Are we a member of the Vulpes Family?

Ok let’s hear it for the bad guys in town: not the Vulpes family but the Pharisees! What do you mean, they were ok? Well yes, they did invite Jesus to meals and eat elbow to elbow with him: do you remember when that women broke that jar of perfume all over Jesus’ feet; and when they protested that Jesus wasn’t following the proper protocol of enter-wash-eat; and when Jesus restored a man to health on the Sabbath.

They kept inviting Jesus into their own homes to eat – they must have seen something special about this man Jesus.

Pharisees

In our passage, Luke 13: 31-35, there is quite a lot about Pharisees. Pharisees were the popular party of the middle class. They would seek high standards of purity especially with regard to the Sabbath, and precise following of the feast days; but they were also victims of persecution by the Romans. They opposed Pilate on one occasion when Pilate suggested that they should worship an icon of the Empire. The Pharisees were marched to the hippodrome, and bared their necks, inviting the soldiers to behead them…

Jesus might not have liked the way that they operated, controlled others, but he didn’t ‘block’ them, he engaged with them in conversation, over bread and some ribs or perhaps fish. And in Acts 15:5 we have a Pharisee who is a member of the Church, the Way. Perhaps they aren’t the bad guys after all?

Here, the Pharisees have come to Jesus to warn him about Herod, for he wants to kill Jesus.  Jesus speaks honestly and calls Herod a fox. That’s either a reddy brown destructive pest of the Vulpes family, or clever and cunning : you take your pick.

Now Herod has already been involved in this story, for he has already murdered John the Baptist following #Partygate at the Palace – ooh that fox, or member of the Vulpes family. Interestingly although Stephen was killed on the verges of Jerusalem, John the Baptist certainly wasn’t – so not all prophets die within Jerusalem (Luke 13:34). Jesus is adamant that he must continue. He mustn’t stop healing people and driving out falsehoods, and he must go onto Jerusalem.

Why Jerusalem?

Jerusalem has been, is, and will continue to be a central feature of many faiths. I wonder if you have been to Jerusalem, wondered along the streets, taken in the odours from the bazaars and shops, and felt the tension in the place. Recently part of the wall which separates Israel and Palestine came tumbling down due to inclement weather. The wall is a constant sign of the evident tension in that city. The Al-Aqsa Mosque, which sits adjacent to the western Wall of the Temple, highlights the proximity of each faith to each other, and that tension.  Jesus is looking to arrive into this city centuries before the Islamic faith emerges, but when other faiths are also prominent within this city. Paganism is rampant. Jesus longs to gather people together, not for war, but in kin_ship, as a family. He speaks of ‘chicks under the wing’ which to us today might allude to Easter. Something also that his phrase about 3 days also points towards. 

For Luke, Jerusalem is the beginning of it all. It all starts here and then the Way, the new church movement, will go to Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the Earth, including Glasgow. This passage isn’t about condemnation of the people of Jerusalem – far from it. Within Lent we may hear comments about Jews versus Christians, but Jesus was a Jew, and is longing for everyone to be as one. 

Takeaway

We may not live in Jerusalem. Life isn’t always a bowl of cherries. It can be very hard at times. Our passage today speak of being real with others, and engaging. To do that we need to be in dialogue: with God and with others. First and foremost, perhaps, this is saying that we need to take time with God, pause. It doesn’t always mean sitting down or kneeling: but we could talk with God on our walk, on our commute – wherever. What does this really mean to me God? How do you want me to be part of your solution to all this?