Sorting out the Desires: Luke 13:31-35 II

Second, Herod is called a "fox" by Jesus here. We normally associate cunning with foxes, but that doesn't seem to be what Jesus is saying. Herod's action to date in the Gospel is one of powerful interruption in people's lives--he imprisoned and beheaded John the Baptist. Joel Green has suggested that the image of "fox" here is meant to suggest a sort of outsider, one that wanders through uninhabited places and is sort of a false terror to people. Certainly a fox can eat the crops and occasionallly hurt the unwary, but the fox is basically an outcast, an outsider, one who never can challenge the societal structures or powers. If this is true, then Jesus' calling Herod a fox would mean that he is only playing at being a king--that he really doesn't have the power which he thinks he does. Indeed, when Jesus goes on to say that he will move on his own timetable (today and tomorrow he casts out demons and on the third day he finishes his work), it is almost as if he is discounting the power of Herod to affect his life. "Herod as fox," then, is a good image for a seemingly dangerous but really over-rated human force.

Finally, in this section, is the use of what one might call teleologial terminology. Sorry to lapse into Aristotelian language, but the two Greek verbs Jesus uses in v. 32 both have the "telo" root. He says that he casts out demons and "completes" or "finishes" healings. That is an odd phrase, but it emphasizes what is on Jesus' mind as he performs his mission is the goal of it all--the ultimate rendezvous with destiny in Jerusalem. He doesn't just "perform" miracles or "do" healings; he "brings them to completion." Then, the rest of the verse reads, "and on the third day I "finish." The verb here is "telo" (the first verb was "apotelo"), and means about the same thing as "telo." Each day, then, he is accomplishing his mission, finishing the task that God has laid out for him. Jesus really is occupied/preoccupied with his mission; perhaps it is only the threat of intervention of the secular powers that brings to his full consciousness (and lips) how every move of his is "end-directed." Jesus would not have had much sympathy, I am afraid, with Walt Whitman's poetry ("I loaf and invite my soul"); rather, he was a person, at this point of his ministry, driven by the telos.

And that telos was to be killed in Jerusalem. That thought then leads us to the second part of the passage.

II. Lamenting Over Jerusalem (vv. 34-35)

It is impossible for the religious imagination not to be fired by the concept and the reality of Jerusalem. The Psalmist could write,

"If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither. Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy" (Ps. 137:5-6).

Now Jesus, who already has set his face toward Jerusalem, laments over the city. Indeed, the lament is intensified because of the dual themes of these two verses. On the one hand, Jerusalem is the city which kills the prophets and stones those sent to her. But, on the other hand, Jesus says that Jerusalem will not see him until it says, "blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord." Jerusalem will be divided, just like the word of Jesus divides the crowds and even divides the hearts of people to our own day.

Two points are important to note. First, Jesus laments over Jerusalem because it kills prophets and stones those sent to her. This language echoes Lk 11:49:

"Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, 'I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute'....

Stoning was a popular method of execution in the OT, and was used for one who had blasphemed and against apostates. For example, we have this from Lev. 24:

"Take the blasphemer outside the camp; and let all who were within hearing lay their hands on his head, and let the whole congregation stone him...One who blasphemes the name of the Lord shall be put to death; the whole congregation shall stone the blasphemer" (vv. 14, 16).

Inded, it was language like this that led to "anti-blaspheming" statutes in colonial America, the last of which wasn't wiped off the books until the mid-19th century. There is always a tension in the history of religions and in biblical faith, that the prophet, the one who speaks the challenging Word of God to a situation, both speaks the truth and suffers for it. We know this to be the truth but in every age we treat the prophetic figures the same way. A friend of mine, who sues big institutions in our culture (Boy Scouts, Catholic Church--oops, etc.) said that when you sue a big institution like this you first can expect no response, then absolute ridicule, then indignant response, then attempt to settle, then adoption of your principles as if they were always the principles of the organization you have sued. I think he has given us a fine insight into the way that people who challenge the status quo are treated by us. We don't want them, even if we don't ritually stone them today as they did 3000 years ago.

Second, Jesus uses an image in v. 34, about gathering that is beatifully biblical. How often, he says, would I have gathered (and the Greek word for gathering is episynago--you can see the word "synagogue" in it; it is a word frequently used for gathering in a restored people) your young like the hen gathering her brood under her wings. Don't you hear the following echoes in these words:

"As an eagle stirs up its nest, and hovers over its young; as it spreads it wings, takes them up, and bears them aloft on its pinions, the Lord alone guided him..." (Deut. 32:11-12)

"he will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge" (Ps. 91:4)

"Like birds hovering overhead, so the Lord of hosts will protect Jerusalem; he will protect and deliver it, he will spare and rescue it" (Is. 31:5).

The last Scripture takes on added interest when we realize that in Luke 13 Jesus is talking about a Jerusalem that will face judgment for what it has done to its prophets.

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