by the church in post-resurrection days. This could be possible (remembering that, again, the gospels were intended as vehicles of telling the good news rather than iolgraphy. But it is equally possible (in this writer’s opinion) that Jesus deliberately formed his anwer insuch a way. And, if the whole thing is a “parable, what is the point that arises out of it?
     He begins with responding to the question of whether it’s many or few by not answering it directly at all. He says instead to ‘strive to enter through the narrow door, for many will try to enter and not b able. But then the image shifts to a closed door with someone standing outside and knocking, asking the Lord to open. But they are told that they are not known. The knocker insists they are known, that they ate and drank with the Lord, yet they are still turned away as evildoers. The Israelite listener to this would then have been shocked to hear that Abraham and the prophets and “you yourselves” will be thrown out, yet people will come from east and west, from north and south to eat in the kingdom of God.
     Those who come from a distance, are they Jews who were dispersed throughout the known world? Or is Luke referring to Gentiles? There is no question that Luke was interested in telling about the inclusion of the Gentiles and could well have been referring to them. Or he could have been referring to the question of whether only the locally orthodox would be deemed acceptable rather than the greater number of Jewish people who were liberal in their theology and lifestyle. Either way, however, it becomes a parable about surprises. Those who pat themselves on the back and were sure of their inclusion (and enjoying the exclusion of others), find the way barred.
     This is undeniably reminiscent of the parable of knocking at the door of the neighbor in the middle of the night, wherein persistence is proclaimed to be effective.
      The final statement here is that wonderfully ambiguous statement that some who are first will be last and others who are last will be first. This is, again, a statement of surprise and reversal, yet it still leaves open the question of numbers. Will those put at the last eventually be included? Are they simply required to wait, learn some humility, keep knocking, and try?
      If the entire response if in a sense, a "parable” then what is the point? Is it to puncture the pretensions? Jesus was certainly no stranger to that effort, for he contented often with self-rightousness and judgmental attitudes. Jesus could have been teaching persistence, no matter what. He could have been doing both, double meanings and layers of meaning being popular in that time.
      In the end, modern response to Jesus’ words will depend, as it surely did in those days, whether exclusivity is valued or desired. It could, however, be also taken as a reminder that none of it is under the decision of humans. This is God’s domain and human assumptions, demands or biases will not hold. Jesus could have been suggesting people work as hard as they could, as though it is entirely up to them, but know that in the end it is God who will let people in, dependent upon divine grace.

What is your response to Jesus words?
Who would you assume to be among those acceptable and included?
What are the dangers of such assumptions?

Luke 13:20

      The parable of the leaven may also have had unexpected impact (as did the mustard seed story - last week). It is in many ways a parallel with that of the mustard seed. A woman takes leaven (yeast in many translations) and mixes or hides in a large quantity of flour until all of it was leavened.
     Leavening of the modern type (baking powder or soda) was unknown. Nor did the baker of first century Israel have pure yeast such as the modern cook uses from the store. Yeast or leaven was a piece of old, fermented dough added to a fresh lump of dough to start the leavening process in it. (Frontier cooks often used a similar process, sometimes called sourdough. Laura Ingalls Wilder described her mother putting the scraps of dough into a jar of water to be added to the next batch of biscuit or bread makings.)
     Yet, in the first century, leavening was not always a positive image. Paul twice spoke of a little yeast leavening the dough (Col 5:9; 1 Cor 5-7). But he was warning against what may have appeared to be a little something that was wrong growing amidst the Christians. Leavening, also, was to be completely removed from the home during Passover, in remembrance of the time that the Israelites had to leaven Egypt before their bread was leavened (and it baked hard in the sun, unleavened, unrisen.) Natural leavening begins almost immediately, whether or not something else is added. Natural organisms get wet and that begins the process. For unleavened bread to be “kosher” it must be baked less than twenty minutes after moisture has been added to the flour.
     But Jesus here is not referring to yeast as a negative influence corrupting the whole. It is a parable of God’s kingdom.
      Although modern translations often say mixed instead of hidden, scholars made much of the fact that the woman may have “hidden” the leaven. Three measures of flour would have been a huge amount, enough to feed 150 people. If she hid it, she unintentionally ended up with a considerable amount of bread dough. There was likely some humor intended here. The humor is also apparent in the fact that the growth of the kingdom is portrayed as powerful and unstoppable. Small beginnings can eventually change the character of the whole. After all, who’d have believed that a small number of socially, economically and intellectually unimportant men and women, following a crucified leader, would help change the world?
     Finally, it is impossible not to note the fact that Jesus is using an image from a woman's point of view.  He did the same with the parable of the lost sheep - and the woman searching for a lost coin.  We can only imagine, but do imagine the impact upon his female listeners who were probably accustomed to having their world, their value and their presence be devalued.  What did this say to them?

What is the character of hope in this parable?
What image in today’s world might have some of the same meaning?
What new and powerful movement can be discerned today?

Will post tomorrow!

Sorry - today's post will probably be done tomorrow.  Have been out of town a good part of the week and need some hours to get things together.  Take care and blessings!